Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-90-03052/USCOURTS-ca10-90-03052-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Robert R. Risch
Appellee
Richard Rodriguez
Appellant
United States Postal Service
Appellee

Document Text:

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• UNITED .STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

RICHARD RODRIGUEZ, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

) 

) 

. ) 

) 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals 

T~th Circuit 

FEB 111991 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

v. ) No. 90-3052 

UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE; ROBERT 

R. RISCH, Postmaster General, 

Defendants-Appellees. 

) (D.C. No. 87-1391C) 

) (D. Kan.) 

) 

) 

) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Before McKAY, SEYMOUR, and EBEL, Circuit Judges. 

Plaintiff-appellant Richard Rodriguez appeals the district 

court's Rule 41(b) dismissal of his civil rights claim against the 

defendant-appellee Postmaster General. 1 We affirm. 

Background 

Rodriguez is an American of Hispanic origin who has been 

employed at the United States Post Office in Dodge City, Kansas, 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

1 After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 

34(a); 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. The case is therefore ordered 

submitted without oral argument. 

Appellate Case: 90-3052 Document: 010110099914 Date Filed: 02/11/1991 Page: 1 
since 1978. In 1981, Rodriguez requested by letter to be 

reassigned from his then present position as a distribution clerk 

to a position as a letter carrier. Three other postal clerks also 

submitted written requests for this same reassignment during the 

year. Rodriguez was the third-most senior of this group of four 

clerks. 

In April 1982, two letter carrier positions became available 

at Rodriguez's post office. The office postmaster awarded these 

positions to the two most senior clerks who had submitted written 

reassignment requests. Both of these senior clerks were white. 

In January 1983, when a third letter carrier position became 

available, Rodriguez was reassigned to that position as the most 

senior of the two remaining clerks seeking transfer. In both 

instances, the postmaster stated that his reassignment decisions 

were based on a policy of reassigning the most senior clerk having 

a written reassignment request on file. 

Rodriguez protested his failure to obtain one of the April 

1982 letter carrier vacancies by, among other things, filing this 

action alleging national origin discrimination in federal 

employment in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 

1964, as amended, 42 u.s.c. S 2000e-16 (1988). This action was 

tried to the court on August 9-11, 1989. At the conclusion of 

plaintiff's case, defendant moved for involuntary dismissal of the 

action pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 4l(b) on the ground that 

Rodriguez had failed to carry his burden of proving that the 

defendant's stated reason for denying Rodriguez one of the April 

1982 carrier positions was pretextual. The district court granted 

2 

Appellate Case: 90-3052 Document: 010110099914 Date Filed: 02/11/1991 Page: 2 
this motion and documented the findings of fact and conclusions of 

law underlying its decision in a subsequent Memorandum and Order 

and Judgment. See Rodriquez v. Frank, No. 87-1391-C (D. Kan. 

Jan. 26, 1990). Rodriguez timely appealed. 

Discussion 

Rodriguez challenges the district court's judgment on two 

grounds. First, he claims that the district court erred in 

granting the Rule 41(b) motion because the evidence, viewed most 

favorably to his claims, at least raised an inference that the 

postmaster's explanation for his April 1982 reassignment decision 

was pretextual. This argument incorrectly assumes, however, that 

a Rule 41(b) motion is subject to the same standard for decision 

and review as a motion for directed verdict in a jury trial. To 

the contrary, a Rule 4l(b) motion "permit[s] a defendant to move 

for judgment in his favor 'when the district court, even before 

hearing the defendant's evidence, determines that the plaintiff 

has failed to offer persuasive evidence regarding the necessary 

elements of his case.'" Feldman v. Pioneer Petroleum, Inc., 

813 F.2d 296, 299 (10th Cir.)(quoting Du Pont v. Southern Nat'l 

Bank, 771 F.2d 874, 879 (5th Cir. 1985)), cert. denied, 

484 U.S. 954 (1987). In ruling on a Rule 41(b) motion, the 

district court "undertakes the fact finding process," including 

the weighing of evidence, the assessment of witnesses' credibility 

and the making of findings of fact. Id. at 299 n.4; see Crawford 

v. Northeastern Okla. State Univ., 713 F.2d 586, 588 (10th Cir. 

