Opinion ID: 4533284
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Exclusion Of The Pre-October 23, 2012 Evidence

Text: The sole claim that made it to trial was that Pearson was terminated in retaliation for filing the October 23, 2013 EEOC charge. The court excluded as irrelevant evidence about anything that occurred before she filled out a questionnaire on October 23, 2012 prefatory to filing the EEOC charge. The parties and the district court treated that date as the beginning of her protected conduct, and so will we. The court excluded evidence of any conduct by the defendants before that date because it could not have been evidence of retaliation for protected conduct that had not yet happened. We review that evidentiary ruling only for an abuse of discretion. Cook ex rel. Estate of Tessier v. Sheriff of Monroe Cty., 402 F.3d 1092, 1103 (11th Cir. 2005). We will not reverse a district court’s decision to exclude evidence “unless the ruling is manifestly erroneous.” Toole v. Baxter Healthcare Corp., 235 F.3d 1307, 1312 (11th Cir. 2000) (quoting Gen. Elec. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136, 142 (1997)). And even if the decision is manifestly erroneous, we will not reverse if 23 Case: 17-15275 Date Filed: 05/11/2020 Page: 24 of 33 the error was harmless. United States v. Langford, 647 F.3d 1309, 1323 (11th Cir. 2011). According to Pearson, the district court erred by ruling any and all preOctober 23 evidence per se irrelevant instead of considering each piece of proffered evidence individually to determine its relevance. We disagree. “Evidence is relevant if: (a) it has any tendency to make a fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence; and (b) the fact is of consequence in determining the action.” Fed. R. Evid. 401. The alleged events or conduct that occurred before October 23, 2012 that Pearson argues were relevant to the question of whether Shanahan had a retaliatory intent when he fired her, include: Shanahan’s August 2012 false accusation of worker’s compensation fraud against Pearson, Shanahan’s July 2012 false accusation against Pearson of losing a radio, Shanahan’s May 2012 leak of Pearson’s personnel records to the media, Shanahan’s prior retaliation and leak of information in 2010 when employed by the city of St. Mary’s, Shanahan’s manipulation of the H.R. process to get Sam [Smith] to replace Pearson as manager after her demotion, and the retaliatory hostile work environment suffered by Pearson . . . . None of that evidence has any tendency to make it more probable that Shanahan retaliated against Pearson based on her October 2012 EEOC activities and filings, instead of for some other reason, because all of that evidence relates to incidents that occurred before she did the first protected act. See Fed. R. Evid. 401. 24 Case: 17-15275 Date Filed: 05/11/2020 Page: 25 of 33 Pearson’s evidence of pre-October 23, 2012 events and conduct actually tends to prove the lack of a retaliatory motive stemming from her protected conduct on and after that date. It shows that Shanahan had taken adverse actions against Pearson before she took the first step to filing the EEOC charge. Which tends to show there were other motives behind her termination. No matter how bad the motive for terminating Pearson may have been, if it was not in retaliation for her protected conduct in connection with the EEOC charge, it is not relevant –– at least not in a direction that helps Pearson. If anything, the evidence would have harmed Pearson’s retaliation case, which means that any error in excluding it would have been harmless to her. The district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding evidence of pre-October 23, 2012 conduct against Pearson.