Opinion ID: 6500458
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Impeachment Evidence

Text: We begin with the district court's exclusion of evidence that Lama's then-16-year-old daughter accused Gonpo of rape just months before Gonpo began to pursue the wage claims at issue here. Pre-trial, Lama moved in limine for permission to introduce evidence of these allegations to show that Gonpo brought this suit to manipulate the rape prosecution and pressure Lama's daughter to drop the case. Gonpo, of course, opposed the introduction of this evidence, contending the evidence was immaterial and subject to exclusion under Rule 403 given its great possibility for prejudice. After a hearing, the district court denied Lama's motion, thus excluding any evidence of the rape allegations from trial. The district court said that the allegations appear irrelevant to the [wage] claims, but also recognized that [i]t is possible that the allegations motivated [Gonpo] to bring this lawsuit and that they could show that Gonpo had a motive to fabricate[] his claims, though calling them tenuously relevant at best. Nonetheless, the district court found the evidence incendiary and concluded it would be improper, unfair, and unnecessary to allow the evidence. Moreover, the district court said, where a plaintiff is entitled to relief, his motives for bringing suit are immaterial. Lama now calls foul. - 5 - Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b) prohibits the introduction of a person's prior crimes or bad acts when used to prove a person's character in order to show that on a particular occasion the person acted in accordance with the character. This rule is not, however, an absolute bar to the admission of priorbad-acts evidence. United States v. Gentles, 619 F.3d 75, 86 (1st Cir. 2010). Evidence of prior bad acts may be admitted if it passes a two-part test. Id. First, the bad-act evidence must have special relevance, meaning that it is not admitted solely to show propensity. United States v. Doe, 741 F.3d 217, 229 (1st Cir. 2013). Included in that category of special relevance is evidence designed to prov[e] motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, or lack of accident. Fed. R. Evid. 404(b)(2). That list, however, is not exhaustive. Udemba v. Nicoli, 237 F.3d 8, 15 (1st Cir. 2001). Second, if the evidence has some special relevance, it still must clear the strictures of Rule 403, which provides that a court may exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of, among other concerns, unfair prejudice. Fed. R. Evid. 403; see Doe, 741 F.3d at 229. We review the district court's judgment calls on this two-part test for abuse of discretion. See Doe, 741 F.3d at 229. Within this rubric, though, abstract legal questions are - 6 - reviewed de novo with the understanding that a material error of law is always an abuse of discretion. United States v. Pires, 642 F.3d 1, 10 (1st Cir. 2011). Moreover, on the second part of the test (the balancing act under Rule 403), we have made clear that the district court's discretion is especially broad. Only rarely -- and in extraordinarily compelling circumstances -- will we, from the vista of a cold appellate record, reverse a district court's on-the-spot judgment concerning the relative weighing of probative value and unfair effect. Doe, 741 F.3d at 229 (cleaned up) (quoting United States v. Li, 206 F.3d 78, 84–85 (1st Cir. 2000)). Lama first contends that the district court failed to employ our two-step analysis. Rather than grapple with the nonpropensity test under Rule 404(b), Lama claims, the district court erroneously concluded that Gonpo's improper motive in bringing this suit was irrelevant. He styles this error -- the supposed error in failing to apply the two-step test -- a legal one, and thus suggests de novo review applies. However, we do not read the district court as failing to employ the proper test. Indeed, the court did assess the relevance of the evidence here, but found it irrelevant or immaterial. And although the district court made those comments about motive being immaterial, the court's ruling nonetheless makes clear that the primary basis for its ruling was Rule 403's balancing test. - 7 - On that point, the district court considered the relevance of the possib[ility] that the [rape] allegations motivated [Gonpo] to bring this lawsuit, calling them tenuously relevant, and acknowledged Lama's argument that they provided motive for Gonpo to fabricate[] his claims. But balancing that probative value, the court merely concluded that, provided how incendiary this evidence is, . . . it would be improper, unfair, and unnecessary to admit it. The court continued, Gonpo has the right to have a jury assess his claim without unfair prejudice, regardless of his reasons for asserting it. We thus see the district court as acknowledging the potential probative value of the evidence, but nonetheless finding it excludable under Rule 403. Given that principal basis for its ruling, we next proceed to reviewing the district court's Rule 403 analysis. See United States v. Gilbert, 229 F.3d 15, 22–23 (1st Cir. 2000) (taking the same route). On the Rule 403 balancing act, Lama does nothing to question the district court's on-the-spot judgment -- rather he attacks only the court's failure to recognize the relevance of the evidence. Even though we are a bit skeptical of the district court's discounted-probative-value analysis under 404(b), we nonetheless find no abuse of discretion in the court's Rule 403 evaluation.4 See Gilbert, 229 F.3d at 23 (Although the non- 4 Our skepticism flows from the district court's characterization of Gonpo's motives for bringing suit here as being - 8 - comprehensive nature of the district court's written remarks on the matter leaves us less than entirely confident in its conclusion that the . . . evidence would be unlikely to have any probative value, we are not convinced that relevant matters deserving of significant weight have been overlooked in the course of the court's Rule 403 balancing. (emphases in original) (internal