issues of fact existed and the district court stated on the record that i had made the ultimate conclusion the plaintiff's conduct and mounted to extortion and that that's what was driving much of the analysis by the raised by plaintiff including the fact that she was sexually assaulted and faith that the district court failed to properly apply the relevant substance substantive law governing the issues for these reasons the district court's decision should be reversed in its entirety so i'd like to first to grasp the retaliate claim which also in compas is the wrongful termination claim protesting unlawful conduct although the court makes the distinction that the congress did not involve the employer from a legal matter there is case law under both state and federal authorities which under the circumstances and based on the facts ratification in light of the numerous facts presented by plane and with respect to what mr ross says role as a supervisor and her being a direct participate and contributing to th begin with the district court didn't even consider the temporal proximity between the protected activity and adverse actions here and in this case it was very short being only two months from the time this was complaining to the time she suffered to the time she was terminated this court has repeatedly recognized that timing is highly probative and strong evidence of retaliation in addition another piece of evidence to show pretext is focusing on the decision makers were in the case here miss margaret reynolds was the person who was supposed to be investigating miss wood's complaints suddenly in the some sort of animus towards miss woods because of the complaints that she had brought to her attention in addition the whole basis and circumstances and manner in which the investigation was conducted by m is suspicious under the circumstances here miss reynolds only relied upon information provided by mr o'keefe to make the decision to terminate  here in the context of all the events that occurred mr o'keefe is the one person who has every interest in making plaintiff and her complaints go away mr reynolds did not speak to mr interview miss woods the two people who would have been able to provide an explanation as to the e mail at question and the e mail that was when she was eventually relied upon to terminate miss woods employment in addition plaintiff also presented evidence that despite two months passing this reynolds made no final determination as to the complaint that miss woods had brought her attention ye money and that she dropped everything she got it those are two different questions in terms of whether she denies that she demanded money she denies that she demanded money in the context of using it as leverage against the company now her negotiating her claims through her attorney mr coley is not is something that she had a legal right to do that's not something that was illegal under the law in fact the law provides for a person to pursue their remedies when they've been wronged in the manner that she was and with respect to your second question well that she said she would drop the charges  and that was actually a term that had from the get go been proposed by mr o'keefe all the terms that were contained in the letter accepting the fifty thousand dollars settlement were terms that mr o did unless you pay me money right that's that's what their investigation reveals i will excel i will make trouble for you with job unless you cough up a sizable amount of money fats what their position is that's not what the letter says the letter could equally because even if they're wrong about their assessment of it that's their business judgment that's i agree with that even if they're wrong that's that's the legitimate nondiscriminatory reason that the they've offered however plaintiff still needs to be given a fair opportunity to provide evidence of pretax which in this case we have we can tell that we have and that all of you have t someone who was who someone who was supposed was very involved in investigating this with complaint i don't understand the argument i don't know why why reynolds investigate what happened at the restaurant and also investigate whether reynolds held some sort of animists against miss woods for her complain well we've got the fact that the manner in which the whole investigation was conducted she didn't do it in a way which would have extrapolated a alternative explanation as to what the events were  concerning that e mail in addition miss reynolds sat upon the complaint then this was made for two months without making any determination yet when it came to this investigation that she initiated against miss wood she was able to initiate the investigation conducted make a determination and terminate miss was within a matter of a month i think that at minimum let's say trier of fact to determine whether the real reason for the adverse actions in this case  grant summary judgment summary general would never be granted because every case involves facts what was compelling in this case is that the undisputed facts that were material led to no other conclusion than ms woods engaged in an extortion attempt and that is what the judge saw and that is what the documents say and there was no other conclusion and that was the main reason child was blocked a lawsuit against was because of the that in the amount of money he wanted which i think was a hundred fifty thousand dollars for that part of it one of bond and are and what about this claim that if you don't pay  relationships with law firms third parties to handle lawsuits for them child that gives business to these third parties law firms ok it is that law firm that was taking ms woods and other child people out to dinner she then accused one of the attorneys of harassment told child about it as