there were three attempts to persuade mrs floyd to step down two of them occurred before any investigation had really started into the allegations that later  were supposed to be the reasons for her demotion the first one was on october twenty fourth two thousand and thirteen before any complaint was filed against miss for a second one was on the day after the investigation started the district court discounted the first one saying that it was reasonable to as floyd to step down at that time because of her condition but a jury could find that at that time mrs floyd had only been gone for two weeks  and there was no indication that she was not going to be able to do some job at the county so the decision to ask her to step down could be the commune inference that disability or disability was a reason for that request the district court also discounted the january twenty nine request for her to step down but noted that that was a request to step down the district court did not discuss it all the march the early march request from this flask is from this floyd to step down also in is this response was that we tried to i tried to talk to you about finding something else for you and you said that if i was if you were going to do this you're going to have to make it happen we believe that this is a subordinate bias case this will ask is had a bias against miss floyd that developed during her illness and she was involved in the decision representative we're going to meet on march third because mr porter who ultimately made the decision to demote wants to know what's going on here and where we go from here so there's no one listening we get to the legitimate nondiscriminatory reasons and there were signs case of parity what's your best evidence a pretext the best evidence a pretext is that the two of miss will ask is request for miss floyd to step down occurred before long before the the investigation is completed the first one before there was ever a complaint and the second one the day after they and started the investigation that's that's the best evidence and in addition to this last is indicated her concern about miss floyd's the fact that she was on f m leave and there were so many things to do she also they also moved her her her articles out of out of her office during her half a million leave there's not there's not a lot of direct information here where they say you know we've got to get her out of here because she's on a family leave these cases don't take a lot of of evidence at this stage because this court has found many times that you need a full record of full evidence and the judge needs to see  and the jury needs to see the witnesses and how they how they look during the trial but you do have the timing here this this demotion occurred three months after miss floyd went on leave and th floyd had at the time she had been had excellent reviews throughout her throughout her employment there she's been there since two thousand and five since had exceeds expectations ratings it's never had any discipline and and and  the timing itself is an issue in the first request to have her step down occurred two weeks after she went on after the leave and in the second one just a few months after she went out on a family leave in two weeks after she came back from a family leave so there's not a lot in terms of discussion but these things don't have to be this a lot of this happens behind closed doors yes there are some there's some legitimacy reasons but preferably cases do it only has to be a negative factor it doesn't have to be a motivating factor and for and for and  motivating factor does not have to be a significant motivating factor in the loo case all there was was circumstantial evidence  lower rating one thousand percent lower rating and the court found that that was that suggested an inference of discrimination and lose supervisor provided information to the person who was making that she was disabled and that she was a qualified individual the only question is whether or not this is a motivating factor was her disability again the timing of the request for mrs alaska is for her to step down indicate that it wasn't because of the investigation the investigation hadn't started yet in october when the first time she asked her to step down and the second request was just a day after the investigation started so her disability again with that means she had excellent evaluations he had never been in trouble and she moved from being this excellent employee to being asked to devote and she refused and she accused mrs alaska's of doing this and her response was i tried to get you to emote and you said if i was going to make it happen now or if it was going to happen i was going to have to make it happen and this is in response to her accusation that she is conspiring to demote her because of her leave based on her disability so that's that's i think where the argument your honor i would agree that she did review the notice of decision and i don't believe that she provided any edits that information that was contained within the record specific lee she was missed flight supervisor throughout the entire time that she's worked for maricopa county and in fact continues to this day to be your supervisor misplayed it was demoted when the department of public health and human resources division received complaints floyd subordinates that investigation did not begin as a result of anything that missed the last guest and it was generated by two different employees as ms flayed coming forward during the time of her department your honor if i may miss the last is there is an explanation provided by one of the complainants with regard to the timing of the events which is simply stated you can find the notes of the phone call that was made to the human resources division at the supplemental excerpts of record on page forty five and those notes summarized that mr is out who was one of the original complainants was scared to come forward indicated that numerous other employees were scared to come forward felt bullied by misplayed on numerous occasions and those were just some of the allegations of unprofessionalism that were brought forward that to the human resources division there's  previously and that she felt just alaska's had not been willing to do anything because ms alaska's and ms floyd were friends that's actually stated in those same notes from the from the telephone call so at that point she came forward to human resources  and brought her complaint alleging that ms floyd had been shaving time cards in violation of the f l essay had been unprofessional with her including kicking her under the table during meetings had violated county policy by referring to her other staff as bitches equally to the clients of the homeless clinic as bitches