Opinion ID: 1434460
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Officer Warnings to Lewis to Watch Her Back

Text: Lewis next challenges the exclusion of statements from Officers Muhney, Oliver, Weatherspoon and Davis. Lewis contends these officers advised her to watch her back when responding to assignments given out by Williams, implying that he was plotting to take retaliatory action against her. The statements themselves had little probative value since they were not comments of the decision-maker himself. O'Regan v. Arbitration Forums, Inc., 246 F.3d 975, 986 (7th Cir.2001) (Statements by a non-decision-maker that amount to mere speculation as to the thoughts of the decision-maker are irrelevant to an inquiry of discrimination.); Chiaramonte v. Fashion Bed Grp., 129 F.3d 391, 397 (7th Cir.1997) (Statements by inferior employees are not probative of an intent to discriminate by the decisionmaker.). When Lewis tried to call Officer Davis at trial, she said that Davis would testify that he saw Lieutenant Williams going off in the station. See Tr. at 636. The judge responded that if Davis can testify as to the defendant's acting in a certain manner and relates that to the EEOC complaint, that's fine. Id. So it would have been permissible for the officers to testify if they saw from personal knowledge Williams ranting and raving about Lewis's discrimination complaint. But they could not simply be called to testify that Williams was out to get her. That would have been utter speculation and highly prejudicial. The statements were therefore properly excluded. For what it's worth, Lewis managed to get the evidence before the jury anyway. She was permitted to testify at trial that Officers Weatherspoon and Davis told her that Lieutenant Williams went off when he found out about the [discrimination] complaint and they told me to watch my back, that he was definitely out to get me. See Tr. at 225. So Lewis got much of what she wanted in any event. Excluding the witnesses from testifying to their speculation that Williams was out to get Lewis was entirely proper.