Opinion ID: 517427
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Expert Witness's Testimony.

Text: 22 Before undertaking this two-part inquiry and proceeding in light of it, we must first wrestle with a vexing tangram. The testimony of the statistical expert, Dr. Cobb, served as a bearing wall in the structure of Freeman's case. This testimony, PMC exhorts, was improperly admitted. Logic demands that we resolve this evidentiary enigma before venturing to assess the weight and sufficiency of plaintiff's proof. 23 Appellant promulgates a host of objections to the disputed evidence. It argues variously (1) that Cobb's testimony was virtually devoid of probative value because the professor relied on too tiny a sample universe (departed vice-presidents and presidents since 1965) and failed to differentiate between employees who left the company voluntarily and those who were cashiered; (2) that the ill effects of the testimony were compounded by a related ruling of the district court excluding evidence of the reasons why employees other than Freeman separated from service; (3) that the meagre probative value of the statistical evidence was greatly outweighed by its unfair prejudicial impact; and (4) that in any event, plaintiff wrongly engaged in obfuscatory discovery conduct, thereby depriving appellant of an opportunity adequately to respond to the challenged testimony. 24 1. Failure to Object. Our consideration of these questions is colored by an initial diagnosis: appellant's challenge suffers from a serious strain of procedural paralysis, since PMC did not object to the testimony at trial. We have long hewed to the idea that failure to make contemporaneous objection, absent exceptional circumstances, forecloses a later challenge to the admissibility of evidence. See, e.g., Allied International, Inc. v. International Longshoremen's Ass'n, 814 F.2d 32, 39-40 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 79, 98 L.Ed.2d 41 (1987); see also Fed.R.Evid. 103(a)(1) (Error may not be predicated upon a ruling which admits ... evidence unless a substantial right of the party is affected, and ... a timely objection or motion to strike appears of record....). In this instance, appellant confesses and avoids. It acknowledges that no contemporaneous objection was interposed, but says that the need for one was abated because it registered its opposition to the admission of Cobb's statistical analysis by means of a pretrial motion in limine. We are not persuaded. 25 We review the chronology of pertinent events. Before commencement of trial, PMC filed a blunderbuss motion to ban the testimony of nine former PMC officials as to the causes of such officials' separation from service. That motion included a prayer that plaintiff be barred from introducing any document listing persons who have ... ended their employment with Package Machine[ry], as well as any statistical comparison based upon such document. Dr. Cobb was not specifically mentioned. 3 The district court granted the motion in part, prohibiting the ennead of departed workers from testifying in Freeman's case in chief as to the circumstances of their respective terminations. The court declined, however, to embargo all such evidence. It indicated that it would permit plaintiff's expert, subject to the establishment of a proper foundation, to testify as to defendant's employment practices in general (emphasis supplied). 26 When Cobb was called to the stand during trial, the court allowed plaintiff's counsel to adduce the expert's qualifications and to take his best shot at laying the foundation for the desired testimony. Before any opinion evidence was elicited, the court allowed defense counsel to conduct an extensive voir dire as to expertise and foundation. When that examination was completed, the court ruled, without discernible objection, that the witness was qualified and that, in general, a foundation had been laid. Only then did plaintiff's counsel begin his inquiry into the witness's calculations and opinions. That testimony--which consumed the remainder of Cobb's direct--came in entirely without objection. (The transcript shows that defense counsel objected but once during the entire balance of the direct; that particular objection was sustained.) The next day, Dr. Cobb underwent rigorous cross-examination, followed by relatively brief redirect and recross. There was no motion to strike. 