Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-97-07074/USCOURTS-caDC-97-07074-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
District of Columbia
Appellee
Juanita Griffin
Appellant
Washington Convention Center
Appellee

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued February 26, 1998 Decided May 12, 1998

No. 97-7074

Juanita Griffin,

Appellant

v.

Washington Convention Center

Appellee

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 93cv02297)

Richard H. Semsker argued the cause and filed the briefs

for appellant. Solaman G. Lippman entered an appearance.

William F. Causey argued the cause for appellees. John

M. Ferren, Corporation Counsel, Charles L. Reischel, Deputy

Corporation Counsel, Carol Elder Bruce and Eric C. Grimm

were on the brief.

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Before: Ginsburg, Sentelle, and Garland, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge Ginsburg.

Concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge Sentelle.

Ginsburg, Circuit Judge: When the Washington Convention Center discharged Juanita Griffin from her position as an

electrician, Griffin brought suit alleging sex discrimination in

violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C.

s 2000e et seq. At trial, the magistrate judge excluded

evidence tending to show that Griffin's immediate supervisor

was opposed to women working as electricians. The WCC

defends that evidentiary ruling on the ground that the supervisor's alleged bias was irrelevant because he lacked authority

to fire Griffin; it was his superior, a woman, who made the

ultimate decision to fire the plaintiff. The WCC admitted,

however, that the plaintiff's supervisor participated at every

stage of the process that led to her termination.

We hold that evidence of a subordinate's bias is relevant

where, as here, the ultimate decisionmaker is not insulated

from the subordinate's influence. The magistrate judge

therefore erred in excluding evidence of the supervisor's bias.

Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the district court

and remand the case for a new trial.

I. BACKGROUND

Juanita Griffin went to work for the WCC as an apprentice

electrician in 1984. Griffin worked in the "engineering"

department doing routine maintenance, such as changing

light bulbs. She had little occasion to develop her skills but

got favorable performance evaluations. In 1987 she received

her journeyman electrician's license. As a result of the

reorganization that the WCC carried out that same year,

Griffin came under the supervision of Cleo Doyle, a man who

regarded Griffin as incompetent. According to Griffin, Doyle

repeatedly said that women should not be working as electricians but should stay at home, "barefoot and pregnant."

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Doyle recommended to his superior, Director of Operations

Reba Evans, that Griffin be fired. After a series of meetings

with Doyle, Griffin, and Randolph Scott--Griffin's union representative--Evans decided to have Doyle and Scott develop

a training program for Griffin (and two other employees

about whom Doyle had complained), after which Doyle would

test Griffin's skills. When Griffin had repeatedly failed the

test, Doyle again recommended that Griffin be fired. After

further consultation with Scott and others, Evans discharged

Griffin.

Griffin then filed a complaint with the D.C. Department of

Human Rights charging the WCC with sex discrimination.

Upon receiving a right-to-sue letter she brought suit under

Title VII in district court. Griffin's counsel planned to offer

the testimony of Griffin and two (male) coworkers detailing

various sexist remarks allegedly made by Doyle. Before the

trial began, however, the magistrate judge granted the

WCC's motion in limine to exclude any reference to Doyle's

comments about the proper role of women. When Griffin's

lawyer later elicited testimony concerning Doyle's comments,

the judge instructed the jury to disregard the testimony.

The judge did, however, permit the following exchange during

the cross-examination of Evans by Griffin's lawyer:

Q.You don't recall testifying that Ms. Griffin told you

she had concerns because she believed Mr. Doyle

and Mr. Fleming [another of Griffin's superiors]

were sexists?

A.I remember the conversation, yes.

Q.Do you recall what specifically she told you in that

regard?

A.No, I don't. Most of the focus that I remember was

with regard to her performance.

Q.Do you recall her telling you that Mr. Doyle had

made a statement to her that he believed that she

should be at home, barefoot and pregnant? Do you

recall her telling you that?

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A.No, I don't.

The jury returned a verdict for the WCC. Griffin appeals.

II. ANALYSIS

Griffin claims that the magistrate judge committed reversible error when he excluded as irrelevant testimony about

Doyle's sexist remarks. The WCC responds that the judge

did not err at all in excluding the testimony because Doyle

was not responsible for Griffin's dismissal and Evans, who

was responsible, based her decision upon an objective test of

Griffin's skills--a test developed and supervised in part by

Griffin's union representative. In the alternative, the WCC

argues that the exclusion of the disputed testimony was

harmless error in light of all the evidence indicating that

Griffin was fired for incompetence.

