case to trial on all retaliation claims including the permanent position denials after reading the lower court's opinion i believe this will see that there has been a gross miscarriage of justice related to the facts and law of this case the lower court took the material disputed facts of the case relating to the termination lower court the lower court sided to b r s evidence sixty times compared to siding to miss williams evidence she submitted which was i believe fifty exhibits cited two are facts times in the factual and background statement the opinion is not will analyzed in all respects including determination claim and it left at least four claims unaddressed under the law and analysis portion of the opinion that's found in our away  and and indeed tailed address five adverse actions to be analyzed by the lower court b r f may argue that the claims for the vice president of special projects and executive director of surgical services was reference briefly in the factual statements in background and that this satisfies the court's duty to adjudicate these claims however f would have to ignore the summary judgment opinions that are routinely written and analyzed to include a statement of fact as neutral as possible in one section  law an analysis in the other and a conclusion it would also i just want to be sure i understand what happened but did the district court make domination  your client failed to make a prompt facia case on her claim of retaliation yes or the termination only so obviously you're going to tune into that was there that was fair and i will get to that point as well  addressing the reason why the lower court error in stating that there was no causal connection  the st error the lower court did not link the offer of temporary the offer of the temporary position with determination as an aside is undisputed that miss williams was denied t permanent positions before being even offered this temporary position that is the executive director of surgical services and the vice president of projects special projects which became the chief nursing officer position for those who are offered to other individuals or they were permanent positions as a pole so the temporary position offered only to miss williams let's look at the time frame because i believe it's very important that the court look at the sequence of events in assessing the connection between the temporary position as the assistant hos administration over the clinics and the reason for termination we contend that they are one and the same the court the lower court however ignored this argument instead it changed b r s motion judgment to the opinion of the court many of the facts were highly disputed and would have affected the outcome of this case the causal connection is what the lower court focused on the lower court limited its analysis to the causal connection being only proven by close proximity  time to the protected activity and the adverse action and what the court did in that situation was it stated that they became aware of the adverse action in august of two thousand and thirteen and she was terminated in january two thousand and fourteen the court concluded that that four and a half month period was too long to expand as to cause a connection i will add that we not only proved our case in close proximity in time to the adverse action and the protected activity but we also listed on pages twelve dollars thirteen cents of this brief and it was also presented at the lower level of other conduct that was retaliatory in nature that would have connected the lawsuit that would have connected the adverse action or the protected activity w determination in january two thousand and fourteen the court record shows i'm refuting believe that miss williams was only offered the temporary position that  claimed was as early as august to august nd two thousand and thirteen if the court were called there is in email dated august nd two thousand and thirteen where miss austin is the decision maker at this time for the position the temporary position claimed that she had a conversation with miss williams about the position being temporary about the the  job description changing after twenty years to require a person to have experience as a federally qualified health care center of course m williams would not have that experience at the time and or some type of specialty model this is where they were moving this conversation never happened with let me make sure instead one of your complaints is that it was an adverse employment action when they when they determined that her position would be temporary or there's no one else was made to temporarily yes exactly no one else in the clinic was made to carry your have entire argument is we were  going to restructure the clinics and so we had to make her position temporary until the restructuring occurs and that's an adverse that's an adverse employment action and your view that was c time in which the court should have assessed when this occurred i don't believe four and a half months is a stretch to break the causal connection but i believe the court did not apply the correct time the time should have been did not they did not restructure the clinics they did not too are your your your conduct here talking about that shows a causal connection correct addition to just past just approximate and the adverse action so it all depends on the facts but what we have here is not only close proximity in time but we have a list of things on page twelve dollars thirteen cents of the brief that says that miss williams was repeatedly harassed after b r f took over the hospital on october st two thousand and thirteen she was excluded from meeting she was taken off the list  the court simply stated that there was too much time had passed and that all the other evidence the fifty exhibits that ms williams was speculation doesn't identify often who those decision makers are did this in whether they were the same decision makers who perhaps were the ones who took the action and what we're talking about and we were told the decision makers in this case were mr cascio mr lindsey all of them had a connection with with the exception of miss mr  with ms williams not receiving the permanent positions and receiving the temporary office now miss austin says she was removed from the situation  because she was gone by