Romero v. Altitude Sports & Entm't

• Jurisdiction: United States,Federal,Colorado
• Parties: TODD ROMERO, Plaintiff, v. ALTITUDE SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT, LLC, and KROENKE SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT, LLC, Defendants.
• Decision Date: 06 March 2024
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Colorado
• Docket Number: Civil Action 21-cv-00885-CMA-SKC

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TODD ROMERO, Plaintiff, v. ALTITUDE SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT, LLC, and KROENKE SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT, LLC, Defendants.

Civil Action No. 21-cv-00885-CMA-SKC

United States District Court, D. Colorado

March 6, 2024

ORDER DENYING MOTIONS IN LIMINE

CHRISTINE M. ARGUELLO SENIOR UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

This matter is before the Court on both parties' motions in limine.See generally(Docs. ## 140 (Defendants' motion), 142 (Plaintiff's motion))see also(Docs. ## 145, 146 (responses)).For the following reasons, both motions are DENIED.

I.BACKGROUND

The Court recently provided the facts of this case in considerable detail and declines to do so again.See generally(Doc. # 129.)In short, this employment discrimination case arises between a sportscaster and regional sports broadcasting network.PlaintiffTodd Romero alleges that DefendantsAltitude Sports & Entertainment, LLC and its parent corporation, Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, LLC(collectively “Altitude”), discriminated against him because he is Hispanic, older than 40, and allegedly has a disability due to a substance use disorder that he claims to have addressed with rehabilitation programs.He claims that his complaints of discrimination motivated Altitude to retaliate against him, and he also claims that Altitude owes him a $5,000 bonus that was promised to him but never paid.Seeid. at 1-2.As evidence of discrimination and retaliation, Mr. Romero refers to numerous Altitude decisions including the network choosing to let his contractual employment protections lapse, slowly replace his high-profile sportscasting role with less prestigious work writing features and other miscellaneous assignments, forbidding him from using the network's recording studio, and ultimately firing him.E.g., (Doc. # 145at 6-8.)Consequently, Mr. Romero initiated this lawsuit, bringing one claim for breach of contract along with discrimination and retaliation claims under Title VII, Section 1981, the Americans with Disabilities Act(“ADA”), and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act(“ADEA”).Id. at 9(citations omitted).The matter is set for trial beginning March 11, 2024.See(Doc. # 143.)

On February 23, 2024, the parties both filed motions in limine seeking the exclusion of evidence.Mr. Romero seeks to exclude evidence of (1) his inappropriate and lewd behavior towards female coworkers^[1]and (2) his drug test results and records from substance abuse treatment facilities.(Doc. # 142at 1.)Altitude, on the other hand, asks this Court to exclude all evidence beyond the scope of the disputed issues of material fact listed by the Court in its previous order on Altitude's motion for summary judgment.(Doc. # 140at 1-2); see(Doc. #129 at 18).Both parties invoke Rules 401and403 of the Federal Rules of Evidence as the bases for their motions in limine.

II.STANDARD OF REVIEW

“A creature of neither the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure nor the Federal Rules of Evidence, the motion in limine gives the court the opportunity to take up before trial those certain and limited evidentiary issues in order to minimize interruptions at trial.”Deghand v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 980 F.Supp. 1176, 1179(D. Kan.1997).Pretrial rulings may save time at trial and save the parties time, effort, and cost in preparing their cases.Id.However, in many cases, such rulings are better left until trial when the Court can assess the question considering the evidence presented at trial.Koch v. Koch Indus., Inc., 2 F.Supp.2d 1385, 1387-88(D. Kan.1998).

The moving party“has the burden of demonstrating that the evidence is inadmissible on any relevant ground.”Pinon Sun Condo. Ass'n, Inc. v. Atain Specialty Ins. Co., No. 17-cv-01595-CMA-NRN, 2020 WL 1452166, at *3(D. Colo.Mar. 25, 2020)(quotingFirst Sav. Bank, F.S.B. v. U.S. Bancorp, 117 F.Supp.2d 1078, 1082(D. Kan.2000)).Denial of a motion in limine, however, does not mean that all of the evidence contemplated by the motion will automatically be admitted at trial.Id.Rather, “the court may alter its limine ruling based on developments at trial or on its sound judicial discretion.”Id.(quotingFirst Sav. Bank, 117 F.Supp.2d at 1082).Further, a ruling in limine does not “relieve a party from the responsibility of making objections, raising motions to strike, or making formal offers of proof during the course of trial.”Thweatt v. Ontko, 814 F.2d 1466, 1470(10th Cir.1987).

