Robinson v. Runyon

• Decision Date: 22 July 1998
• Docket Number: No. 96-4100,96-4100
• Parties: 74 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 45,628 Aleia L. ROBINSON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Marvin T. RUNYON, Postmaster General, United States Postal Service, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 507

149 F.3d 507

74 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 45,628

Aleia L. ROBINSON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Marvin T. RUNYON, Postmaster General, United States Postal Service, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 96-4100.

United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.

Argued Dec. 12, 1997.

Decided July 22, 1998.

Peter A. Burr, Sheila M. Smith (argued and briefed), Freking & Betz, Cincinnati, OH, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Jan M. Holtzman, Asst. U.S. Attorney, Office of the U.S. Attorney, Cincinnati, OH, Janet E. Smith (argued and briefed), Washington, DC, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before: JONES and DAUGHTREY, Circuit Judges; CARR, District Judge. ^*

NATHANIEL R. JONES, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff Aleia Robinson appeals the verdict, following a jury trial, for the defendant United States Postal Service in this race discrimination lawsuit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 255, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(2). Robinson contends that the district court erred by: 1) excluding two exhibits from trial and 2) failing to instruct the jury to consider punitive damages. She also alleges that the selection of the jury in her case was unconstitutionally obtained. Because we find that the district court improperly excluded a key piece of evidence from trial we REVERSE and REMAND the case for a new trial.

I.

Plaintiff Aleia Robinson is a career employee of the Postal Service at the Cincinnati Ohio Bulk Mail Center (CBMC), who began her tenure in 1986, as a keyer clerk, and continued in its employ until the incident giving rise to this lawsuit occurred, when she was terminated in January 1992. Prior to the 1992 incident described below, Robinson had never been disciplined by the Postal Service and was considered an excellent worker. J.A. (Joint Appendix) at 305.

During the early morning hours of Sunday, January 26, 1992, as Robinson drove her car into the curved CBMC driveway on the way to work, it began to slide on ice residue left from an earlier snow fall. Robinson immediately applied her brakes and the car slid out of control, hitting a utility pole on the driver's side. At the time of the accident, Robinson had been traveling at approximately 25 mph, the posted speed limit for the driveway. The impact of the car against the utility pole trapped Robinson inside and emergency crews were summoned to the scene. The crews were required to break the windshield and dashboard of Robinson's car, and fold up the front corners of the hood in order to remove her from the vehicle. Robinson was then taken to the hospital where she was treated and released shortly thereafter.

The subsequent investigation of the accident by the Postal Service was cursory at best. ¹ Although Robinson asserted that her speed was 25mph, a police officer who examined the scene after the accident estimated that Robinson was traveling at 55mph. The officer did note, however, on a specific box on the police report that the road conditions where the accident occurred were "other." For the Postal Service's part, no CBMC supervisors independently investigated the accident, and no witnesses were questioned concerning the accident or the condition of the driveway. Two Postal Service safety officers, Tim Rupe and William Zerhusen, did observe the scene three hours after the accident, and after looking at the damage to the car concluded preliminarily that the accident was caused by excessive speed. ² Neither, however, spoke directly with Robinson nor questioned any employees. After viewing the police report, they again concluded that the accident was caused by excessive speed. Both recommended to Jack Everitt, Robinson's immediate supervisor and Bill Adams, the supervisor next in line of authority, that Robinson be terminated. In response to this recommendation, neither Everitt nor Adams conducted any independent inquiries concerning the accident, failing to ascertain whether there were any witnesses to the incident, or even to afford Robinson an opportunity to explain. Although Everitt, as Robinson's immediate supervisor was responsible for initiating the termination process, he did not read the police report of the accident and did not file an accident report within twenty-four hours as required by Postal Service policy. ³ Subsequently, after conferring with one another, Everitt and Adams both agreed that Robinson should be terminated, and Everitt completed a request for disciplinary action, charging Robinson with willful disregard of safety rules, and relying in part on the police report that he had not read. J.A. at 286-287. The termination request was then forwarded to the "reviewing authority" Kevin Sullivan, General Supervisor, who also concurred in the decision to terminate Robinson, without independently investigating the incident. ⁴ On February 10, 1992, the Postal Service, through Everitt, issued a Notice of Removal to Robinson, notifying Robinson of her termination from the Postal Service due to "willful disregard of safety rules." J.A. at 466.

