Opinion ID: 457711
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Evidence of Other Transactions

Text: 29 Rothberg urges that a new trial should be granted because the trial court admitted evidence concerning the four other joint ventures in which the parties engaged, each of which also involved the use, for the advantage of the joint venturers, of insider information. Evidence of other crimes is admissible to show motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity or absence of mistake or accident. Fed.R.Evid. 404(b). Intent, knowledge, and absence of mistake were relevant for establishment of the equal fault element of the in pari delicto defense. It is true that for purposes of the in pari delicto defense a court may look only to conduct associated with the transaction before it, and may not forbid recovery on account of a plaintiff's activities in another setting. Tarasi v. Pittsburgh National Bank, 555 F.2d 1152, 1157 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 965, 98 S.Ct. 504, 54 L.Ed.2d 451 (1977). The trial court did not, however, apply the defense on account of the other transactions, but relied on the other joint ventures as evidence of the nature and purpose of the joint ventures to trade in Mallory Russell and in Gulton stock. For that purpose, the evidence was clearly admissible, and supported the court's finding that Rothberg and the Rosenblooms entered those joint ventures with a knowing purpose of trading on insider information.