Opinion ID: 797952
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admission of photograph of Ammons-Lewis and one of her alleged harassers

Text: 12 Ammons-Lewis next contests the district court's decision to admit into evidence a photograph that she and witness Willie Davis had posed for on a social occasion. 2 Some background is necessary to establish the context for our analysis. 13 Davis was a co-worker of Ammons-Lewis and, as noted, he was also one of the people she accused of sexually harassing her. Ammons-Lewis testified that Davis had begun to proposition her sexually in 2000, when she was divorcing her husband. She indicated that she consistently rebuffed his requests, but he continued to proposition and otherwise harass her. She testified that she complained about the harassment to no avail. The harassment she described culminated in an incident that took place in December 2001. Ammons-Lewis testified that she was near the end of her shift when she encountered Davis, who was to relieve her. According to Ammons-Lewis, Davis tried to engage her in sexual banter, began tugging provocatively at his clothes, and sexually propositioned her. Ammons-Lewis at first tried to ignore him and when that did not work, she told him that they had no need to speak to one another unless it was about work. This evidently prompted Davis to unleash a tirade of profanities at her. Then the confrontation became physical, according to Ammons-Lewis. She testified that when she turned her back on him to make a phone call, Davis came up from behind her, wrapped his arms around her neck, and put her in a choke hold so tight that she found it difficult to breathe. She used her car keys to scratch his hands in an effort to break free, but Davis responded by scratching her face. The incident ended when one of their co-workers came on the scene and separated the two of them. After eventually seeking treatment at a hospital, Ammons-Lewis filed a complaint with the Chicago police about this incident. R. 129-3 at 276-81, 288-91. 14 In advance of trial, Ammons-Lewis filed a motion seeking to preclude any insinuation that she and Davis had been romantically involved with one another at some time prior to the events underlying her suit. R. 66. Ammons-Lewis acknowledged that she had had some contact with Davis outside of the workplace: Davis was a family friend, and the two of them had attended some of the same events outside of the office. Id. ¶ 2. But Ammons-Lewis denied that she and Davis had ever dated, and apparently she expected (wrongly, as it turned out) that Davis would testify to the same effect. Id. ¶¶ 4-5. Nonetheless, she had some expectation that one or more witnesses would insinuate otherwise, and she sought to preclude them from doing so given that she expected both Davis and herself to disclaim any such relationship. Id. ¶¶ 6-9. The District quickly disabused Ammons-Lewis of the notion that Davis would deny having dated her and indicated in its opposition to her motion that it planned to present testimony from multiple witnesses with knowledge of their relationship that they had, in fact, been romantically involved. R. 58. On that basis, the district court denied the motion, R. 67, although it indicated that any testimony based on what a witness thought or assumed about the nature of their relationship would not be allowed, R. 129-1 at 23. 15 As expected, there was conflicting testimony on this point at trial. Davis testified that he and Ammons-Lewis had dated one another for substantial periods of time prior to the events underlying her complaint. R. 129-5 at 878-80. Ammons-Lewis, on the other hand, testified that she and Davis had never dated. She indicated that Davis was a friend to one of her cousins and a couple of her brothers and that she and Davis had attended some of the same social events outside of the office, but she denied that they had attended any such events together as a couple. R. 129-3 at 269, 412; R. 129-4 at 455-56, 460. 16 The photograph that Ammons-Lewis contends should have been excluded was first disclosed while she was on the witness stand at trial. Ammons-Lewis's direct examination had concluded late in the week, and her cross-examination had commenced but not concluded before the trial broke for the weekend. On the following Monday morning, defense counsel disclosed that over the weekend, Davis had discovered a photograph of Ammons-Lewis, Davis, and four other individuals at a party that took place a number of years prior to the trial. The defense sought permission to introduce the photograph for the purpose of impeaching Ammons-Lewis's prior testimony denying any sort of dating or romantic relationship with Davis. Ammons-Lewis objected to the photo, arguing among other things that the photo should have been produced in discovery and that disclosure of the photograph would prejudice her because she had not had the opportunity to explain the photograph during her testimony on direct examination. The district court overruled her objection, but granted Ammons-Lewis a few moments to review the photo with her counsel before her cross-examination resumed and she was questioned about the photo. R. 129-4 at 450-53. The photo was subsequently shown to the jury and admitted into evidence. Id. at 461. 