Opinion ID: 1359023
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Termination Evidence

Text: Wright argues that evidence regarding his termination was irrelevant and, therefore, inadmissible and argues that this evidence was prejudicial because it suggested his lost wages resulted from his termination and not from his injuries. He contends that Martinez v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., 82 F.3d 223 (8th Cir. 1996), forecloses admission of evidence to show that his lost wages were caused by his termination rather than the injuries for which AMR was responsible. In Martinez, we held that evidence of appellant's dismissal was properly limited where it was offered solely to prove that appellant would not have continued working at the company for purposes of calculating future earnings. Id. at 227. Thirty minutes after appellant injured himself by falling off the end of a ramp used to service trains, he was terminated at an unrelated disciplinary hearing. Id. at 225. After a jury verdict for appellant on his FELA claim, the railroad appealed, arguing, inter alia, that the district court erred by excluding testimony that appellant had been terminated. Id. at 225, 227. The railroad sought to admit this evidence to rebut appellant's expert testimony that appellant would have continued working as a trainman... until the age of 67 and to rebut the expert's calculation of appellant's loss of future earning capacity. Id. at 227. We held that it was proper to exclude this evidence because appellant's termination was wholly irrelevant to the issues presented at the trial and would have been more prejudicial than probative of those issues. Id. at 228. Here, the district court initially instructed the parties to avoid the topic of Wright's dismissal because it was irrelevant to the issues presented at trial. This instruction followed Martinez. The court further stated that the evidence would be inadmissible so long as Wright did not open the door to its admission. We must determine whether Wright did indeed open that door. At trial, Wright testified that he was not physically able to go back to work for the railroad and that he had to leave work because [he] couldn't any longer do that work. Based on these statements, the district court found that Wright had opened the door and that it would be prejudicially unfair to leave the jury with the impression that physical limitations from the accident were the only reason Wright no longer worked at AMR. The district court, therefore, allowed AMR to introduce evidence of Wright's dismissal for misconduct. The district court did not admit this evidence to deny future earnings under FELA beyond the termination date, see Martinez, 82 F.3d at 227, but merely to rebut the impression left by Wright's own testimony. District courts are given broad discretion to determine the relevance of evidence, and we will only reverse if there is a clear abuse of discretion. Suggs, 324 F.3d at 682. Although the district court's call was close, it was not an abuse of discretion.