Opinion ID: 2971775
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: analysis

Text: We will reverse a district court’s decision to admit or exclude evidence only if we find that the district court has abused its discretion. Beck v. Haik, 377 F.3d 624, 636 (6th Cir. 2004). “An abuse of discretion occurs when the district court ‘relies on clearly erroneous findings of fact, . . . improperly applies the law, . . . or . . . employs an erroneous legal standard.’” Id., quoting United States v. Cline, 362 F.3d 343, 348 (6th Cir. 2004).
The only claim of error made by Barner and Hayes on appeal is that the exclusion of Mannies’s testimony was erroneous in light of Rule 801(d)(2)(D) of the Federal Rules of Evidence, which provides that “[a] statement is not hearsay if . . . [t]he statement is offered against a party and is . . . a statement by the party’s agent or servant concerning a matter within the scope of the agency or employment, made during the existence of the relationship.” Before even reaching the merits of the plaintiffs’ argument, however, we must deal with Pilkington’s objection that the plaintiffs failed to raise the potential applicability of Rule 801(d)(2)(D) in the court below. Our function is “to review the case presented to the district court, rather than a better case fashioned after a district court’s unfavorable order.” Klasko v. Hayes Wheels Intern., Inc., No. 962061, 1998 WL 180600, at  n.1 (6th Cir. Apr. 7, 1998). For that reason, “[i]t is well settled law that this court will not consider an error or issue which could have been raised below but was not.” Niecko v. Emro Marketing Co., 973 F.2d 1296, 1299 (6th Cir. 1992) (citing White v. Anchor Motor Freight, Inc., 899 F.2d 555, 559 (6th Cir. 1990)). See also Paschal v. Flagstar Bank, 295 F.3d 565, 581 (6th Cir. 2002) (holding that a litigant who failed to respond to a motion to exclude evidence waived the issue on appeal). When a party responds to a motion to exclude evidence, the party must not only make an offer of proof to preserve the issue for appeal, but must also indicate why the evidence is admissible. See Fed. R. Evid. 103(a)(2) (providing that an appeal based on the exclusion of evidence cannot be preserved unless “the substance of the evidence was made known to the [lower] court by offer or was apparent from the context within which questions were asked”); Angel v. United States, 775 F.2d 132, 146 (6th Cir. 1985) (quoting Huff v. White Motor Corp., 609 F.2d 286, 291 n.2 (7th Cir. No. 03-4259 Barner et al. v. Pilkington North America et al. Page 4 1979), for the proposition that “[t]o preserve error in a ruling on evidence[,] a party must notify the trial court of his position and the specific rule of evidence on which he relies”) (quotation marks omitted). Barner and Hayes assert that the Angel court’s statement that a litigant must identify the particular rule of evidence is “arguably dicta,” and claim that presenting an argument about the purpose of the evidence is sufficient. Even if we were to assume without deciding that they are correct, however, the argument must at a minimum alert the district court to the issue that it is called upon to decide. Cf. Reese v. Mercury Marine Div. of Brunswick Corp., 793 F.2d 1416, 1421 (5th Cir. 1986) (holding that a party must “carefully articulate every ground for which the evidence is admissible” because “[t]he trial judge must be put on notice of the purpose for which the evidence is offered while there is still time to remedy the situation”); Tate v. Robbins & Myers, Inc., 790 F.2d 10, 12 (1st Cir. 1986) (upholding the exclusion of evidence where the appellant’s argument for admissibility had not been presented to the court below). To permit parties to raise entirely new evidentiary issues on appeal would not only require appellate courts to adjudicate matters about which there is an insufficient record, but would also impose a tremendously wasteful regime on the lower courts. See Reese, 793 F.2d at 1421 (“Busy trial courts should not be required to repeat trials, especially civil trials, because the trial judge has excluded evidence for lack of a clear understanding of the proponent’s purpose in offering the evidence.”). Barner and Hayes objected to the exclusion of the evidence on the basis that its purpose was “[t]o show that other complaints have been made . . . of race discrimination.” They did not present the “admission-against-interest” argument upon which they now rely. If they had presented some version of their present argument, but had failed to specifically mention Rule 801(d)(2)(D), then we would have to face the question of whether the Angel court’s statement that the particular rule must be identified was in fact only nonbinding dicta. Because they did not, we have no need to decide whether litigants must mention the specific rule of evidence as stated in Angel or if simply alerting the district court to the underlying argument is sufficient. Barner and Hayes failed to comply with either standard. In addition, their underlying argument has no merit. Rule 801(d)(2)(D) is designed to bind the employer where one of its managerial employees makes a statement within the scope of the employee’s duties as a manager. See Hill v. Spiegel, Inc., 708 F.2d 233, 237 (6th Cir. 1983) (noting that “it is necessary . . . to show, to support admissibility, that the content of the declarant’s statement concerned a matter within the scope of his agency”). Here, in contrast, the two former African-American employees made their alleged statements about racial discrimination solely to advance their own interests. The scope of their employment did not include work assignments. Cf. Williams v. Pharmacia, Inc., 137 F.3d 944, 951 (7th Cir. 1998) (holding that the repetition of statements by women employees other than the plaintiff was inadmissible under Rule 801(d)(2)(D) because, “[a]lthough the women knew the outcomes of the managerial decisions at issue and the effects that those decisions had on them, the decisionmaking process itself—which is the relevant issue in proving a pattern or practice of discrimination—was outside the scope of the women’s agency or employment”). Barner and Hayes thus lack a meritorious argument to preserve for appeal.