well but without letting child handle it got her own attorney who immediately started negotiating for money with the law firm that was a third party vendor for child that in of itself your honor it was not a problem and if she had stopped there we would not be year to day but when the law firm refused to pay six figures for what happened at this single dinner she and her attorney took it to the next level mr o'keefe the partner at the bonnie bridges firm says that this once attorney said to him listen you've got to reconsider paying her six figures and i'm going to send you something in writing that i think will make you reconsider and he did send her something in writing what he saw in the law firm in e mail written by ms woods signed by dale wood's child claims analyst not her personal stationery where she repeats almost horrible things that went wrong and at the bottom says because you fail to really appreciate the gravity of the harm here we will instruct i'm going to sever all business ties meaning you don't pay me the money or i'm going to sever the business ties woods well we got this e mail and i think it's a compelling undisputed fact that her responses tear it up and now there's been resolved that day within hours her attorney sends a second letter to m we're done they do meet with ms woods for over an hour and talk to her about the e mail and the letter and just for the record that's in the excerpt of records one thirty three to one thirty seven because they just claimed that they didn't talk to her his words agnes and this was to your point that she authored the e mail and that she authorized a letter there's no dispute chad has a very strict conflict of interest policy which is understandable given the nature of their business that she knew about it and she admits that this conduct was in violation of that policy or there can be no appearance of a conflict of interest from a child employee leveraging their position in employment  personal gain and it was the fact that she leveraged her position at chubb for money that they ruled conflict of interest you can use your position that personal gain exactly and that that's in the record it says exactly that and they fired her shortly thereafter the only thing that they point to as to evidence of pretext for one is the timing that might be probative except you have this intervening extortion scheme and that's what causes it and secondly they point to miss reynolds as also being involved in the secondary investigation they're just misconstruing the law there are cases that say if the person  of harassment is then involved in the termination decision that could be evidence of pretext but ms reynolds is never accused of harassment she's an h r person investigating these facts and then when she gets the additional information about the extortion she continues her investigation i just want to spend the second part of this is they're still trying to pursue a sexual harassment claim against chubb she already pursued that lawsuit against the law firm and got forty thousand dollars and released those claims now she's turning around for the first time in saying that her female supervisor who attended this dinner also sexually harassed her and created created an abusive hostile work environment there's no dispute about what the limit in this yes that's on appeal as well there's there's no dispute about what the legal standard is this female supervisor was her supervisor for ten months nothing ever happened at the dinner she claims that she overheard rep parte and talk about coutts having sex and by agora and that alone is enough to create a hostile and abusive work environment even though in the same breath she admits that when she told ms ross the next business day that she felt that this attorney had harassed her miss ross was sympathetic and they immediately investigated there's just no basis to hold ms ross county for sexual harassment yet they still are also trying to hold  accountable for this third party attorney the only way they can do that is if there was some ratification on behalf of chubs part this is another undisputed fact that was before judge progress and the day that ms woods tell them i feel like i was harassed they immediately launch an investigation and she never sees this attorney again this is the unusual bright line case where there is no dispute that the conduct stopped and that we handled it appropriately it never happened again you can't find responsible for third party harassment under those scenarios and there are other questions not relevant run like the little ones the forty thousand dollars the settlement supervisor jane ross should have had some type of psychic powers during the dinner and should have divined that these woods was feeling sexually harassed in the her failure to do that creates liability for a child that is just an absurd argument the minute she knew each other acted promptly and judge parker stand evaluated the entire record that's before the court now there's a mention several times i think you didn't consider everything he did consider everything and this was just the rare employment case where the undisputed facts warrant a storm or a judgment thank you your hon explanation as to all the events that miss that defense counsel just went through there for this issue needs to be left to the trier of fact to decide question seems to me there's a difference between saying pay me pay me a lot of money or also you on the one hand and pay me a lot of money are all screw up your business relationship with the insurance company on the other here it was your reaction t well the later one that's one interpretation of the way the letter e mail could be construed the other interpretation is that this is a woman who was saying i want you to boycott this company because this company condones