standing at the gate and those were the items that were investigated by ms stratton who was the human resources manager not by m there was only a limited amount of participation by ms velzquez during the course of the investigation specifically she was requested to provide information about the eligibility of services of ms floyd sr who had been receiving homeless clinic services that other clients of the clinic had not received she also provided limited information about a particular directive with regard to the clinic well essentially she served as the subject matter expert in that situation because she is in fact the division administrator with regard to the other items that you had mentioned your honor with respect to the clinic floors or the presence it's important to note that ms flask is does not work at the same work site at the actual clean it so during the time that she was serving as the interim director and while the excuse me the other individual ms about ten was serving as well in an acting capacity there they were able to observe additional things that had not been observed previously and not explained the coincidental timing so to the extent that the argument is that the temporal proximity of the investigation was associated to that emotion that argument  here this is situation more comparable to the case of curley vs city of north las vegas in which the individuals were disputing several of the reasons and this court held the timing of getting fired two months after the employee employee complained was not sufficient to establish the text because the end of it an investigation itself explained the coincidental timing similarly the plaintiff made reference to the l and in that case is easily distinguished from this one in the f m l a context in lieu the supervisor had made multiple expressions and even was responsible in this situation there is no dispute that misplayed received all f m l e leave that she requested and there is no dispute that she received all reasonable accommodations that she requested under the way the human resources manager conducted an investigation there were eight witnesses interviewed employees and subordinates of ms glade and multiple interviews confirmed that both the misplayed had allowed violations of the f l saying had violated county policy had kicked her subordinate under the table and had allowed her sister again to receive services from the home of the homeless clinic this case therefore turns solely on the issue of subordinate bias and the supreme court stated in style vs proctor hospital that the standard for applying subordinate bias theory a supervisor must perform an act motivated by discriminatory animus that is intended by the supervisor to cause an adverse employment action and that act must be the proximate cause of the ultimate employment action  has reviewed since th concepts one specifically was the france vs johnson case in that case the court held that stray remarks that were not directly tied to the decision making process were not going to be direct evidence sufficient to defeat summary judgment i submit that the the the comments that were made here that the plaintiff is relying on for the basis of discriminatory animus are insufficient there is no way a reasonable fact finder could review the record ms laskin is indicated that dr england had suggested offering a less demanding position at the time the comment was made misplayed herself had stated that she did not believe she would be returning to work in fact her words were it's time to call a duck a duck and i can find a citation in the record for you if you could ok and then in november with those who became concerned about  when you really evaluate them based upon the record rather than the conclusory statements that are being articulated by the plaintiffs those items in the record are not evidence of a significant or substantial role in either the investigation or in the decision making process which is mr porter suggested we meet to discuss where to go from here and there is one meeting notice that is states quote h c h issues close quote there is not a single piece of evidence about what occurred in that meeting or for that matter whether the meeting even actually took place the plane just simply have no evidence as to what occurred during that meeting and therefore any evidence that would suggest that there was a bias or an influence by ms velasquez as the district court properly noted that was insufficient evidence to establish that there was significant influence as was present for example in the case of poland versus shirts off or in the case of france or in the case of blood being all of which are these circuits decisions with regard to the subordinate bias theory demotion and there is no evidence of ms the last is his influence on the decision making process there must be sufficient evidence from which a reasonable fact finder could conclude that the county impermissibly considered  testimony in affidavits is insufficient to survive summary judgment the indirect evidence that the plaintiff has brought forth is so remote and attenuated that no reasonable fact finder could conclude there was a discriminatory motive or an intentional act that impairment simply considered miss floyd's use of f m l a leave or her disability the plaintiff was demoted over her misconduct the county investigated the misconduct and took appropriate action maricopa county as the employer did everything you would expected to do the county should not be confronted with a jury trial over conclusory allegations for her to be invited to the meeting to determine what to do in this case and there is evidence that the meeting took place because most of alaska is said that she then met with miss f subsequent to that meeting to try to talk or again into demoting and that's at the record ninety five i'm sorry ninety three through ninety five in the stop case the court found  that you need only be up a proximate cause not the proximate cause in the fact that there's an investigation and that's independent of the decision because it doesn't mean that the county is relieved from from fault and then finally in the loop case it i just want to note that the supervisor who had concerns about her taking a point in that case taking leave and that and th downgraded her in the in her evaluations was not the one that made the ultimate decision but influence that decision although that case was not determined and it wasn't called the subordinate bias case but that's what happened in that case and we don't have a subordinate bias case darst we don't have a subordinate bias case in this context it's right on point would you agree i would agree that there's not one that's been called as important by its case but if you look at the case that's pretty close it's pretty