Opinion ID: 777187
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Counsel Misconduct.

Text: 76 Finally, Tidyman's contends that the district court erred by denying the motion for a new trial because of alleged misconduct by the plaintiffs' counsel. Recognizing that the district court is in a superior position to gauge the prejudicial impact of counsel's conduct during the trial, we will not overrule a district court's ruling about the impact of counsel's alleged misconduct unless we have a definite and firm conviction that the court committed a clear error of judgment. Anheuser-Busch Inc. v. Natural Beverage Distribs., 69 F.3d 337, 346 (9th Cir.1995) (internal quotations and citation omitted). 77 Generally, misconduct by trial counsel results in a new trial if the flavor of misconduct sufficiently permeate[s] an entire proceeding to provide conviction that the jury was influenced by passion and prejudice in reaching its verdict. Kehr v. Smith Barney, 736 F.2d 1283, 1286 (9th Cir.1994). 78 Tidyman's complains of several comments by plaintiffs' counsel during closing arguments. 21 The most significant comment was the following statement by the plaintiffs' attorney during the closing argument: 79 [Tidyman's has] not corrected any of these [discriminatory] policies and they knew that they should because this is not the first time they have been sued. I have sued them before in 1994, so they had subjective policies which had disparate impact on all women, including plaintiffs, and that proves our case because they did not have a business necessity for doing it, and there were ways to fix it. 80 (Emphasis supplied). 81 Tidyman's failed to object to this statement or any other statement made by counsel during closing argument. Nor did Tidyman's move for a mistrial on the basis of counsel's misconduct. The first time Tidyman's complained of the misconduct was in its motion for a new trial. The district court noted that it would have sustained an objection to the comment during closing argument: I remember the comment and I thought I sua sponte corrected it, but maybe I just thought about it and would have sustained an objection had one been made because it was totally improper. Although the district court acknowledged the impropriety of the remark, it denied the motion for a new trial and ruled that a new trial was not necessary to avoid a miscarriage of justice. 82 The federal courts erect a high threshold to claims of improper closing arguments in civil cases raised for the first time after trial. Kaiser Steel Corp. v. Frank Coluccio Constr. Co., 785 F.2d 656, 658 (9th Cir.1986). The rationale for this high threshold is two-fold. First, raising an objection after the closing argument and before the jury begins deliberations permit[s] the judge to examine the alleged prejudice and to admonish ... counsel or issue a curative instruction, if warranted. Id. As noted above, the trial judge is in a superior position to evaluate the likely effect of the alleged misconduct and to fashion an appropriate remedy. The second rationale stems from courts' concern that allowing a party to wait to raise the error until after the negative verdict encourages that party to sit silent in the face of claimed error. 83 We will review for plain or fundamental error, absent a contemporaneous objection..., where the integrity or fundamental fairness of the proceedings in the trial court is called into serious question. Bird v. Glacier Electric Coop. Inc., 255 F.3d 1136, 1148 (9th Cir.2001). 84 Plain error review requires: (1) an error, (2) the error is plain or obvious, (3) the error was prejudicial or effects substantial rights, and (4) review is necessary to prevent a miscarriage of justice. See Smith v. Kmart Corp., 177 F.3d 19, 25 (1st Cir.1999) (describing the plain error standard in a civil counsel misconduct case). Plain error is a rare species in civil litigation, encompassing only those errors that reach the pinnacle of fault envisioned by the standard set forth above. Id. at 26 (internal citations and quotations omitted). 85 We readily conclude that the plaintiffs' counsel's statement during closing argument was error. Counsel inappropriately referred to other cases that she herself had litigated. The fact that she personally had litigated the cases had no relevance to the lawsuit. Nor should she have suggested that this litigation proved the case. We also find that the error was plain. Plaintiff's remarks were obviously improper and blatant enough for the trial judge to recall them easily. 86 We next must consider whether counsel's error was prejudicial and fundamentally unfair. [T]he burden of making a `concrete showing of prejudice' resulting from improper closing argument falls upon appellant. Moses v. Union Pac. R.R., 64 F.3d 413, 418 (8th Cir.1995). In evaluating the likelihood of prejudice from the comments, we should consider the totality of circumstances, including the nature of the comments, their frequency, their possible relevancy to the real issues before the jury, the manner in which the parties and the court treated the comments, the strength of the case, and the verdict itself. Puerto Rico Aqueduct & Sewer Auth. v. Constructora Lluch, Inc., 169 F.3d 68, 82 (1st Cir.1999); see also Cooper v. Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., 945 F.2d 1103, 1107 (9th Cir.1991) (declining to find reversible error where the alleged misconduct occurred only in the argument phase of the trial ... the remarks were isolated rather than persistent, ... most of counsel's comments were not objected to at trial and appellants did not move for a mistrial at the end of the argument). 87 We note, however, that this remedy is available only in extraordinary cases. Bird, 255 F.3d at 1148. For instance, in Bird, the court concluded that counsel's closing arguments offended fundamental fairness where counsel: (1) argued in inflammatory terms; (2) linked the defendant's behavior to white racism in exploitation of Indians; (3) appealed to historical racial prejudices of or against the white race; and (4) used incendiary racial and nationalistic terms to encourage the all-tribal member jury to award against the non-Indian defendant. Id. at 1152. 88 The misconduct in this case is substantially different from the misconduct in Bird. Here, the misconduct was an isolated, short comment during a closing statement that covered 66 pages when transcribed. Tidyman's urges us to weigh other instances where the plaintiffs referred to prior lawsuits against Tidyman's as evidence that the plaintiffs deliberately violated the district court's ruling excluding such references. Tidyman's first points to its testimony by Hemmings and contends that, in conjunction with her testimony, the district court sustained defense counsel's objections to testimony that Tidyman's had been sued before. A review of the record does not support this contention. 89 Hemmings testified about conversations that she had with the director of loss prevention, the discussions that I had with him were that we [Tidyman's] had been sued before and we lost and we need to get women in management positions. The defense objected to this statement on hearsay grounds, and the trial court sustained the objection. Hemmings then testified as follows, without objection by defense counsel: 90 Q: Connie, what was your part of the conversation with Mr. Armstrong? 91 A: That we needed to get more management — women in management positions to prevent getting continually sued. 92 Q: And you indicated that the company has been sued before. Do you know who had sued the company; were they women? 93 A: There were two women and one — actually two guys that I know of. 94 Q: And did those women sue the company for discrimination? 95 A: Yes. 96 Hemmings went on to describe the failure of the defendant to establish programs that would have supported the movement of women into management programs, despite corporate recognition of the need for such programs. Tidyman's did not object to any portion of this testimony. 97 The jury also heard from the plaintiffs' expert, Dr. Polissar, that Tidyman's had been sued before by plaintiffs' counsel: 98 Q: Have you ever — have you and I ever worked together before? 99 A: Yes, we have on one other case. 100 Q: And what case was that? 101 A: That was a case — a lawsuit against Tidyman's and you were representing the plaintiff and you asked me to help out on that. 102 Q: And was our plaintiff a woman? 103 A: Yes. 104 Q: And what were you analyzing? 105 A: Well, at that point — 106 Defense Counsel: Objection, Your Honor, that is not this case. 107 The Court: I will sustain the objection. That is enough. 108 The defense counsel did not move to strike the portion of Dr. Polissar's testimony referring to the prior lawsuit against Tidyman's. The jury thus learned, without objection by the defense counsel, that the plaintiffs' counsel had sued Tidyman's before, that Tidyman's had lost gender discrimination cases in the past, and that the plaintiffs' expert, Dr. Polissar, worked with plaintiffs' counsel in another case against Tidyman's. 109 The actions by the court and the parties support an inference that the misconduct was not prejudicial or fundamentally unfair. Although the district court noted that the reference was error, he did not sua sponte issue a correction, instead preferring to wait to issue a limiting instruction until counsel objected. The fact that counsel did not object before the jury was instructed strongly suggests that counsel made a strategic decision to gamble on the verdict and suspected that the comments would not sway the jury. 110 The strength of the plaintiffs' case is another factor that weighs against a finding of fundamental unfairness. The plaintiffs' expert testimony went largely unrefuted. The plaintiffs introduced compelling testimony about a discriminatory culture and the disparate impact of the discrimination on women's pay and promotion options. In the absence of counsel's improper statements, we cannot say that we think a different verdict was likely. We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying Tidyman's' motion for a new trial because of counsel misconduct during the closing statement.