Opinion ID: 770251
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Darlene Miller

Text: 20 Darlene Miller, who is white, came to work at CSD from the old OP Department and worked under Group Leader Hester. Like Ende, Miller testified that Beck was hostile to former OP employees and that she left her job as a result. Miller recalled that Beck was particularly hostile to Hester as compared with her interaction with other Group Leaders, who were white. Miller readily admitted that she had no personal knowledge of the conversations Hester had with salespeople, customers, manufacturing representatives, or her supervisors, including Beck. At a point, Hester's counsel asked Miller why she thought Beck treated Hester differently. Over BIC's objection, Miller testified that she ha[d] no idea why Marilou was so different towards Annie, but that the only thing I can come up with is it is a racial thing. I've been picking my brain for weeks trying to figure it out and that's the only thing I can come up with, because Marilou Beck was mean to everybody in order processing, but she was more mean to Annie. 21 In a colloquy with counsel the district court reconsidered the ruling that permitted this testimony: I think I made a mistake when I allowed [Miller] to speculate [that] it must have been race and she didn't know anything else. . . . It's not necessarily an automatic jump there. The next day, the court ruled that the testimony would stand, but undertook to think about it further; the court ultimately rested on its initial ruling to admit the testimony. 22