that time but i believe because her august nd e mail is directly inconsistent with miss williams testimony that cannot be considered  that they're making the decisions they were not there at the time ellis you lawsuit was going on they came at the very very and because of their knowledge they use that against her to retaliate in closing and i see submissions i could see where somebody might come away that there are a lot of things that ms williams is complaining about this case especially when you couple that with the fact that we arguably have up to seven challenge adverse employment actions that she is saying or evidence of her retaliation lawsuit here but something that we cannot lose sight of is the ultimate issue in this case the one where plaintiff bears the burden in that's the issue of causation because whether you're looking at this case the protected activity and then the challenged act i mean obviously you know and he found that they didn't present sufficient evidence even at the privatization case that's the only thing kind of trudeau right that that was the basis of the district court's opinion but as connection and the key is actually here where we have the decision makers coming from alvarez and marcel and outside consulting firm that were just come to come in to help transition this hospital from the public into the run by the state  to now be r f who was it effective october st of two thousand and thirteen was going to be managing the hospital going forward it's not the knowledge of the actual protect the lawsuit that was filed in two thousand or the charge or the lawsuit in two thousand and ten but it's the decision makers knowledge of that activity that's the critical element the critical issue in this case the reason why i say that is because when you look at the undisputed evidence in this case all but one of the alvarez and marcel decision makers testified that while they knew generally had awareness about the fact that ms williams had filed a lawsuit when point of bears the burden of showing that these decision makers were aware that the point of having gauged in some protected activity if that lawsuit had been a workers comp lawsuit or you've been a slip and fall or  maybe concerning someone paid wages that would not form the predicate basis for be able to have a retaliation claim under title seven because that's not the protected activity under title seven she has to show that the evidence is that they were aware not only that they a lawsuit but that they they knew the lawsuit was as for in this case race discrimination that's the protected activity and without that they had to know the lawsuit was for racism and they had to know that she was opposing their knowledge was did they know that she had filed a lawsuit for discrimination and when you go back and look at the record to start with kathleen no guard she was the decision maker with respect  record specifically page fifty one of miss notecards deposition testimony when she was asked by playing of counsel was she generally aware of the lawsuit yes did you know it was race discrimination now and again fall and then somebody wanted to retaliate and kathleen you know guard that's what her understanding of that lawsuit was and she decides the case this is the end the known what type of lawsuit it's the stanley vs rogers case as well as the strong forces university it's cited in the brief i think it's university health system and those two cases are also cited in the district court's opinion but again those cases stand for the proposition is not just knowing about the  review of summary judgment and if there's another basis to affirm that you were entitled to do that the airlines versus wal mart stores cases that thomas versus chase manhattan bank says that  e there for the finding she made a promise they should carry because again one there's no knowledge that all but one of these decision makers even knew that she engaged in any protected activity number two you know sandra austin is the only one who said when she was asked about the details did you have knowledge it was a race discrimination case and she said yes she was essentially the lead of this particular project and she is the decision maker with respect to the v p of special projects position as well as she was there and she was the one who decided to give mr williams the offer of temporary employment in her same position so when we look at those particular positions the v p of special projects position miss austin actually called that the v p of special projects nursing performance improvement in patient experience this is the one that jackie robinson blake  miss austin over the plaintiff for this particular position it is undisputed the miss austin said that this was going to be a newly created position affected october one which is when the b r f transition would take place and this was a focusing on cheating magnet status for the clinics or to the hospital and basically that magnet status means there's a certain set criteria that a hospital has to meet in order and it's based on the quality and strength of the nursing program to be able to get this and that's what she was creating this position for at the time jackie robinson blake actually was the scieno the chief nursing officer of that at the hospital that is one of the highest level positions at a hospital as part of the c suite she had been in that position since two thousand and twelve when she was still the hospital was under the umbrella and she had been this selected for that in the inter capacity this is the same position that mrs williams had been trying to get going back to one thousand nine hundred and five and that's actually what precipitated her lawsuit is when a white female was given that chief nursing officer position in two thousand that's what precipitated her to file that race discrimination charge with the e e o c and which ultimately led to the lawsuit miss austin believed after interviewing both the plaintiff and jackie robinson played that she believed that jackie robinson was better suited for that particular position especially given she is the chief nursing officer for the at least the last year she's in a supervising over five hundred and fifty nursing staff they both had master's in nursing administration but again you know going back to the ninety's missed the point if had not worked