17 Not surprisingly, Ammons-Lewis and Davis gave divergent testimony about the circumstances of the photograph. Ammons-Lewis testified that the photograph had been taken at a fundraiser or similar function that she had attended some ten years earlier along with her brothers and her cousin. Although Davis had also attended the event, she testified that they had not attended that party or any other as a couple. Id. at 456-61, 557-58. Davis, on the other hand, recalled the event as a birthday party and, more to the point, said that Ammons-Lewis had come to the event as his date. R. 129-5 at 882-83. 18 Ammons-Lewis contends that the admission of the photograph was erroneous given that it was not produced during pretrial discovery and only served to prolong what she sees as an irrelevant exploration into the nature of her relationship with Davis, thereby distracting the jury from the relevant question of whether Davis had harassed her in the workplace. 19 We review the district court's evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion, e.g., Thompson v. City of Chicago, 472 F.3d 444, 453 (7th Cir.2006), and we cannot say that its ruling in this instance was unreasonable. We agree with Ammons-Lewis that whether she had dated Davis prior to the events in question was by no means dispositive of her claim that he sexually harassed her. See Johnson v. West, 218 F.3d 725, 729-30 (7th Cir.2000); Curry v. Dist. of Columbia, 195 F.3d 654, 663 n. 18 (D.C.Cir.1999); see also Pergine v. Penmark Mgmt. Co., 314 F.Supp.2d 486, 491 (E.D.Pa.2004) (collecting additional cases); cf. Pipkins v. City of Temple Terrace, Fla., 267 F.3d 1197, 1201 (11th Cir. 2001). `A person's private and consensual sexual activities do not constitute a waiver of his or her legal protections against unwelcome and unsolicited sexual harassment' at work. Winsor v. Hinckley Dodge, Inc., 79 F.3d 996, 1001 (10th Cir.1996) (quoting Katz v. Dole, 709 F.2d 251, 254 n. 3 (4th Cir.1983)). An employer is obliged to deal reasonably with unlawful harassment in the workplace regardless of who perpetrates it. Dunn v. Washington County Hosp., 429 F.3d 689, 691-92 (7th Cir.2005). But the existence of a current or former social relationship between the harasser and the harassee can shed light on such relevant questions as whether the complained-of conduct was unwelcome, whether it resulted in a workplace that the harassee subjectively experienced as hostile, and whether it occurred because of the harassee's sex. Pipkins, 267 F.3d at 1200-01; Curry, 195 F.3d at 663 n. 18; Galloway v. General Motors Serv. Parts Operations, 78 F.3d 1164, 1168 (7th Cir. 1996) (citing Huebschen v. Dep't of Health & Social Servs., 716 F.2d 1167, 1172 (7th Cir.1983)), abrogated on other grounds by Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 122 S.Ct. 2061, 153 L.Ed.2d 106 (2002). Moreover, to the extent that Ammons-Lewis denied having dated or socialized with Davis, contrary evidence was relevant to an assessment of her credibility. 20 Of course, the district court had a duty under Federal Rule of Evidence 403 not to allow the dispute over the nature of the relationship between Ammons-Lewis and Davis to obscure the actual issues in the case. But having reviewed the record, we are satisfied that the questioning (and subsequent argument of counsel) concerning the photo occupied a modest amount of trial time and did not pose a substantial risk of distracting the jury. 21 For that matter, we have a hard time believing that the photograph was harmful to Ammons-Lewis's case, as it lent little support to the notion that she and Davis had once been a couple: the two of them were photographed in a group with four other people, and they were not touching, looking at one another, or even standing next to one another in the photograph. See R. 148 Def. Ex. 74. Ammons-Lewis herself agreed that she and Davis had attended some of the same social gatherings outside of the workplace, so the photograph was as consistent with her position that she and Davis had not been romantically involved as it was with Davis's position that they had been. 22 As for the element of surprise, the district court evidently accepted the defense's representation that Davis had not discovered the photograph until the weekend before it was disclosed, and we are in no position to second-guess the court's assessment. To compensate for the eleventh-hour disclosure, the court gave Ammons-Lewis and her counsel the opportunity to review and discuss the photograph before she was questioned about it in the jury's presence, thus avoiding the prospect of an ambush. And of course, since Ammons-Lewis had posed for the photograph, she was as well-situated as Davis to recall the circumstances under which it was taken. 23 Finally, we add that to the extent that the photograph lent any support to the notion that Ammons-Lewis and Davis had once dated, it was by no means the sole or most compelling evidence that pointed to a prior romantic relationship. In addition to Davis himself, three witnesses offered much more direct testimony to that effect. See R. 129-5 at 878-80 (Davis); R. 129-6 at 948-49 (Charles Jones); R. 129-7 at 1171-72 (Elnora Wilson-Simpson); R. 129-8 at 1344-45, 1347 (Keisha Guy). (Which will bring us to the next issue.) So any error in allowing the photograph was harmless. 24