example the defendant cites the regatta ok's with the first circuit pointed out that the adverse action began four months before the protected activity that's a tough case for the plaintiff were circuit also again not a good combination for the plaintiff and the court understandably a firm summary judgment the before and after has to line up for retaliation case to work if the person has anger you about something else doesn't really lead to a very good retaliation case for the protected activity here we have facts that would allow a jury to rationally find the before and after do line up exactly with the protected activity and the theory of retaliation so we have going back to the year two thousand mr mchugh had serious environmental problems with more management and this was not just his problem this was a major problem in maine going back decades with our dairy farmers we had a thirty million dollar bond to try to deal with this issue it's not an easy place we have a a winter or one's aware of it this year but we have a long winter in the ground freezes up and it's just hard to deal with with the cascade doing all winter so this has been a huge problem that a part of agriculture and main the main legislature has been very protective of dairy farmers so many could criticize that that balancing act decided that the environment always comes first but no that's not the way maine has looked at it and so that part of our culture knew that mr mchugh three times in two about these things and said we're still working with them and in fact two thousand and six was the year that he actually really turned things around because he got a million and a half dollar funding but as of february two thousand and six we have e mails from the top enforcement person saying we're working with him you know we have plans for getting funding and the d p who wanted to go after being their mission they don't really care about dairy farmers they really they're focused on stanley is on the environmental side they were saying we're stuck with this  they don't we can't do anything because they control they protect dairy farmers and it's only hand somebody over we can't do anything then march mr greste becomes the commission officer you could retaliate to weaken the commission a month later he gets news that he lost the protected activity came out badly for him and he owed seven thousand bucks back to uncle sam within two weeks the d p p person who had said you know we're stuck there's nothing we can do hey they've handed over after all so we're expected to the d p guy obviously the way he worded that and what he said in february is glacial is going to take forever so we have an amazing change right there and then they he writes other e mails confirming it's always been the policy the party to protect these farmers despite you know not just mr q they all have the serious problems one place we are paying to ship the menorah we're doing that because it's such a pro dairy farm there farmer policy in me support my side of the story but i admit that they could be looked at either way so in september of two thousand and five before bradstreet d p issued a notice a violation so that's a serious thing but later  that things go wrong we don't have any control over this it back at glacial d o a so yes there's a few facts but the big picture certainly allows the jury say he was a he had serious environmental problems but the deal he stuck by him and they also had a policy on the admitted to that if you're making significant progress on own and in environmental compliance then they have a policy we're not we're going to stick by you and they said that they admitted to that and in two thousand and six he got a million a half box of the four hundred fifty thousand came from the  t and then he had a million lined up one hundred thousand got in advance he bought it and the day before the closing is when they get the revocation a jury can find rationally that that violates their own policy when they they go the guy's got the what adverse action occurred to the most important adverse action mr mchugh has sunk if you doesn't have the protection of the part of agriculture all the dairy farmers are sunk because they're not up they're just not meeting so may ten i'm not i know he says they're now handing him over is that the formal evidence of the retaliatory action that you talk about is there something that the emails that say he's been handed over and we can now move action so that that suggests that in february he was fine and then june thirty he has this meeting where he's going to strict scrutiny so things completely have turned most recusal most recusal but is i just trying to figure so very soon after the refusal of the retaliatory action that you're relying on is the assumed change in policy that is reflected in i assume you can't win well the district where i think properly found that if mr mchugh engaged in protected activity let's say you know he said i voted for someone so i voted for this person for governor and the commissioner so ok we're changing our the big change occurred before the recusal then it was implemented after i said it that could go to showing that they had a retaliatory motive for their post recusal actions i'm just trying to figure out if we didn't if one didn't think that what we're tell it's tory action was taken shocked that they've handed him over all the sudden end of the blue and then he confirms that into further e mails so a jury you know that's why we have juries in this case i mean there's another story i understand they're saying he was so bad for so long we f changed was he was no longer being protected and a jury could reasonably find that they could also recently find the defendant but post recuse like this we have to have some idea you have to have some evidence that the people who  communicating the adverse treatment that he was not going to be subject to were doing it for an impermissible purpose i mean the first note you know i don't need that i just need that q what the evidence is on the record about other dairy farmers similarly situated the the evidence that prompts my question is that five hundred there was evidence of sort of mega gallons of liquid five new a being dumped directly into the stream thirteen dead cattle lying on the