there can be more than one but for a cause of an event as long as it is a substantial factor in bringing about the harm here the district court found that basically because mr mollett admitted to being miserable at his deposition before the incident that anything that happened brief basically it alleges that cohn the chief here stop texting and calling mr mollett he did things contrary to what they talked about before he became chief and he wasn't implementing the vision that mr thought that they had kind of agreed upon these were very vague and i would argue de minimus indicators of mr mollett misery so being miserable is the standard that can supersede any later but for cause then really no defendant tries to paint this picture that mr mollett and the rest of the command staff were all on the same page they're all concerned about the sense of it but that's just not true i'm like three of the other command staff members who had known about the incident for two members after learning about the offensive play he immediately reported it and then that force chief called and assistant chief whether they have to do something about it and this is our pretextual explanation it's reasonable to infer that they resent having to investigate and have to take action for something that they obviously had already ignored and wished to ignore and again this was the support or pretext argument s only reason i can think why the defense continues to cling to this false misrepresentation that mr mollett also ignored the offending flakes for two days is because he recognizes how damaging this is as a pretext missed maybe mr hopefully can answer that for the court today i still can't explain why they cling to that so so so much but regardless it's a disputed issue material fact appropriate for a jury to decide and would include if i was getting these there were three battalion commanders is that what they called yes three battalion chiefs an assistant resources director of the city and tried to kind of get involved that way but they really basically deferred and didn't do anything about it and again things were just deteriorating more and more and more the year after he reported this which is why we feel if you can point to the incident as a but for cause because of the huge difference between how he performed and was treated and how he went about his job prior to it and then all the bad things that happened afterwards we think is a compelling case for but for causation made it clear at this court on a number of occasions and the supreme court made it clear in the southwest texas versus master case that you know order to get that there would be the act of reporting the complaint has to judge what happens and this is all after the fact in the context of the the her nat is incident is actually a formal complaint is made from mr moll by another firefighter that sunday morning this all occurs friday night the  attention what i do within thirty minutes on a sunday night he gets an e mail back from assistant chief webber saying we will not put up with this is not tolerable will you please investigate  the with with union members and there's one incident where he claims they're watching his back it's because the assistant chief walked up to him and this is in the record and you're asking i can't say exactly where but but he wa you know his relationship and his leadership style so we go back to what you asked about judge and he is asked to investigate he said i'd rather not indicative of his his feelings about the union members and then it's judged on the next morning that says we really want to investigate that this is part of your leadership this is part of the leadership world that went on starting in june of twenty thousand  and so he turns that down he says i'd rather not investigate than the chief in this short amount of time says please do if you don't want to let me know because all reassigned it and if you want any help or that they were somehow unhappy with him and the case with all due respect i believe and it's there because that's nothing more than and than speculation and go through that so there's no  in greenfield one he was never going to be the chief because it comes very young and had come in june of two thousand a lot up so he knows that he testifies himself judge i would not have even applied or look is numbers twenty i believe his deposition more importantly and i think you were about to get there judge or you know about it if you look at what he sent to menominee false about why he wanted that job and people might now want twelve months out and there has not been one mention of the hernandez report one mention of the hernandez incident in anything that has gone on and he says i want the challenge of leading a department but isn't this different structure where i've got the fire department another individual has the police and we report one and i'm excited because you're about to change your b m s program to e m t certification program i've been an e m t for twelve years this is why i want the job go with all the respect i know of the district court decided an argument could be made for an adverse job action but remember this is all a voluntary decision that he makes to leave after he gets class not a not in the light of anything that anybody did and then with regard to the protected activity the protected activity usually is anyone who's involved in an investigation i agree with that keep in mind that he did see his deposition testimony i saw a sign up on the wall that i had to go out on my so i don't i don't do anything about it and then i come back and donna perkins the firefighter reports it to me so now i is one of the ones emailing back supposedly right away showing this identical concern or he did see the side of the offensive mexican flake sign for two days and did nothing and tell mollett reports and this is on the record at a documentary twenty six  resented having to investigate this because they ignored it for two days and it wasn't until molly made his report and brought it to a head that they were forced to act and i want to run down a little bit about that the timeline here so they've ignored it mylo reports that the soon as he learns about it from members of his and then of course they don't put their their disagreement with him in writing so each our director is that somebody outside of the department correct that would be someone that works for the city not in the department they would be more objective and that's what the city policy really what it would call for but they shut it off