27 Given the circumstances, we think it clear that any error in the introduction of the statistical evidence was waived. We have previously admonished litigants to exercise caution in relying exclusively upon rulings made in connection with pretrial motions in limine as the basis for preserving claims of error in the admission and exclusion of evidence. Conway v. Electro Switch Corp., 825 F.2d 593, 596 n. 1 (1st Cir.1987) (Conway I ); see also United States v. Griffin, 818 F.2d 97,105 (1st Cir.) (in order to preserve for review the claim of improperly constructing the Rule 403 balance, a party must obtain the order admitting or excluding the controversial evidence in the actual setting of the trial), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 137, 98 L.Ed.2d 94 (1987); Adams v. Fuqua Industries, Inc., 820 F.2d 271, 274 (8th Cir.1987) (motion in limine does not preserve error [in subsequent admission of evidence] for appellate review); cf. Luce v. United States, 469 U.S. 38, 41, 105 S.Ct. 460, 463, 83 L.Ed.2d 443 (1984). While we do not insist that a party be precise to the point of pedantry, one seeking to exclude evidence must generally make a contemporaneous objection to the proof when and as proferred (or be excused from doing so by the trial judge). 28 To be sure, there may be instances where a trial court's ruling on an in limine motion, taken in context, is definitive enough to excuse omission of an objection on the point at trial. See, e.g., American Home Assurance Co. v. Sunshine Supermarket, Inc., 753 F.2d 321, 324 (3d Cir.1985). But that is not our case. Here, appellant's pretrial assertions were couched in sweeping generalities. Insofar as those assertions implicated Cobb's opinions at all it was--as the district judge perspicaciously noted--impossible to gauge their validity until an actual attempt had been made to lay a foundation under Fed.R.Evid. 703. Whether the witness's testimony was or was not properly admissible could sensibly be judged only in the milieu of the trial proper. As we have said, it is too great a handicap to bind a trial judge to a ruling on a subtle evidentiary question ... outside a precise factual context. Griffin, 818 F.2d at 104. 29 After the foundation evidence was received, it was by no means clear whether PMC continued to object to the statistical evidence--or if so, on what grounds. If dissatisfaction remained, specific objections should have been voiced then, or taken as the critical questions were propounded. See id. at 105; Petty v. Ideco, Div'n of Dresser Industries Inc., 761 F.2d 1146, 1150 (5th Cir.1985) (a party whose motion in limine is overruled must renew his objection when the error he sought to prevent is about to occur at trial). At the very least, a general objection should have been asked for, and preserved, as to the line of inquiry in its totality. No such step was broached. The omission cannot easily be overlooked: the importance of a contemporaneous objection is at its zenith in a situation such as this, where defendant's in limine motion invoked Fed.R.Evid. 403. The balancing calculus which that rule demands is peculiarly subject to change when the case unfolds. Griffin, 818 F.2d at 104 (quoting Luce, 469 U.S. at 41, 105 S.Ct. at 463). 30 Appellant flouted these basic tenets in an egregious manner. It expressed no clear dissatisfaction with either the pretrial ruling or the ruling which followed voir dire. Thereafter, it neither requested a general exception to the line of inquiry nor otherwise sought to be relieved from the duty of objecting as questions were posed. Defense counsel allowed repeated opportunities for objection to pass unremarked while Cobb testified. PMC did not seek to strike the testimony when given, or at the end of Cobb's tenure on the stand, or at the close of plaintiff's case in chief. It did not move for a mistrial on the ground that the testimony had unduly prejudiced the jury. It eschewed any directed verdict motion. See infra Part I(F). In short, having failed in its preliminary effort to gain a blanket exclusion of all material anent terminations of other executives, defendant sat back upon its corporate haunches. Its laxity, we think, constituted a waiver of its right to raise this issue on appeal. As we have observed in a kindred context: The law ministers to the vigilant, not to those who sleep upon perceptible rights. Puleio v. Vose, 830 F.2d 1197, 1203 (1st Cir.1987), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 1297, 99 L.Ed.2d 506 (1988). 31 2. Admissibility. Although the failure to object is dispositive, we add that we would be disinclined to second-guess the trial judge on this matter even if an exception had properly been preserved. Fittingly, the district courts are accorded broad discretion in admitting or excluding expert testimony. Salem v. United States Lines Co., 370 U.S. 31, 35, 82 S.Ct. 1119, 1122, 8 L.Ed.2d 313 (1962); Allied International, 814 F.2d at 40; United States v. Fosher, 590 F.2d 381, 382 (1st Cir.1979). By and large, issues such as Cobb's degree of familiarity with cases of this kind and the reliability of his analysis affect not the admissibility of his testimony, but the weight which the jury might choose to give to it. See Payton v. Abbott Labs, 780 F.2d 147, 155 (1st Cir.1985). 