Opinion ID: 6800285
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Jerry M. Investigation

Text: Appellant contends that the trial court abused its discretion by refusing to allow evidence from the Jerry M. investigation. 62 Appellant asserts that “[t]he jurors may well have viewed the tuberculosis disclosures more favorably if they had known that Ishakwue was not alone in challenging DYRS’s communicable (…continued) argument that she knew, when she made the disclosure to Nurse Jackson regarding the first youth “around” December 25, 2015, that the youth had had a positive PPD reading. 62 See supra note 55. 38 disease protocols,” and that the proposed evidence “was relevant under Zirkle’s ‘disinterested observer’ standard.” 63 In the first place, it is not clear exactly what evidence appellant seeks to introduce. Her brief cites Federal Rules of Evidence 404(b) and 408, as well as case law from other jurisdictions, establishing that civil consent decrees may be admitted for limited purposes other than proving liability. The 1986 consent decree, however, has not been produced as part of the record in this case. Moreover, the record here pertaining to the Jerry M. litigation consists of only a few disjointed pages from a 2016 Special Arbiter’s Report to the court regarding the District’s progress toward meeting work plan requirements at DYRS facilities. That evidence includes, as background, a sentence that the 1986 consent decree required DYRS to comply with various APHA standards 64 related to various areas, including communicable diseases. That generalized statement, without more, does not explain its relevance. 63 See 830 A.2d at 1259-60. 64 See supra note 58. 39 Even if admissible, therefore, such evidence would have had no discernible relevance to the question of whether appellant’s communications regarding the two youths she suspected of having tuberculosis amounted to protected disclosures under the WPA. 65