this appeal focuses on whether three specific items should have been considered evidence of heightened scrutiny or legitimate business reasons had the district court viewed the evidence in the light most favorable to plaintiff as it must you at the judgment stage these items would have been viewed as evidence of heightened scrutiny at least sufficient to raise a genuine issue of material fact thereby precluding summary judgment the district court found out for purposes of ms county's title seven retaliation claim she had established that she engaged in protected activity and that her employer knew about it she also they also concluded that she suffered an adverse employment action the district court also agreed with their position of law for purposes of making a prime aphasia case of title seven retaliation temporal proximity coupled with heightened scrutiny is sufficient to show that there was a causal connection between a plaintiff's protected activity and her terminations however the district court committed error in finding that there was no heightened scrutiny and therefore no possible connection and therefore no crime official case of retaliation today i asked this court to overturn the finding of the district court because it failed to view the evidence and the light most favorable to ms kenney and reaching its conclusion temporal proximity i know we have a wide range of cases but there wasn't a lot of  y here was in the two to three months afterwards yes your honor and i'm not i'm not saying that this case is entirely based on temporal proximity she only worked there for this is her rd stint of employment with this particular group of people she was called back to work toward april of two thousand and fifteen and she was terminated in july at the end of july of two thousand and fifteen throughout that time she complains constantly she testified that she complained constantly she did remember two specific instances one happened in the middle of may two thousand and fifteen and that's where she complained that she believes that the higher end practices are racially discriminatory she then testifies that although she can't remember the exact date she complained in about june or july of two thousand and fifteen that she believes that the owner is insisting that black employees be prosecuted for unemployment fraud and white employees are not to be prosecuted these are internal complaints within the company yes your honor complaining to federal authorities or state authorities she is just complaining intra company correct your honor she is complaining to april jewel who is human resources and she is also complaining to keith quinn who is the general manager and her supervisor so the theory that they would retaliate her for making internal complaints or that what that this would come out to the public or it would look bad on the company later on what's the theory why they would retaliate for internal complaints i can't speak to why they would have retaliated against her for making internal complaint you have to prove that as causation the rationale for retaliating against her i mean reasonable inference that she complains internally and it's reasonable to assume that because of this they terminator and i just  you're referring to action between the employer and the employee when i say heightened scrutiny i'm saying that they treated her differently after she started complaining then they did say firing would come yes that means firing  temper proximity always gets you causation though i'm not necessarily saying firing i'm saying the fact that they are attributing these three items to her and these three items would be the number of quits one complaint from an employee is husband and another complaint from another employee they are they are attributing these complaints to her whereas they would not have done so before these parties have a very long history with each other twenty plus years and throughout the time that she is employed with them previously they testify that at the very st place they worked as together twenty years ago this place called eagle she works with as they she is very harsh with the hourly employees when she is managing them when he is asked to clarify what very harsh means what he means is that she's very direct she wants to enforce all of the rules and she wants the employees to produce faster so essentially what he means by very harsh is that she's a strict manager so then she comes back  making those actually happened there were complaints against her so the speaking to each of these complaints and this is this is what i mean when i say that i feel that her rebuttal to these complaints should have been considered evidence of heightened scrutiny start of evidence of a legitimate business reason heightened scrutiny that there were complaints against her i mean i mean that's a fact right no your honor i mean yes there is it is a fact that there are complaints against her but her re bottles to those complaints should have been considered when determining her prime official case instead of just saying these complaints are legitimate business reasons she did produce enough evidence to rebut each of these complaints and i can address them in turn regard to write about the prime official case but the more one talks about this topic the more it looks like a case where there's no pretext and they have legitimate objective grounds for doing what they did your honor and  explained to the out while it looked as though previous rulings would indicate that you can't use evidence of position for evidence pretext that was clarified  vs whites fine furniture wherein as part of their case but i'm just going down this road i'm just not sure what it means they're just two different inquiries i get it that there's overlap and you're asking thing in the prime official case something else a pretext but the reason they're different is permutations a lot easier right that's that's a much easier one that's where we have any doubts we say you've met it the pretext that we're getting to the ultimate question is there actually something for a jury potentially to find as to some retaliatory action and they're all bets are off the evidence was it is what it is and you've got to rebut it and then an awful lot of evidence that she was american ploy and manager most importantly your honor the other didn't show is that she wasn't necessarily a problematic employee she was a strict manager and the employees complained that she was a strict  and i'm having trouble keeping employees there is nothing in the record that indicates that these thirty people were attributed to her directly the h r manager they testified about these people leaving testified firstly she changed her story three different times with regard to how many ads that interview she actually conducted st she said she spoke to between thirty and forty employees who all said they were leaving because of karen county then she testified that no it was closer to half of these employees and then she said a few and when i asked her why she produced choose separate lists reflecting these quits to the e e o c one with fifty seven people on it and another with forty eight people on it she said she did not know exactly why she