she was works only in the clinics and ms robinson was the chief nervous you know officer over the talk about stanley versus rogers i'm trying to look at the good part evidence does the point of have in this case to suggest that there's any causal connection between miss austin's decision as to that and her prior protected activity you've got again with respect to all but the decisions that miss austin made none of the other decision makers knew that mr williams had actually engaged in opposition activity under title seven so that's one basis the  is that there's obviously you could go past the problem of facial stage b r s clearly presented a legitimate reasons for each of the seven challenges decisions as act and then that means that the burden of causation now of them and then a causal connection not but for a causal connection exists between that protected activity and the adverse employment action but that rd element is not just the causal connection between the fact that she engaged in protect activity it's the employer's knowledge of that protect i just read it verbatim from one of our cases a cause or connection exists between that protected activity and the adverse employment action i believe like the medina versus ramsey case which is something that the plaintiff cited and her briefs as well as in her opposition to the summary judgment that talks about it being the employer's knowledge i do believe that some of the cases out there sometimes glance over the facts specially when the person who is accused of being the one who did the retaliation is also the same person who is accused of doing this is a scam and a sham in the st place you can't you can't disagree that the causal link this case should not survive summary judgment if she can if there is no evidence in the record that there is a causal connection between the decision makers knowledge of the protected activity in the challenged adverse activity because without that her whole case well i had enough to stand the case and i just don't see what to say so you got the you got the quote from their case they say it stands for the proposition that they would have to know the specific nature of the claim involving the protected activity which in this case was the founding of the law so i don't believe it says and i think it says the employer's knowledge all right that that's the language that i'm certain that what i cited those cases they're saying that the rd element of the primal facia case is a causal connection between the employer's knowledge of the protected activity in the adverse activity so we don't believe even if you go to the ultimate issue of causation with respect to really any of the positions she cannot establish in this court standard is she has to establish a conflict of substantial evidence that with respect to these challenges decisions that decision would not have been made that result would out of happened but for knowledge of that protected activity and again it's our position that she cannot do decision maker knew that she engaged in protected activity knowledge of a lawsuit was not adopted as to be knowledge that the lawsuit was for some activity that's for hidden under title seven without that she loses and i see that my time is almost up i think i've indicated my position i'll list the court as any other questions i don't have any devoid of any evidence that would support her or her from a face or case that she was discriminated against because of her previous protected activity that lawsuit and three of them had knowledge to my recollection had knowledge of the title seven discrimination claims their h r director mr lindsey who was directly involved in that actually won't miss williams out of the workplace without her being able to retrieve her things in front of everyone him alienating her actually said he knew about the case knew  what it was about believe miss williams was a troublemaker he specifically said that under oath in his deposition so the h r director is the person who you go through in order to determine any lawsuit me it's a necessary prerequisite to the fact that that is correct so we have refuted in our brief that the knowledge was discrimination maybe not the type of discrimination but it was protected activity i'm going to move on because there was a lot of discussion about the positions for v p of special projects clearly if miss austin who was the decision maker in that case if miss austin had knowledge of the lawsuit which she said she had knowledge of the title seven miles then there could be retaliation in not giving her that position because she was clearly more qualified than ms robinson ms robinson blake never served as c n o permanently she served in that interim capacity for approximately one or two years and she did not have the requisite educational requirement at the time there was a lawsuit pending for race discrimination and l a s u decided to put ms blake's in that position so it wouldn't look so bad she would be the  person to hold that position who did not have the required educational requirements that is because another case that settled miss keels who is actually a person that gave testimony in this case  regarding her claim of discrimination it is it can't be refuted reasonably that miss blake's head more i mean miss williams had more experience than this rams and even admitted it i didn't have as much experience to do the position she was more qualified than i was so if she can say that if she's the applicant then a reasonable jury could conclude the same if we go to the  p sorry the executive director of surgical services where ms mill dark claims she didn't know which is a credibility issue that can only be determined at trial as to whether she's telling the truth or not she knew about the lawsuit just didn't know what it was about anyone this intrigue someone found a lawsuit in that at that level what more to know what was it about so this is an issue of fact to be determined by the fact finder and a actually go to trial on all issues even though they were not decided are legally analyzed at the lower level because they've been addressed in the record in this quarters to review this novo so they can see in this directly to trial without having to reverse it and then we go through another series of summary judgments and on the other claims we request that you reverse the lower