32 We have read the transcript of Cobb's testimony with care. We note, particularly, Cobb's insistence that his analysis was based upon a complete and highly relevant statistical universe. He had scrutinized the lists of discontinued employees and their replacements (limited, as we have said, to high-ranking officers who separated from service after 1965). According to the professor, this 18-person universe did not suffer from the usual problems accompanying exiguous samples because it was not a sample; rather, it constituted the entire roster of employees terminated while in positions comparable to Freeman's. Cobb testified that statisticians would ordinarily rely upon precisely that kind of information in reaching conclusions about discrimination. That opinion, coming from a witness whose qualifications had passed the district court's entry-level muster, was entitled to weight--especially since defendant called no statistician or other expert to espouse the opposite view. 33 Cobb was equally untroubled by the fact that his figures had not been sorted to reflect whether departures were free or forced. To the professor's educated glance, causation--like beauty--lay all too often in the eye of the beholder. The circumstances surrounding terminations at PMC, he explained, were in dispute; frequently, they might be characterized differently by the protagonists. To cite an instance close to home, the official termination notice issued by the company in Freeman's case stated that he had resigned voluntarily. Moreover, Putnam testified that PMC routinely recorded officers' terminations as voluntary, whatever the underlying facts. Therefore, Cobb felt it wise (and professionally prudent) to limit his analysis to undisputed data, avoiding assumptions about the reasons for termination. Rather than attempting to resolve the parties' disagreements over individual cases, Cobb visualized the statistician's task as examining the aggregate figures and determining whether they were consistent with Freeman's explanation, PMC's, or neither. He testified flatly--and without direct contradiction--that this form of analysis was not at all unusual among expert statisticians, and that it was fairly conventional for statisticians to stay away from the claimed reason for termination. 34 This foundation, we believe, was adequate. The district court has some latitude in the admission or exclusion of evidence, see, e.g., Kelley v. Schlumberger Technology Corp., 849 F.2d 41, 45 (1st Cir.1988); United States v. Tierney, 760 F.2d 382, 387-88 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 843, 106 S.Ct. 131, 88 L.Ed.2d 108 (1985), and we are satisfied that the decision to permit Cobb to offer opinion evidence fell within the parameters of its discretion. We are likewise content with the court's decision to allow Cobb to use the undifferentiated termination lists. And from that point on, the matter was for the jury. The witness was cross-examined vigorously and at length. The district court afforded appellant great leeway in its attempts to demonstrate ostensible flaws in Cobb's analysis and shortcomings in the data which he employed. PMC--in the twin view of jury and trial judge--did not succeed. We discern no error. 35 We similarly reject PMC's argument that the trial court's reception of Cobb's testimony created a trick box for the company. Plaintiff had originally planned to call as a witness one Thomas Garde, a PMC vice president who was discharged at age fifty-five and brought an age discrimination suit (which was eventually settled). As we have reported, see supra at 1336-1337, PMC moved prior to trial to exclude all testimony of discharged employees. Among other points, it argued that such evidence would force it to conduct a series of mini-trials concerning the propriety of each termination. The district court excluded the direct testimony of discharged employees as more prejudicial than probative, but allowed Freeman to introduce statistical evidence as long as he could lay a suitable Fed.R.Evid. 703 foundation (showing in effect, that the data was of the type on which experts in the field would reasonably rely). See supra at 1337. Appellant made no contemporaneous objection to this ruling. 36 PMC now asserts that the district judge's admission of statistical evidence gave plaintiff a back-door route to introduce inherently prejudicial evidence about former employees. The record, however, does not support the assertion. Plaintiff's direct and redirect examinations of Cobb contained no mention of the particular circumstances in other cases. To the contrary, Cobb repeatedly stated that he could testify only as to aggregate statistics, and could make no judgments regarding the circumstances of individual discharges. (He viewed such judgments as unnecessary for purposes of his analysis.) Nevertheless, in order to discredit Cobb's figures, appellant ruminates that it would have had to introduce evidence showing that each personnel decision was either voluntary or justified. That may be so, but the conclusion which appellant draws--that the evidence should therefore have been barred--does not follow from the premise. Evidence need not be mothballed merely because its admission will place some undesired burden on the opponent to rebut or undermine it. After all: 37 The fact that a piece of evidence hurts a party's chances does not mean it should automatically be excluded. If that were true, there would be precious little left in the way of probative evidence in any case. 38 Onujiogu v. United States, 817 F.2d 3, 6 (1st Cir.1987). There was no impermissible unfairness inherent in allowing this proof. 