Following her termination, Robinson filed a grievance through her union challenging her discharge. An investigation into the accident following her grievance filing revealed that the investigating police officer had noted "other" on the police report because of the ice and water on the driveway. The investigation further revealed that the police officer had calculated Robinson's speed incorrectly, and that she had been traveling at a much lower rate of speed.

After this investigation, the union and the Postal Service entered into a settlement agreement wherein Robinson was reinstated to her position with back pay for the ten weeks she had been terminated. After exhausting her administrative remedies under Title VII, Robinson filed this lawsuit requesting compensatory damages in the amount of $250,000 for emotional distress, mental distress, anguish, and humiliation, and punitive damages in the amount of $500,000, alleging that she was treated differently due to the racism of the Postal Service's management.

Prior to the trial, the magistrate judge assigned to the case determined that the Postal Service, as a government agency, could not be held liable for punitive damages under Title VII. In addition, the Postal Service filed a motion in limine to exclude two pieces of exhibit evidence under Rule 403 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, that Robinson intended to offer as evidence to support her contentions that racism was pervasive at the CBMC and played a role in her termination.

One exhibit was a fake employment application entitled "Nigger Employment Application," which incorporated a litany of racial stereotypes of African-Americans, and charactered a real application. ⁵ The other exhibit was that of a photograph of a hangman's noose that a white employee had drawn and displayed to an African-American employee, Ms. Brenda Kaiser.

According to Robinson's proffer at trial, she had been prepared to present witnesses who would have testified that the fake employment application was widely circulated throughout the CBMC on several occasions in 1992, and that no employee was ever disciplined. One witness would have testified that she observed supervisors reading this document and laughing. Robinson also had additional evidence that employees brought the application directly to the attention of Supervisor Adams and that no disciplinary action was taken against anyone at the CBMC. ⁶ Ms. Kaiser, another CBMC employee, would have testified that she was so intimidated by the hang noose incident that she complained to her supervisor and left work for the rest of the day. She would have testified further that the supervisor did not discipline the employee who drew the menacing picture, but merely stated that he was just a "frustrated Boy Scout who liked to tie knots." This incident occurred approximately one year after Robinson's termination.

In a single terse line of his two page opinion, the magistrate judge granted the Postal Service's motion in limine to exclude both pieces of evidence, simply stating that they were not relevant and that their danger of unfair prejudice outweighed their probative value. The trial then ensued. During the trial, Robinson submitted evidence that only one white CBMC employee, Richard Kriege, a trailer-tractor operator, had ever been terminated for involvement in a motorized vehicle accident, and that no CBMC employee had ever been terminated for an accident occurring in his or her own private car. She presented further evidence that the Postal Service had conducted an extensive investigation into Kriege's accident before discharging him, including interviewing employees and several witnesses, conducting an internal investigation by a Postal Service accident investigator, and obtaining an independent investigation from an outside consulting firm. J.A. at 434-35. According to the testimony of Tom Lang, the Postal Service Human Resource Officer, the extensive investigation into Kriege's accident occurred as a result of the Postal Service's wish to be fair to Kriege because "his job was at stake." J.A. at 437-38. Robinson presented further evidence at trial that several white CBMC employees, who had been involved in accidents with Postal Service forklifts and tractor-trailers, were not terminated and in some cases received no discipline whatsoever. Significantly, Robinson's position as a keyer clerk, unlike that of Kriege's and other white CBMC employees who were involved in tractor-trailer and forklift accidents, yet not terminated, did not require that she drive a Postal Service vehicle or any other kind of industrial vehicle. ⁷

Additionally, to buttress her claims that she had been treated differently because of her race, Robinson presented evidence intended to illustrate the racially hostile attitudes among the management at CBMC, and specifically those involved in her termination. One witness testified that Supervisor Everitt had called her a "black bitch" and had, through job...