1983). The district court is not required to view the evidence in 

the light most favorable to plaintiff in undertaking this process, 

3 

Appellate Case: 90-3052 Document: 010110099914 Date Filed: 02/11/1991 Page: 3 
~ Olsen v. Progressive Music Supply. Inc., 703 F.2d 432, 436 

(10th Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 866 (1983). 

Given these standards, our task on appeal is limited to 

determining whether the findings of fact underlying the district 

court's decision in this case were clearly erroneous. See 

Feldman, 813 F.2d at 299 n.4. Rodriguez does not so argue and our 

own review of the record indicates that the district court's 

factual findings are supported by substantial evidence. 

Accordingly, we find no error in the district court's dismissal of 

Rodriguez's motion pursuant to Rule 41(b). 

Rodriguez also argues that the district court's judgment must 

be reversed because of four allegedly improper evidentiary 

rulings. We review the district court's rulings in each instance 

for abuse of discretion. Kloepfer v. Honda Motor Co., 

898 F.2d 1452, 1456 (10th Cir. 1990). 

Rodriguez first claims that the district court committed 

reversible error when it refused to allow a white postal employee 

to speculate on whether he would have received a letter carrier 

position in 1974 under a policy that awarded vacant carrier 

positions to the most senior clerk who had verbally expressed an 

interest in the position. See Tr. at 235. The answer to this 

question, however, has little apparent relevance to the question 

of whether the Dodge City postmaster's claimed reliance on a 

different policy in 1982 was a pretext. Accordingly, we find no 

abuse of discretion in the district court's refusal to admit this 

opinion testimony. See Kloepfer, 898 F.2d at 1459 (opinion of 

4 

Appellate Case: 90-3052 Document: 010110099914 Date Filed: 02/11/1991 Page: 4 
nonexpert only admissible if, among other things, it is helpful to 

determination of a fact at issue). 

Rodriguez next claims that the district court erred in 

refusing to admit his proposed Exhibit 16, a document that 

reportedly established the Dodge City postmaster's policy on 

reassignments as of April 1985. Given the questionable relevance 

of the postmaster's policy three years after the events at issue 

in this case, we again find no abuse of discretion in the district 

court's refusal to admit this exhibit. For the same reason, we 

find no abuse of discretion in the district court's refusal to 

allow testimony regarding the Dodge City postmaster's handling of 

the 1985 reassignment of postal clerks Ramos and Durler. 2 

Rodriguez's final evidentiary challenge is to the district 

court's refusal to admit hearsay testimony regarding the alleged 

statement of a white postal clerk that he was recruited by postal 

officials to apply for reassignment to a letter carrier position. 

Tr. at 413. Rodriguez argues that this testimony was 

admissible under Rule 803(l)'s exception to the hearsay rule 

because the declarant's statement was a description of an "'event 

••• [which] the declarant was perceiving.'" Brief of Appellant 

at 21 (quoting Fed. R. Evid. 803(1)). We disagree. Accordingly, 

we find no abuse of discretion in the district court's refusal to 

admit this testimony. 

2 We also note that the record does not support Rodriguez's 

implicit claim that these transfers were handled in a 

discriminatory fashion or in a manner otherwise inconsistent with 

the seniority policy the postmaster claims to have applied in 

April 1982. See Tr. at 184-91. 

5 

Appellate Case: 90-3052 Document: 010110099914 Date Filed: 02/11/1991 Page: 5 
For this reason and those stated above, the judgment of the 

United States District Court for the District of Kansas is 

AFFIRMED. 

ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

Judge Monroe G. McKay 

6 

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