Court Opinion

ID: 9491465
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:14:54.433448+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:45.566106
License: Public Domain

LOKEN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. After a seven-day trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of American National Insurance Company on Margaret Nichols’s claims of sexual harassment and constructive discharge. In my view, the case was fairly tried, and we should affirm the judgment entered on the jury’s verdict.
1. The Expert Testimony Issue. The primary support for Nichols’s claim for $500,000 in compensatory damages for emotional dis*891tress was the testimony of her expert psychologist. Dr. Tyndall testified that Nichols’s mild depression, generalized anxiety, and post traumatic stress disorder were caused by, or at least aggravated by, her employment experience at American National. On cross exam, the defense established that Dr. Tyndall’s opinions were based entirely upon what Nichols had told Dr. Tyndall, who made no detailed review of Nichols’s family history, medical records, prior and subsequent employment, and other possible causes of emotional distress.
After unsuccessfully objecting to Dr. Tyndall’s opinions as lacking foundation, the defense attempted to rebut her testimony with two experts. Psychologist Wetzel, who did not personally examine Nichols, testified that Dr. Tyndall’s methodology was not appropriate forensic psychology. That set the stage for psychiatrist Pribor, who had personally interviewed Nichols for some five hours. When Dr. Pribor first introduced the concept of psychiatric credibility, plaintiff objected that this expert was about to tell the jury that Nichols should not be believed. The defense explained that Dr. Pribor’s testimony would riot be an attack on Nichols’s credibility but instead an attack on the credibility of Dr. Tyndall’s opinions, based upon the fact that Dr. Tyndall had taken whatever Nichols told her at face value. The district court ruled, “[Plaintiff] will have to listen and see what [Dr. Pribor] says and make objections. I can’t give you a motion in limine on this since I don’t know exactly what [defense counsel] is getting into.”
I conclude this evidentiary dispute did not result in reversible error for three reasons. First, there was nothing wrong with the defense concept for impeaching Dr. Tyndall’s opinions. One mental health expert may opine that the opponent’s expert should not have accepted the plaintiffs statements as to damage and causation without further investigation. The district court might have cautioned the defense not to use the term psychiatric credibility because it sounds like the expert is invading the jury’s province. But the failure to do that was not a plain error abuse of discretion. Nichols opened up this line of testimony by the use of her expert. Cf. United States v. Gipson, 862 F.2d 714, 717 (8th Cir.1988). Thus, the district court properly denied Nichols’s initial motion in limine.
Second, Nichols did not preserve the issues on which the court bases its reversal. The word Daubert does not appear in the trial transcript, and for good reason — Nichols was relying on the same kinds of psychological concepts and opinions for her large emotional distress damage claim. Moreover, when Dr. Pribor introduced rather late in her direct testimony the concepts of “recall bias,” “secondary gain,” and “malingering,” Nichols did not object, despite the court’s explicit instruction that specific objections were necessary. Finally, Dr. Pribor’s use of these terms was limited to supporting her opinion that Nichols’s statements to Dr. Tyndall should not have been taken at face value. This defense expert did not comment directly on Nichols’s fact testimony. To the extent Dr. Pribor’s testimony indirectly cast doubt on Nichols’s overall credibility, it was a self-inflicted wound caused by her own reliance on a psychological expert.
Third, given the specific context of Dr. Pribor’s testimony, any error was harmless. The key evidence at trial was the lengthy direct and cross examination of Nichols, plus the credibility of terse testimonial denials by Swift and Coates. During the lengthy closing arguments, Dr. Pribor’s testimony was mentioned only once, when defense counsel argued that Nichols changed her story for the litigation and had a financial motive to do so:
Now that’s a mighty motive to distort. To begin, remember that phrase, recall bias. I think well maybe she does actually believe these things happened, but recall bias may very well be involved. Remember that term that the psychiatrist talked about? Secondary gain. How that can affect how one recalls things that happened.
That is fair argument. Thus, this record will not support an inference that the jury’s assessment of Nichols’s credibility was spoon fed by Dr. Pribor.
2. The Abortion Testimony. Nichols disclosed her prior abortion in interrogatory *892answers. The district court denied her pretrial motion in limine to exclude all references to the abortion because the interrogatory answers had been made available to the parties’ experts. The issue came up briefly twice at trial. Defense counsel’s question to Dr. Tyndall and Dr. Pribor’s mention of the abortion as one pre-American National stres-sor were consistent with the pretrial discussion and ruling, so there was no unfair surprise. Viewed in context, the testimony was relevant, and any Rule 403 error was harmless.
3. The Coates Assaults. Nichols’s EEOC charge only complained of constructive discharge — that she was forced to resign. I agree with the court that evidence of sexual harassment creating a hostile work environment would be relevant to that charge, and alleged sexual assaults could constitute such evidence. However, the alleged January 1993 sexual assaults by Coates occurred after the last day Nichols actually worked, so they could not be evidence supporting a claim of constructive discharge. Thus, the alleged assaults could only be relevant to a different kind of sexual harassment claim. Yet Nichols did not generally allege sexual harassment in her EEOC charge, and the EEOC investigator testified at trial that she did not investigate harassment by Coates because Nichols told her not to. This unique and highly inflammatory accusation was never the subject of EEOC conciliation and it did not support the constructive discharge claim that was conciliated. On this record, I conclude the district court correctly excluded this evidence. Indeed, the court arguably gave Nichols more leeway than her EEOC charge warranted when it submitted to the jury a separate claim of sexual harassment, a claim that was not in her EEOC charge. The evidence on both claims was properly limited to Nichols’s work experience at American National, and the jury rejected both claims, sexual harassment and constructive discharge. The verdict should be upheld.
Jp. The Receipt Books. This evidence was relevant only to the statute of limitations issue, which the jury never reached. Therefore, by itself this evidentiary ruling cannot be reversible error. Moreover, the district court’s decision to exclude this evidence because of Nichols’s tardy disclosure was correct — Nichols had ample warning of American National’s document retention policy and should have gathered up relevant customer 1487’s long before trial and disclosed them on her exhibit lists. There might well be foundation and authenticity problems with such documents, so defense counsel’s concern about their last minute disclosure was understandable.