A.Relevance

The magistrate judge initially regarded Griffin's effort to

introduce testimony about Doyle's comments as an attempt to

smuggle into the record evidence relevant only to theories of

recovery that Griffin had failed to raise in her complaint to

the Department of Human Rights. In his order granting the

WCC's motion in limine the judge explained:

Evidence of a course of conduct as well as statements

designed to show intent to sexually harass relevant to a

claim of maintaining a sexually hostile work environment

is not relevant to a claim of sexual discrimination in job

training.

During Griffin's opening statement, the WCC objected to

Griffin's reference to expected testimony on the issue of

Doyle's bias. The magistrate judge sustained the objection,

apparently because he still regarded the testimony as relevant only to a sexual harassment claim that had not been

preserved for trial. Later in the course of the trial the

magistrate judge shifted his ground somewhat:

[T]his witness [Doyle] did not have any authority to hire

or fire individuals. He made a recommendation and, on

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a number of occasions, his recommendation was overruled. So, he was not the one who had the ultimate

authority on it.

Griffin has argued from the outset that the excluded testimony is probative of Doyle's motive and intent and relevant

to the case because Doyle was responsible for Griffin's training and participated in the decisionmaking process that led to

her discharge. The WCC, on the other hand, argues that

Doyle's motive and intent are not relevant because Evans, not

Doyle, made the decision to fire Griffin.

The WCC relies upon the reasoning of a recent case in the

Seventh Circuit:

[W]hen the causal relationship between the subordinate's

illicit motive and the employer's ultimate decision is

broken, and the ultimate decision is clearly made on an

independent and a legally permissive [sic] basis, the bias

of the subordinate is not relevant.

Willis v. Marion County Auditor's Office, 118 F.3d 542, 547

(1997). So much is uncontroversial; even Griffin agrees with

the principle. Hence, if it is true, as the WCC argues, that

Evans's "decision [to terminate Griffin was] independent of,

or insulated from" Doyle, then the evidence of Doyle's bias

was properly excluded as irrelevant.

Griffin maintains, however, that "Doyle was in fact an

integral part of the decision-making process" that led to her

discharge, so that Doyle's discriminatory motive "would have

infected any deliberations over whether to terminate Plaintiff's employment." We agree. Unlike the court in Willis,

we cannot say that "[t]he record affirmatively demonstrates

that [the decisionmaker's] estimation of the quality of [plaintiff's] work was not jaded by anyone else's subjective and

possibly [sexually] biased evaluation." 118 F.3d at 547.

On the contrary, Doyle was Evans's chief source of information regarding Griffin's job performance, repeatedly urged

Evans to terminate Griffin, was then made responsible for

training Griffin, helped develop the tests used to assess

Griffin, was responsible for evaluating Griffin's success on

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those tests, and was in contact with Evans at every significant

step in the decisionmaking process. Under these circumstances, in which Evans's dependence upon Doyle's opinion

was heightened by her inability independently to assess Griffin's technical proficiency, a jury exposed to the excluded

evidence of Doyle's sexism might well conclude that Doyle

used Evans, in Judge Posner's phrase, "as the conduit of [his]

prejudice--his cat's-paw." Shager v. Upjohn Co., 913 F.2d

398, 405 (7th Cir. 1990).

That Randolph Scott, a representative of Griffin's union,

and others participated in the decisionmaking process together with Doyle was not sufficient to insulate Evans from

Doyle's influence. By his own estimate, Scott personally

observed only some five percent of Griffin's training. Like

Evans, Scott depended upon Doyle's observations and evaluation for most of his knowledge about Griffin's performance.

Evidence of Doyle's intent is therefore relevant in evaluating

Griffin's termination, and the magistrate judge erred by

excluding it.

Thus do we join at least four other circuits in holding that

evidence of a subordinate's bias is relevant where the ultimate

decision maker is not insulated from the subordinate's influence. See Stacks v. Southwestern Bell Yellow Pages, Inc., 27

F.3d 1316, 1323 (8th Cir. 1994) ("an employer cannot escape

responsibility for [ ] discrimination ... when the facts on

which the reviewers rely have been filtered by a manager

determined to purge the labor force of [a protected class of]

workers"); see also, e.g., Abrams v. Lightolier, Inc., 50 F.3d

1204, 1214 (3d Cir. 1995); Simpson v. Diversitech General,

Inc., 945 F.2d 156, 160 (6th Cir. 1991); Shager v. Upjohn Co.,

913 F.2d 398, 405 (7th Cir. 1990); cf. Steverson v. Goldstein,

24 F.3d 666, 670 (5th Cir. 1994).

B.The Opened Door Doctrine

The magistrate judge's exclusion of testimony about

Doyle's alleged bias is particularly surprising in light of the

admission in evidence of Doyle's self-serving statements

about his lack of discriminatory intent. When Doyle testified

on direct examination that he had recommended to Evans

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that three employees, including Griffin, be terminated, the

following exchange ensued:

Q.Did you make those recommendations because they

were women?

