Opinion ID: 1420265
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admission of the Ford Memo and Virginia Perry's Testimony

Text: Kotowski's Exhibit 7 is a three-page, handwritten memo from Bruce Ford, an investigator with Purcell Security, to Tom Varnell, his superior. Veco had contracted with Purcell to provide security for the cleanup, which included the investigation of allegations of rulebreaking on the cleanup vessels. The Ford memo summarizes the information Ford and fellow Purcell employee Mark Flechsing had gathered concerning Kotowski, Posehn, and other Norcon employees between July 2, 1989, and July 5, 1989. Kotowski offered the memo into evidence to prove the truth of the matters asserted in the following portion of the memo: Re: Mike Posehn. I talked with two roommates of Mike Posehn at the Foss 280 Rm. 235. The individuals were Jim Stampley and Mark Ruder and both Norcon employees. Stampley said that Posehn did have a lot of female visitors in his room and there was drinking of alcoholic beverages as a supervisor as a springboard for sexual activity with the females under his supervision. I also talked with Sgt. Mark Flechsing who is the head of security for Purcell at the Midway Barge. Flechsing said he had talked to Larry Coyle, one of the head supervisors for Norcon, concerning Posehn. Coyle told Flechsing that Posehn would do favors for some of his female crew in exchange for some sort of sexual activity. Coyle is now on R & R and is unavailable to be interviewed. Norcon objected, arguing that this memo was inadmissible hearsay. Kotowski argued that the memo fell within the business records exception to the hearsay rule. See Alaska R. Evid. 803(6). Norcon also contested this, in part because the memo was an investigative report containing the hearsay statements of others. The superior court admitted the memo under the business records exception. The business records exception to the hearsay rule allows the admission of hearsay evidence that is: A memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, in any form, of acts, events, conditions, opinions, or diagnosis, made at or near the time by, or from information transmitted by, a person with knowledge acquired of a regularly conducted business activity, and if it was the regular practice of that business activity to make and keep the memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, all as shown by the testimony of the custodian or other qualified witness, unless the source of information or the method or circumstances of preparation indicate lack of trustworthiness. Alaska R. Evid. 803(6). On appeal Norcon does not contest the superior court's implicit findings that Ford acquired his information as part of a regularly-conducted business activity, and that it was Purcell's regular practice to make and keep memoranda of this type. Instead, Norcon objects to the fact that the memo consisted of the double and triple hearsay of Coyle and Stampley, the informants who provided the information contained in the memo. According to Norcon, even if Ford acted within the regular course of business in preparing the memo, no indication exists that these informants were acting within the regular course of their business. Norcon refers this court to the commentary on Rule 803(6), which reads in part: Sources of information present no substantial problem with ordinary business records. All participants, including the observer or participant furnishing the information to be recorded, are acting routinely, under a duty of accuracy, with employer reliance on the result, or in short in the regular course of business. If, however, the supplier of the information does not act in the regular course, an essential link is broken; the assurance of accuracy does not extend to the information itself, and the fact that it may be recorded with scrupulous accuracy is of no avail. Alaska R. Evid. 803(6) commentary. Kotowski argues that Coyle and Stampley had business reasons, as employees of Norcon, to provide accurate and truthful responses. She argues alternatively that the testimony of these informants should be regarded as non-hearsay, as admissions of a party-opponent. Alaska R. Evid. 801(d)(2). [11] This alternative argument rests on the assumption that because Coyle and Stampley were supervisory and safety employees, their statements concerned a matter within the scope of their agency or employment. See Alaska R. Evid. 801(d)(2)(D). In its reply brief, Norcon does not contest the admissibility of the Ford memo based on this alternative theory. In our view, the alternative argument has merit. To use the terms of Rule 801(d)(2), both Coyle and Stampley were agents speaking at a time that they were employed by Norcon. As supervisors and safety employees, alcohol use and sexual harassment are apparently matters which their jobs required them to report, especially in response to an employer-initiated investigation. We therefore conclude that it was not error to admit the Ford memo.
Virginia Perry was a Norcon employee and foreman of a crew working on the oil spill cleanup. Her supervisor was Posehn. She was allowed to testify that Posehn had made sexual advances to her, that she had rejected them, and that he had retaliated by humiliating her in front of her crew and giving her and her crew difficult work assignments. She testified that the women Posehn was close to were given the cushy jobs. She said that she was unaware of any Norcon procedures for reporting sexual harassment, that if such procedures existed she would have used them, and that she and her crew were terrified by Posehn. Norcon argues that Perry's testimony was far more prejudicial than probative and the court should have excluded it under Evidence Rule 403. [12] Norcon apparently never objected to the portions of her testimony outlined above. [13] Under these circumstances, we consider this point waived. See Williams v. Utility Equip., Inc., 837 P.2d 1112, 1116-17 (Alaska 1992).