was attributing these to kiran county and in fact some of the people on this list it will testified that she didn't talk to them at all she watched them walk out of her car walk out to their cars and leave importantly help  out with like just kind of pin down what your position is let's say it's roughly fifty people leave during this period ok that's not good for a company that needs employees so now we get to this question of connection to her all right if you take the inference is your way is the number two or three that are fairly attributable to her or is the number more like twenty to thirty what's what's fair because that's we have to figure that out in terms of what's tribal issue a fact what's a fair assessment giving you the benefit of the inferences you're i can't give you a number or even a range and and the reason i can't do that is because i would say two to three i thought you just went through the three options and you said the last time she said just two or three that seems like the most favorable to you why would you just say two to three i think she said a few i don't think she said to a few ok james like under five but even then because of the inconsistency i would maintain that the fact that april j does not come across as credible with regard to how many people left because of karen is a question that should go to the jury and further it's important to note that even while it will is talking about some of the people attribute possibility out of the evidence is zero people left that's really your ultimate position i really do i believe that that could be a position that zero people left because of her even the employees who say that  kenney is part of the reason they're leaving april joel and she's quit and both concede that there are other reasons that they could've left they both cite to the fact that they only paid the employees nine hundred and fifteen our kids quinn said that if they could find reasonable it doesn't matter whether they actually happened it mattered that she had a reasonable belief that they happened one of these one of the complaints was about their hiring practices but they weren't her people from detroit discrimination because they want to hurt people who can get to work easily because detroit is outside the thirty mile radius right well the evidence comes from when april jewel actually tells her the reason that we're not pulling from detroit or flint is because can be them doesn't like black people and that's when karen tiny explained that the percentage of the workforce that was african american was dramatically greater than the african american population of the thirty mile radius your honor the fact that they have an african american population that works there does not affect whether they were trying to stop more african american people from work and thereby limiting and geographic s karen was doing the recruiting at aspen before april drew or was she testified that they were recruiting in the green shoots which is the employment circular she wasn't using the internet at that time when she a jewel she asked where are we pulling from in april jewel says oakland county and she says oakland county and i think livingston county and sharon doesn't ask her by what methods and she testified a number of of that's made that's based on their actually incorrect information less credible i don't know that it was based on factually incorrect information sheet i don't know the truth of whether they were actually pulling from oakland in livingston and increasing number of people quitting the company it's undisputed that there were fifty seven people that quit between the point of hiring and her terminations in july of two thousand and fifteen that's undisputed that is that a large number is that yes actually because it's also  piece as to an average there's obvious turnover but fifty seven is that way out of whack or yes the company had about one hundred and forty employees that was over forty percent turnover during that period and there's uncontroverted testimony from company officials uncontroverted there appears to be some controversy as to exactly how many of those people quit specifically stated they were quitting because of the plaintiff however there is uncontroverted testimony from april jul that she talked to thirty or forty of them and they said they were quitting because of her or said things that indicated april jewel that she believed they were quitting because of her and that's uncontroverted i thought from the other side said it was controverted that she i'm not sure where the other side is getting that because the testimony she was  testimony was clear that it was thirty to forty people that she talked to where where there's some controversy is able to add some difficulty in her deposition naming specific people off the list that she talked to but her testimony was clear that she talked to thirty or forty people and they told her or indicated to her that they were leaving because of the plan and i think the other point your friend would make is that they may have said that but they also may have said for other things there are certainly people who the testimony was that they said they would not put up with this various words i can say today for the money they were making it is entirely possible there is somebody who would have put up with karen kenney of they were making more money this is a low paid workforce but there were people the testimony is that there were people who told people jewel that they were leaving because of karen kenney with regard to the history of the three principles here which was pretty lengthy yes and was it is it fair to say that they knew that kenny was quantity in terms of her personality and the thinking on can be the most part the owner of the company that by bringing her in at this critical time that would help it turned out it did he was wrong in hindsight he should have hired or he did hire she came back it's a different time it was hard to find workers during that period the economy was humming the workforce at that time did not respond to her methods alternate explanation is they knew all this that they knew a knew all these things about and still broader in and then only terminator after she complained about racial condemned that gets into the heightened scrutiny argument with regard to heightened scrutiny i mean that is a valid concept and it's basically the cases don't get this quite specific out of but it's analogous to what's used in a discrimination case comparable employees or they similarly situated only the plaintiff in a retaliation case under heightened scrutiny can use themselves as a comparable to engage in conduct that's accepted by the company they engage in the same conduct after they engage in a protected activity in their terminated or disciplined that can infer that the protected activity was a cause that there is some connection between a protected activity in the discipline that's the cantrell versus nissan case the point of sites that case though is easily distinguishable from the situation here in that case plaintiff and gauged in basically exactly the same behavior there was little or no discipline imposed over time she then engaged in protected activity engaged