quotation marks, citation, and footnote omitted)). Rule 403 provides a mechanism to guard against the possibility that evidence could . . . cause the jury to condemn entirely irrelevant or immaterial. See Pittsley v. Warish, 927 F.2d 3, 10 (1st Cir. 1991) (concluding that charges against the plaintiff were probative in demonstrating motive and bias in a civil suit against the police officer who arrested the plaintiff and testified against her at an earlier criminal trial leading to her conviction), overruled in part on other grounds as recognized by Martínez v. Cui, 608 F.3d 54, 63–65 (1st Cir. 2010); accord Heath v. Cast, 813 F.2d 254, 259 (9th Cir. 1987) (Evidence of Heath's prior arrest, and of his brother's prior misdemeanor convictions, were probative of their bias against the Newport Beach police and of Heath's motive in bringing this action.). We also share Lama's concern with the district court's citation to Johnson v. King-Richardson Co., 36 F.2d 675, 677 (1st Cir. 1930), in this context. Johnson is not only a case from before the enactment of the Federal Rules of Evidence, it also did not involve the admissibility of evidence. See id. at 676–77. Johnson was an appeal from a dismissal of a suit, and the suit was dismissed at least in part because the district court found that the plaintiff's motive or purpose in instituting this suit was not in good faith to redress wrongs honestly believed to exist, but to drive the corporation out of business. Id. at 676. We reversed, noting that [t]he rule generally prevailing is that, where a suitor is entitled to relief in respect to the matter concerning which he sues, his motives are immaterial. Id. As we just suggested, it would be rare that a party's motives for bringing suit would be wholly immaterial to the credibility of their testimony. See Pittsley, 927 F.2d at 10. - 9 - a [party] based on passion or bias, for example, which is a nono. United States v. Jones, 748 F.3d 64, 71 (1st Cir. 2014). As we have explained in the criminal context, Rule 403 is concerned with a jury that uses that evidence to convict because it is disgusted by the defendant's criminal past rather than convinced that he did the crime charged. Id. Recognizing this possibility, we have upheld the exclusion of prior bad act evidence in part because it was 'undeniably explosive,' or is a 'shocking or heinous crime likely to inflame the jury.' United States v. Varoudakis, 233 F.3d 113, 122 (1st Cir. 2000) (first quoting Gilbert, 229 F.3d at 26; then quoting United States v. Moccia, 681 F.2d 61, 64 (1st Cir. 1982)). The proposed evidence here is of that cloth. Allegations that Gonpo raped Lama's then-16-year-old daughter would certainly be explosive evidence of a shocking or heinous crime likely to inflame the jury. Id. Those allegations raise the specter that even if the jurors believed that Gonpo had a legitimate wage claim uninfected with bad motive, they might nonetheless find against Gonpo out of disgust for his bad acts -- particularly where finding for Gonpo would foist a financial burden on the family of the alleged victim. And that is precisely the concern that the district court here, aligning with Rule 403, sought to avoid. This - 10 - is far from the rare and extraordinarily compelling circumstance where we will reverse that judgment call.5 Nor, we note, was Lama's defense entirely hamstringed as he now bemoans. Contrary to Lama's assertion that he was robbed of his ability to draw Gonpo's credibility into question, Lama spent time aplenty poking holes in Gonpo's story on crossexamination.6 For example, Lama tried to muddy Gonpo's credibility by pointing out that on multiple occasions Gonpo's trial testimony about what he was paid was inconsistent with his written discovery and deposition responses. Lama also introduced evidence that called into question other parts of Gonpo's testimony. For instance, Gonpo claimed he never took any vacation breaks, but 5 Just FYI: Regardless of whether the district court's relevancy ruling was under Rule 404(b) or Rule 401, the soundness of the Rule 403 determination means there was no reversible error. 6 We acknowledge the important role attacking Gonpo's credibility played to Lama's defense. Because Lama's bookkeeper apparently failed to keep records, Gonpo was entitled to a burdenshifting instruction under Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680, 687–88 (1946). Mt. Clemens provides that where an employer fails to keep adequate records, the employee can meet her FLSA burden by prov[ing] that [s]he has in fact performed work for which [s]he was improperly compensated and . . . produc[ing] sufficient evidence to show the amount and extent of that work as a matter of just and reasonable inference. Id. at 687. When the worker does so, [t]he burden then shifts to the employer to come forward with evidence of the precise amount of work performed or with evidence to negative the reasonableness of the inference to be drawn from the employee's evidence. Id. at 687–88. If the employer fails to produce such evidence, the court may then award damages to the employee, even though the result [may] be only approximate. Id. at 688. - 11 - Lama introduced contradictory testimony that Gonpo did in fact take time off for various religious events or holidays. Further, Lama got Gonpo to concede during cross-examination that all of the workers followed the same schedule, and then during his defense brought in three other employees who said they didn't work the 57hour schedule Gonpo claims to have done. And Lama further attacked Gonpo's credibility when during cross-examination, Lama questioned Gonpo about wiring money he made back to his family in Tibet, which according to Lama, totaled more than Gonpo claimed to have been paid by Lama in certain years. Not to mention Gonpo conceding during cross that he was canned from his job for something that had nothing to do with the work -- a detail that suggested Gonpo had some motive to fabricate his claims. In short, Lama had other opportunities, using less incendiary evidence, to marshal a robust defense.