the next case on the calendar is jones v target corporation employees at target corporation one a lower level manager and one a senior level manager to monte white was the lower level manager he begins by harassing ms jones ms jones complains to her upper level management manager mr bigley adi mr white begins retaliating against her with disproportionate assignment of work and with other hostility based upon her gender and the fact that she made  a complaint against him mr regally adi doesn't take her complaint seriously he does short shrift investigations ms jones complains of his failure to act he discharges her several days later in determining whether there is a case that should go to a jury on retaliation and or hostile working  opposite that the timing of the call was after this video we're going the marijuana issue had surfaced she made several complaints prior to the marijuana many many months i think a dozen separate counseling sessions right over time she had been canceled for her firing not just mr white by this pride by numerous people right but that had enough absolutely nothing to do with the reason discharge her they know that's what i'm suggesting that when you see if you can play multiple times the real basis for the tell you i thought issue that you're claiming was this last call to the integrity hotline no that's certainly one of them and probably the key one with respect to that one my question to you is not assume that that would be the critical issue didn't occur after they'd already raised the issue of the video with respect to the maulana issue i believe it happened after the incident that that they're claiming that she job to marijuana as far as the tape is concerned she never saw it so i don't think she has any basis for knowing which came st but the record shows that they made the they in terms of after this marijuana incident yes i believe that mr bigley adi now claims that he made the decision with like a four hour period of time and eventually his story ends up being before she called the hotline but then there's countervailing evidence in the record from a in an employment hearing at which mr bigley oddie testified and at which he testified that it was a day or two later that he made the decision that he was going to determine to terminate her and if it was the two days later it was definitely after she had made the complaint to the integrity hotline and i think really you have to look at the again i'm going back to the tally of the circumstances in this case really to understand that miss jones was hired in two thousand and seven by target she when she worked for five years without any problems without any complaints at the record reveals in two thousand and twelve after returning from a medical leave of absence she has a new supervisor mr white mr white assigns for to work in a separate section of the store from the rest of her team members whispers to her in ways that make her feel uncomfortable he uses a boom box in the workplace to play music with vulgar sexist a massage and it's lyrics that are highly offensive to mr jones some of which include references to oral sex and women's panties on the ground and again where in the workplace here white tells miss jones to dance for him miss jones rebuffed him saying no i'm to work i'm not here to dance for for you mr white threatens her that is going to run our out of target white brags about how many baby mothers he had for about a dozen children how women fight over him and other team members brag about their sexual exploits in front of ms john i ask you your brief makes a point about testimony at the unemployment insurance  hearing about a discrepancy about whether he showed the video to your client i didn't understand the significance of that the significance of that is where you get to the  pretext what evidence do we have a pretext ok though the video where she supposedly drops the marijuana wasn't shown to her the suppose it marijuana was never shown to her the suppose it marijuana was thrown out the defendant has the obligation to offer some truth proof that yes what we reasonably relied on was this text in the argument that marijuana was not real or so just getting back to the circumstances so summer of two thousand and twelve ms jones makes her st complaint to live in glee ogg audio about white's conduct and his comments response and he doesn't think why does after job but doesn't investigator take action instead he tells her that she can't bring up any new complaints later two thousand and thirteen white begins assigning joan's disproportionately difficult task relative to others holding the same position as she did jones continues to complain to vividly oddie about whites conduct she offers very specific instances where she believes that she was assign disproportionately more difficult tasks vaguely oddie does nothing other than confirm that those tasks are in their job description doesn't ask any of the other managers is white giving her more than other employees doesn't ask any of the other employees you know does she handle more this work than other people do there were many specific things that he just didn't follow up on in connection with his investigations ms jones also complains of agliotti about physical touching by mr white he can't find it on the surveillance video she said well it must have been another date and this is characterized now that she withdrew that complaint she complaint civically adi again about offensive conduct by white again his investigation is limited to ask and white what the what the situ what happened in the situation january of two thousand and fourteen just two months later no disproportionately having a unless choice work and white laughs at her saying oh you can't work here anymore which she then reports to the hotline on january th two thousand and fourteen that hotline complaint also complains of mr  adi's failure to address her prior complaints the very next day miss jones is accused of having dropped a bag of marijuana in front of her locker bag is not photographed cannot be identified as containing marijuana from the surve target had a legitimate business reason for terminating miss jones for violating its it's drug free workplace policy which she acknowledged and signed on december of two thousand and seven claim has always been about that she was terminated because she made those complaints as your honor may point those two complaints were her february th two thousand and thirteen complaint that came one year before her terminations the other complaint was her nov st two thousand and thirteen complaint that came months before  terminations both of which were too remote in order to establish causal connection which is your court found the other complaint was the hotline complaint and that complaint came hours after she had already been confronted about dropping the did not know about that hotline complaint until after the fact and regardless it doesn't you know but it doesn't matter because it doesn't take away from the fact that target had a legitimate reason for terminating her she's the reason she says i didn't have correct she didn't admit that she dropped the marijuana but target conducted an independent investigation and the investigation revealed that she dropped the marijuana st of all the marijuana was discovered by should take a pride but the jury but there is no evidence whatsoever in the record that the decision that target came to was based on pretext she cannot prove it was based on pretext period she dropped the marijuana i mean whether or not she says  weeks who did it their own independent investigation it's not like mr vigilante just somehow rubber stamped what mr white said mr white didn't even find the marijuana he didn't even attribute it to mr jones but you know regardless regardless of that there just is no evidence of pretext here there was an investigation that was done whether she wants to say well i didn't drop marijuana they didn't test it target is under no obligation whatsoever to run tests to determine whether or not something contain marijuana the only onus that's on target is to make sure that the reason that they terminate her was for a legitimate business reason and that it was not based on pretext there is no evidence whatsoever in the record here that targets decision was based on the pretext and there's also the hostile work environment claim here which counsel addressed you know we addressed the issue in our brief we think it's important to note with respect to that claim that she did not preserve it for appeal and so it's not properly before this court that hostile work environment claim mr jones is counsel has said that the court has considered all of of that complaint although we don't agree that the court should consider it because like i said it wasn't preserved for appeal we do think the district court's decision is sound on that point the court did consider all of those things such as moving heavy boxes and the music and and the team members dancing both men and women considered all those things and found that they were too remote and they did not have any effect whatsoever on the terms and conditions of her employment i think you your hon