in exactly the same behavior with the same effect she had before and was terminated and that is different than what happened here the plaintiff may have a particular personality and she may be somewhat abrupt in a stickler for rules but there is no evidence whatsoever in the record that that ever resulted in the situations that resulted here she there was never a situation where written or asked me complaints were made against her previously there was never situation during a previous employer or large number of people quit and some or all of them attributed it to her so we have is a i guess the testimony would be it's not shocking that something bad happened because she has this personality where she's going to be a stickler for the rules however the results of that behavior was significantly different than it ever had been before i'd use the analogy of a truck driver whose gets caught speeding several times but without any accidents he's given written warnings or no discipline at all then he speeding his truck leaves the road rolls over and there's seventy five thousand dollars for the damage to the load in the cab that's a different event even though you could i guess argue that he was speeding it's the same as before but the results were dramatically different and that explains why the discipline was carried out here it was the results of her behavior to refind argument when i think of proof kind of fish a case is usually pretty darn easy to meet i mean if i just think of my many years of these cases they're just not that many where the employer who wins and promise facia and particularly with statements like this in the record this is the real oddity to me or you are the correct pretty quickly t to they usually ship pretty quickly to pretext which gets to the question is there something for a jury to to try here you are correct that the burden the plaintiff has to meet to satisfy the prevision case still relatively low although the plaintiff did not needed in this case because a fundamental element of a provision case for retaliation is that you must show causation there is absolutely no evidence in the record whatsoever to support causation there is no mention whatsoever no comments no mention of these complaints ever again she makes the complaints allegedly except that is true for purposes of this hearing no concern shown by the defendants and any time there's no discussion between them about this there's no mention of it as part of the terminations process just fired well she's just fired because forty percent of the workforce quit in the space of three months that's a pretext argument that is our look you know prete retaliatory reason for why she was terminated and there's no dispute as to the facts over that in the record plaintiff has to dispute some facts she can't just come in and say i believe there's causation and that satisfies her burden as low as that burden may be there is no evidence whatsoever in this case of causation other than the mere allegation that at some point she engaged in which she claims is protected activity and for purposes of this hearing we have to assume that that's true there is nothing else in the record regarding causation there is no evidence whatsoever that there was any reason for terminations and other then the undisputed facts regarding her the results of her behavior that we can points in them increase quits what's what's your best case for this we've got such a charged racial statement a claim of retaliation and response to it and our courts said at prime the facia stage no not enough evidence of causation and there was a similar temper proximity argument and we said that's not enough by itself what's the what's the best case for us in that isolated cases in our brief there is and i just want i want the one you think is the best you came in saying as long as they read this one will was fairly close proximity here we have two and a half months between the alleged protected activity in the terminations and their specific case welding that you know temporal proximity alone is not enough that's what we get into the heightened security argument that she's trying to get around those cases about heightened scrutiny about temporal proximity not being enough gun there's apple ample evidence of that to support the defendant's decision and to support the non retaliatory reason for that decision there's absolutely no evidence whatsoever regarding causation the fact there is no dispute as to the material facts there's no dispute that there were increased quits during the time she was employed there is no dispute regarding the testimony that those entries quits were attributed in many cases to the plaintiffs behavior there's no dispute that there were written harassment complaints made into the regarding the plaintiff and there's no dispute regarding the fact that other can employ is made verbal complaints about the plaine behavior and management style to management there are no comments no preference whatsoever to these complaints by any of the managers at defendant there is no connection whatsoever between these complaints and the actual act of the terminations and there's two and a half months between the one complaint allege in the complaint as as we date on it and the actual terminations which occurred at the end of july two thousand and fifteen for those reasons we feel you should affirm the court of the trial court's decision granting summary judgment and dismiss this appeal thank you nine to seventy two and she initially guesses that thirty to forty of these people quit because of carrying kenny but then she later says that she doesn't actually know how many she spoke to she said to the at thirty to forty people cited them cited karen as a reason for quitting but then she says yes i mean the ones that i gotcha spoke to some of them were nd hand that would probably be about thirty to forty people and then she was asked you don't actually know right and she says yes and she's handed both of these less than she cannot with everybody's name on them and she cannot identify a single person on this list by name that spoke to her and complained about my plan specifically  with regard to turnover rate was higher while kenny was the manager as opposed to prior times your honor there was testimony there at some point an entire group of people who worked against you discrimination point a little bit does not necessarily if they're saying that an entire group of people quit because they had transportation issues that gives another reason for people to leave other than other than caring county with regard to causation again that can be true but for causation that we apply i do that if she had not complained the terminations would not have happened simply put the items that they're talking about her being a difficult manager these are all things they knew when they brought her back i see my time has expired briefly conclude initially her being a difficult manager and a demanding result was not a problem and in fact got her recruited from across the country then she complains about race discrimination and all of a sudden these are terminable offense this case should not have been dismissed for failure so private fisher case thank you thanks