Opinion ID: 2823250
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Preclusion of the 1999 Letter

Text: Questions on admission of evidence are rightly settled by the trial justice. Rule 104(a) of the Rhode Island Rules of Evidence (“the admissibility of evidence shall be determined by the court”). When exercising this authority, the trial justice has broad discretion and will not be determined to be in error if he or she properly exercises that discretion. See Dubois, 36 A.3d at 199. A trial justice may properly exclude evidence, although relevant on some point, if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the risk of confusing the issues before the jury. See Rule 403 of the Rhode Island Rules of Evidence (“evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury”); Accetta v. Provencal, 962 A.2d 56, 60 (R.I. 2009) (reciting the process for admission of evidence). The plaintiff claims that there was error occasioned by the failure to admit the 1999 letter from defendant’s counsel to the commission as well as by the trial justice’s refusal to allow him to question witnesses about the letter. The trial justice did allow plaintiff to address the factual inaccuracy in the letter pertaining to his teaching certificate, and plaintiff did do so at trial. What the trial justice did not allow were the statements in the letter about the school department’s declining use of plaintiff as a substitute teacher, the alleged outburst at the school committee meeting, and a 1997 business teacher position that was not in issue in the discrimination claim. The plaintiff argued that the letter was relevant because it evidenced the shifting rationales that defendant had for not hiring him for either of the two English teacher positions, thereby demonstrating that defendant’s reasons were a mere pretext for age discrimination. -9- However, the trial justice decided that any probative value those portions of the letter would have for this purpose was outweighed by the risk of confusion of the issues and thus it had the potential to mislead the jury. It is significant that the jury in plaintiff’s second trial was deciding only the discrimination claim for the 1998 teaching vacancies. After a review of the record, it is our opinion that the trial justice was within the bounds of her discretion when she excluded the letter from the jury’s consideration at plaintiff’s trial, and we will not disturb her decision. B. Jury Instruction on 29 C.F.R. § 1602.14 and § 28-6.4-1 A trial justice has the duty to ensure that the charge she gives to the jury appropriately states the applicable law in the case before it. Long, 61 A.3d at 445. Here, McGarry asked the trial justice to instruct the jury on two pieces of legislation, both of which the judge found to be inapplicable. The first was 29 C.F.R. § 1602.14, a federal regulation promulgated to require employers to adhere to the record-keeping requirements of Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA). See 29 C.F.R. § 1602.1 (defining the purpose and scope of the record-keeping regulations). The second was § 28-6.4-1, which pertains to the records an employer must allow an employee to inspect. See chapter 6.4 of title 28. The trial justice determined that the facts of the case before the jury did not warrant an instruction on either enactment because neither was germane to the claim in dispute. The trial justice noted that the federal regulation and the section in which it was found “was promulgated to aid in the enforcement of particular acts.” Those legislative enactments, she noted, were expressed in 29 C.F.R. § 1602.14, as Title VII, the ADA, and GINA, and plaintiff’s claim did not involve any of them. The plaintiff’s suit advanced state law claims only. - 10 - The trial justice determined that § 28-6.4-1 did not apply because the interview notes in question were not the types of documents that an employee has a statutory right to inspect. Rather, she found that they were akin to “letters of reference and recommendations,” which the statute exempts. Ms. Koutsogiane testified that the purpose of the interview rating sheets was to assist the committee in making its recommendation to the superintendent, not to make the ultimate decision of whom to hire. The trial justice concluded that the interview rating sheets were “not a record having to do with hiring. These are notations.” The trial justice allowed the jury to consider the fact that the rating sheets were missing, by way of a spoliation instruction, but she declined to instruct on the Rhode Island statute, reasoning that it did not apply to this type of document. We see no error in the trial justice’s determinations. C. Preclusion of Retaliation Claim This Court strongly adheres to its “waive-or-raise” rule that requires parties to raise allegations of error in the lower court and argue the issue in their briefs on appeal. Rule 16(a) (“questions not raised and points not made ordinarily will be treated as waived”); Bowen Court Associates, 818 A.2d at 728. The plaintiff’s first trial included a claim for retaliation, in addition to the claim for age discrimination. At the conclusion of the first trial, the trial justice wrote a decision addressing both claims, and he granted the defendant a judgment as a matter of law explicitly on “[the] [p]laintiff’s age discrimination and retaliation claims.” In the alternative, the trial justice granted the defendant’s motions for a new trial, also on both claims. In the plaintiff’s first appeal to this Court, he did not raise or argue either the Rule 50 judgment granted to the defendant or the Rule 59 grant of a new trial with respect to his claim of retaliation. McGarry I, 47 A.3d at 276 n.4 (“[o]n appeal, plaintiff did not pursue his retaliation claim”). Considering the nature of the first trial justice’s plainly unambiguous conclusion, it is our opinion that the - 11 - plaintiff should have known that he would be required to pursue his retaliation claim on appeal or it would be waived. See Estate of Meller, 554 A.2d at 654 (this Court expects that “the briefs before us will contain all the arguments that the parties wish us to consider”). Indeed, at a pretrial hearing in advance of the plaintiff’s second trial, his counsel conceded, “[w]e never challenged that in the Supreme Court.” The second trial justice, relying on this Court’s mandate, correctly prohibited any evidence on the retaliation claim because it would unnecessarily confuse the issues before the jury. See Rule 403. We agree, and this Court is satisfied that the justice’s ruling complied with our mandate in McGarry I. 47 A.3d at 286. IV