ground some inspection was made what evidence is that there were might my point is to the extent that you are entitled to fight summary judgment here we start with the proposition which you're candidly acknowledge that there are sort of two possible sides to the story about the timing and when we add to that the possibility that there simply is not evidence of comparably agreed his violations  do we have a situation in which despite the possible inference summary judgment nonetheless that's why the before picture is so important i'm assuming that mr q was the worst former dairy farmer mean to go on and on of their grief about how bad his record was back to two thousand so this protective policy protected him even though he was the worst so it's irrelevant if he was the worst or not once they change that policy but your honor is evidence in the may thirty one  of the d p p official who would be knowledgeable about this he says there are other forms that need a similar approach so he's saying there are other farms that need to be turned over so there's evidence right from d p may thirty one for some reason they handed him over there's another one we think should be handed over to the some indication he's not in some unique category that he is in the deepest point of view they want their hands on more dairy farmers they can figure out why do you know him this one over the jury has a reason why that might have happened deposit of that substance near a mineral pit was leaking and bringing in that substance towards matt martin stream which is a class a stream and into the aquifers forming the need drinking supply that was under the mchugh in the sense that what it suggests is maybe there is a factual dispute as to whether the last straw was really precipitated by in fact it was the last straw  history and then all of a sudden it does do something that could either be because they finally thought he had crossed the line it was the last straw but it just happens that the timing of that change is coincidental with new commissioner coming in who had this personal dispute with mr mchugh so i guess again why isn't there just a factual question as to whether it was the egregiousness of the call that finally became much or whether instead it was a new commissioner who had a retaliatory about a couple things because as of september is early september two thousand and five was tunisian season already agreed and set in motion a different way of enforcing the laws that would have resulted in same adverse actions towards mr mchugh in september the net the two departments agreed that that firm would need permits from both agencies so that both of them would have in force capability that's an  expression of animosity somehow permeated the entire department of agriculture and the department of environmental protection and ultimately the federal e p a the causal connection here is really missing in addition when m may two thousand and six no connection there whatsoever there's no smoking gun here there is no e mail or communication very kind that says bradstreet says go get him or that the  gangbusters to get so when when you say that bradstreet didn't even know about mchugh having a business before the department of agriculture until that june thirtieth meeting their claim is based on that he e mailed if there was a deal way change in policy with respect indication no evidence whatsoever that mr praed street knew anything of that fact i think the testimony is the first time he even got wind that there was any pending matters before the department potential matters complainant who repeatedly email supposed to parlance not the commissioner but the departments and went to the governor's thing my god this guy's in the streams putting the drinking water in my town we gotta do something that started in mid two is from the department's said they had never had experience with another forum with such an egregious record of repeated and continued noncompliance and which they had generated as many complaints from the public as this one did it's the only  continued to fail to comply with the permits continue to follow which will program completely fail to report all these discharges which neighbors and the e p a was seeing the e p a was involved in this had an interest in this is really is february two thousand and six and he earlier and some of the emails they had taken an interest in this farm it was so great just the through so many failures to report discharges failures to dispose of dead carcasses there were five different observations during the latter part of two thousand and six about them you were discharges which he had not reported all of those things led to his the adverse actions of which he truly complains and that is the denial of his permit revocation of his term that the denial of a the waiver of a ban on winter spreading so you have here a failure of causation you can't just guess at these things this court has said you've got to prove that they're the protected conduct was a substantial or motivating factor in the adverse action that kind of causal connection is completely lacking here mr kill asks that some regions will be overturned because there  guy get that guy and having that kind of enemas permeate the department or permeate the company in question you don't have that in fact he has the opposite you have a guy who did the right thing you said i had some things with them didn't talk about the stayed right out of it and they never talked with him about it whatsoever of the prefix the first part of that he's an eye witness that mr mchugh was making great progress he had offered to help out and that he thought in a few months he'd had it all set with compliance and that he saw this as totally discriminatory the way the department which was treating that dairy farmer compared himself to other dairy farmers so that additional evidence on the disparate treatment number to the recusal was untimely it was after this huge change i don't think emails or nothing i think in the modern world emails or word truth is good relations with certain people or friends and that would've been the right way to do it he said to his secretary and to his deputy sourpusses relationship hard feelings in the deputy declared that to everybody on the team who then heard that the