Opinion ID: 160822
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Discrimination Against Other Employees

Text: Sheriff Claussen argues that the district court erred in allowing testimony that three other Sheriff’s Department employees suffered disability discrimination. This court has stated that “[a]s a general rule, the testimony of other employees about their treatment by the defendant is relevant to the issue of the employer’s discriminatory intent.” Spulak v. K-Mart Corp., 894 F.2d 1150, 1156 (10th Cir. 1990). However, the plaintiff must demonstrate the relevance of evidence regarding other employees by showing that the evidence can “‘logically or reasonably be tied to the decision to terminate [the plaintiff].’” Id. at 1156 (quoting Schrand v. Federal Pac. Elec. Co., 851 F.2d 152, 156 (6th Cir. 1988)). Even if the evidence is relevant, the trial court may still exclude it if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or undue delay. Curtis v. Oklahoma City Public Schools, 147 F.3d 1200, 1217 (10th Cir. 1998). Here, the first of these other instances of alleged discrimination involved a witness’s testimony that he overheard statements by Sheriff’s Department supervisors 35 that they had to get rid of an employee with physical impairments. A second employee testified that the Sheriff’s Department did not assist him in efforts to keep his job in spite of his physical problems. After hearing this testimony, the court gave a limiting instruction explaining to the jury that evidence of discrimination against this employee did not directly prove any elements of Mr. Hall’s claims but rather had been offered to show that the reasons provided by Sheriff Claussen to justify his actions were pretextual. Finally, a third employee testified that he thought the Department terminated his employment because of his age and his weight. The record provided to us by Sheriiff Claussen does not indicate that he objected to the third employee’s testimony. In our view, the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting testimony as to the first two employees. Because these instances of alleged discrimination were sufficiently similar to those alleged by Mr. Hall, it was proper to allow the jury to consider them. Although the discrimination alleged by the third employee is of questionable relevance to Mr. Hall’s ADA claims, it was not plain error for the district court to have admitted it. See Polys v. Trans-Colorado Airlines, Inc., 941 F.2d 1404, 1408 (10th Cir. 1991) (noting that, in the absence of a contemporaneous objection to the admission of evidence, we review only for plain errors—those that “seriously affect the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings”) (internal citations and quotations omitted). More importantly, Sheriff Claussen has failed to demonstrate that the admission of any of this evidence affected the result of the trial. 36