39 Moreover, PMC received an altogether adequate opportunity to refute plaintiff's statistical proffer, and to dispute the conclusions drawn therefrom. Cobb candidly admitted that the terminations in his calculations were not necessarily forced. He acknowledged that some or all could have been voluntary quits, early retirements, or the like. PMC's extensive cross-examination brought this lacuna into sharp relief. The jury, we think, was the proper venue for resolving the significance (if any) of the omission. Additionally, defense counsel--despite their jeremiad on appeal--never asked to be exempted from the pretrial order issued at their instigation which barred evidence of the circumstances anent the departures of other high-ranking officers. 4 They made no effort to cross-question Cobb on the specifics of any individual exodus. They did not try to offer such evidence in the defense case. They can advert to no ruling at trial which prevented defendant from introducing evidence on the circumstances of particular terminations to impeach plaintiff's statistics. In short, to the extent that PMC was caught in a trick box--and we do not suggest that was the case--it was a trick box of its own design and construction, and from which it made no appropriate attempt to escape. 40 3. Rule 403. We need not linger unduly over defendant's argument that the district court erred in admitting the statistical evidence because of its inflammatory effect. Although relevant, evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.... Fed.R.Evid. 403. Where, as in this case, the trial court determines evidence to be relevant, Fed.R.Evid. 104(a), it has wide discretion in steadying the Rule 403 seesaw. Onujiogu v. United States, 817 F.2d at 6 (collecting representative First Circuit cases). 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. Id.; see also United States v. Tierney, 760 F.2d at 388. This is not such an instance. 41 4. Obfuscatory Discovery Practices. Appellant's animadversions anent appellee's allegedly atrocious discovery practices generate far more heat than light. In the last analysis, these lamentations seem baseless. We explain briefly. 42 In terms of notice, Freeman listed Cobb as a witness in a pretrial memorandum filed and served in April 1987--more than two months before trial. Appellant claimed dilatoriness, or worse, and sought exclusion on this ground. See supra note 3. The district court did not find that bad faith or willfulness underlay the timing. Nor did it find significant prejudice: PMC deposed Cobb before trial began; it has made no specific showing of harm resulting from the discovery schedule; our perscrutation of the record brings none to light; and the docket reflects no motion for a continuance to allow PMC to meet the testimony more adroitly. In point of fact, appellant's thorough and detailed cross-examination of the witness belies any serious suggestion that defendant had inadequate time to prepare. 43 These findings, and the court's denial of the Rule 16(f) motion, appear supportable. The district court has considerable discretion in policing alleged discovery transgressions. See National Hockey League v. Metropolitan Hockey Club, Inc., 427 U.S. 639, 642, 96 S.Ct. 2778, 2780, 49 L.Ed.2d 747 (1976). That discretion extends to the banning of witnesses. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 37(b)(2)(B). But preclusion is a grave step, and by no means an automatic response to a delayed disclosure. E.g., United States v. Sumitomo Marine & Fire Ins. Co., 617 F.2d 1365, 1369 (9th Cir.1980) (order excluding evidence should not be imposed where failure to make discovery not willful). In this case, declining to impose so extreme a sanction was well within the district court's discretionary authority. Indeed, appellant's billingsgate, as opposed to Freeman's conduct during pretrial discovery, seems to us the more obfuscatory. 44 5. Recapitulation. In sum, we find that Dr. Cobb's testimony was properly before the jury in this instance. Its weight and value, of course, were for factfinders to assess, not for counsel or the court imperiously to dictate. But as we turn to the appellant's core contentions--that the jury reached a seriously erroneous result and that the veteran district judge made much the same mistake in allowing the liability verdict to stand--we must factor Cobb's evidence into the mix. 45