A.No.... It has nothing to do with women. It has to

do with someone who has an electricians' [sic] license

who did not know basic fundamentals.

By eliciting that testimony, the WCC "opened the door" to

matters excluded by its own motion in limine. Testimony

impugning Doyle's intent should have been admitted on rebuttal at least for purposes of impeachment and in order to

prevent the jury from forming the erroneous impression that

the proper characterization of Doyle's intent was undisputed.

See United States v. Baird, 29 F.3d 647, 654 (D.C. Cir. 1994)

("Once the door is opened, the other party can get through it

otherwise irrelevant evidence 'to the extent necessary to

remove any unfair prejudice which might otherwise have

ensued' "). Yet when Griffin's counsel tried to bring the

excluded evidence in through the door opened during the

defendant's case-in-chief, the magistrate judge denied the

motion, thus compounding his error.

C.Harmless Error

The WCC maintains that any error in the exclusion of

evidence concerning Doyle's views on women as electricians is

harmless because of the overwhelming evidence that Griffin is

an incompetent electrician. That evidence does not, however,

render harmless the exclusion of the testimony regarding

Doyle's intent. Most of the evidence of Griffin's incompetence comes from the selfsame Doyle, and a jury might

weigh that evidence differently if it had reason to believe that

Doyle did not want women electricians in his shop. Moreover, the gravamen of Griffin's complaint is that her apparent

incompetence was the product of Doyle's animus against

women, which led him to neglect her training and then to test

her for skills that she did not need in order to do her job.

For these reasons we think that a reasonable jury that

heard the excluded evidence might have decided that the

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plaintiff was fired because of her sex notwithstanding the

evidence that she was terminated for incompetence. Accordingly, we must remand the case for a new trial.

III. CONCLUSION

Cleo Doyle played a central role in the decisionmaking

process that led to Griffin's termination. That Randolph

Scott and others also participated did not insulate Reba

Evans, the ultimate decisionmaker, from Doyle's influence in

deciding whether to fire Griffin. The testimony of three

witnesses that Doyle had said women should not be electricians and Griffin's testimony that he had told her she should

be at home, barefoot and pregnant, would permit a reasonable jury to infer that Griffin lost her job on account of her

sex. Therefore, the magistrate judge's exclusion of that

testimony was error, and we cannot rule out the possibility

that the error affected the outcome of the trial. Accordingly,

we vacate the judgment of the district court and remand the

case for a new trial.

It is so ordered.

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Sentelle, Circuit Judge, concurring: I join in my colleagues' judgment reversing the judgment of the district

court and remanding for a new trial, but I do so with the

utmost reluctance. When we review the evidentiary rulings

of a trial judge, we should be ever mindful of the express and

stringent standards set forth in Rule 103 of the Federal Rules

of Evidence that "[e]rror may not be predicated upon a ruling

which admits or excludes evidence unless a substantial right

of the party is affected...." In applying that rule we have

held, as have all other circuits, that district judges enjoy

broad discretion in their evidentiary rulings, and that we will

reverse such rulings "only if [they] are an abuse of discretion." Carey Canada, Inc. v. Columbia Cas. Co., 940 F.2d

1548, 1559 (D.C. Cir. 1991). On the record before us, taken

as a whole, that abuse of discretion is not apparent.

The evidence excluded by the district court went to the bias

of a subordinate and not the decision maker. As the majority

recognizes:

[W]hen the causal relationship between the subordinate's

illicit motive and the employer's ultimate decision is

broken, and the ultimate decision is clearly made on an

independent and legally permissive [sic] basis, the bias of

the subordinate is not relevant.

Willis v. Marion County Auditor's Office, 118 F.3d 542, 547

(7th Cir. 1997). The record before us is at least consistent

with, if not compellingly supportive of, a conclusion that

Evans, the ultimate decision maker, made the decision to

terminate appellant based on an objective test administered

with the participation of her union representative. This

testing alone would seem enough to break any causal relationship between Doyle's alleged bias and that decision. While

appellant is able to tease out of the record tenuous support

for the proposition that the causal connection was unbroken, I

find that to be a thin reed upon which to rest a reversal of a

final judgment based on an evidentiary ruling subject to an

abuse of discretion standard. It is most difficult to see this

ruling as affecting a "substantial right" of appellant.

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In the end, I join the reversal solely because of the theory

advanced in Part IIB of my colleagues' opinion. That is,

appellee "opened the door" to matters excluded by its own

motion in limine. See United States v. Baird, 29 F.3d 647,

654 (D.C. Cir. 1994). Under that theory--advanced, I might

add, more articulately by my colleagues than by appellant--I

agree that the trial judge's exercise of discretion crossed the

boundary of abuse, and I therefore join in the reversal.

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