Labor & Employment Law

8th Circuit Holds Evidence of Prior Discrimination Lawsuit Against Prior Employer Not Admissible

8th Circuit Holds Evidence of Prior Discrimination Lawsuit Against Prior Employer Not Admissible
Source: Adjunct Law Prof Blog; http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/adjunctprofs/

Reproduced with permission. Copyright © 2008, Mitchell H. Rubinstein, Esq., Adjunct Professor of Law, St. Johns Law School and New York Law School, All rights reserved.

Batiste-Davis v. Lincare,___F.3d___ (8th Cir. May 19, 2008), is an important employment discrimination case. The court addresses the difficult evidentary question whether an employee's prior discrimination lawsuit against a prior employer is admissible in an employment discrimination case. The 8th applies a balancing test and concludes that evidence of a lawsuit filed 6 years earlier was not admissible. Therefore, the District Court errd by admitting this evidence, but the error turned out to be harmless. The court described the relevant factors as follows:

Evidence of prior ?acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person.? Fed. R. Evid. 404(b). However, evidence of prior acts may be admissible, as relevant here, to prove motive, intent, preparation or plan. Id. Evidence of prior acts may be admitted if ?(1) relevant to a material issue; (2) proved by a preponderance of the evidence; (3) higher in probative value than in prejudicial effect; and (4) similar in kind and close in time to the [event at issue].? Berry v. Oswalt, 143 F.3d 1127, 1132 (8th Cir. 1998), quoting United States v. Aranda, 963 F.2d 211, 215 (8th Cir. 1992). Prior acts include prior lawsuits. Six years before the current lawsuit, Davis pro se sued a former employer alleging discrimination under Title VII and the Americans with Disabilities Act, but voluntarily dismissed the case. There is no indication the prior lawsuit was fraudulently filed.

Before trial, the district court ruled that evidence of the earlier lawsuit was admissible to show Davis?s motive in filing this case. Lincare adds that evidence of the prior suit has a bearing on Davis?s credibility, state of mind with respect to the current litigation, and pattern or plan of asserting false claims.

Other courts generally do not admit evidence of prior suits unless they were fraudulently filed. See McDonough v. City of Quincy, 452 F.3d 8, 20 (1st Cir. 2006) citing Outley v. City of New York, 837 F.2d 587, 592 (2d Cir. 1988); see also Mathis v. Phillips Chevrolet, Inc., 269 F.3d 771, 776-77 (7th Cir. 2001). Evidence of a prior lawsuit may be admitted on a case-by-case basis if it meets the four requirements of this circuit?s test. See Duckworth v. Ford, 83 F.3d 999, 1002 (8th Cir. 1996). Davis?s prior suit was relevant, similar, and probably close enough in time. See Gastineau v. Fleet Mortgage Corp., 137 F.3d 490, 495-96 (7th Cir. 1998) (three suits against former employers filed within five years of current case were sufficiently close in time to be admitted as proof of reason why supervisor kept notes about plaintiff?s work, rather than proof of plaintiff?s litigiousness).

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Full post as published by New York Public Personnel Law on June 18, 2008 (boomark / email).