III.APPLICABLE LAW

A.Rule 401

Evidence is relevant if: it has “any tendency to make a fact more or less probable” and said fact is material, i.e., the fact “is of consequence in determining the action.”Fed.R.Evid. 401.The Court has broad discretion over evidentiary relevance determinations.E.g., United States v. Neal, 718 F.2d 1505, 1509-10(10th Cir.1983).

B.Rule 403

Under Rule 403, “[t]he court may exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of . . . unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, [or] misleading the jury.”Fed.R.Evid. 403.As with Rule 401 determinations, the Court has broad discretion to determine whether the probative value of the evidence is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.Neal, 718 F.2d at 1510.

IV.ANALYSIS

As explained below, the Court concludes that both parties have satisfied their respective burdens of showing that the evidence in dispute is relevant and more probative than prejudicial.Neither of the parties' corresponding arguments to the contrary persuade the Court otherwise.

A.Defendants' Motionin Limine

Altitude essentially argues that the Court's recent order on summary judgment in this case narrowed the scope of the outstanding factual issues pertaining to Mr. Romero's discrimination and retaliation claims.See(Doc. # 140at 3-5.)According to Altitude, the Court's order on summary judgment makes irrelevant any evidence not pertaining to the five bullet-pointed disputed material facts provided in the order:

• Altitude's reasons for indefinitely suspending “the 24/7 shows,” a series that Mr. Romero was producing;

• Altitude's reasons for denying Mr. Romero a main-host role on another segment, "Sports Social”;

• Altitude's decision to transition Mr. Romero's workload from mostly hosting assignments to less prestigious work;

• Mr. Romero's ability to use Altitude's recording studio; and

• the alleged $5,000 bonus.

Altitude insists that admitting evidence concerning facts beyond the quintuplet listed above would create a confusing series of “mini-trials” that would unfairly prejudice Altitude and confuse the jury.Id.In response, Mr. Romero insists that Altitude's interpretation is nonsensical because the Court would have expressly stated that its bullet-pointed list of disputed material facts was strictly inclusive.(Doc. # 145at 4.)

Altitude's reading of this Court's order is incorrect.The Court cited outstanding factual disputes that exemplified why summary judgment was inappropriate.If the Court intended to limit the scope of the issues going forward based on that list, the opinion would have said so explicitly.It did not.Consequently, the Court DENIES Altitude's motion in limine.

B.Plaintiff's Motionin Limine

1.Evidence of Mr. Romero's Lewdness Towards Female Coworkers

In his motion, Mr. Romero argues that any evidence documenting his inappropriate behavior towards female colleagues is irrelevant because, with the exception of one incident reported in 2012, Altitude had no knowledge of that conduct when Altitude chose to take adverse employment action against him.(Doc. # 142at 23.)

Altitude responds with citations to official records and references to informal complaints that show the network's awareness of at least some of Mr. Romero's conduct before making the employment decisions about which he now complains.(Doc. # 146at 3-5.)Also, because Mr. Romero challenges employment decisions made by Altitude after Mr. Romero filed this lawsuit, the facts that Altitude learned from the lawsuit are relevant to the network's motivations for the actions challenged in Mr. Romero's supplemental complaint.Id. at 5(citing (Doc. # 66)).

The Court agrees with Altitude.The evidence is relevant to Altitude's motivations underlying the employment decisions affecting Mr. Romero.The issue becomes one of conditional relevance-Altitude must know of Mr. Romero's conduct for it to have affected Altitude's motivations.To prove that point, Altitude points to a 2012 email received by Altitude employees that recites five separate instances of Mr. Romero's inappropriate behavior towards women.(Doc. # 142-5.)Altitude also refers to an alleged conversation between Ms. Winge and her supervisor, Ken Miller, discussing why Mr. Romero's history of comments about her physical appearance led her to verbally threaten him should he do so again.(Doc. # 142at 3-4.)Thus, because “the relevance of [this] evidence depends on whether a fact exists”-that fact being whether Altitude knew of Mr. Romero's conduct at a time when it could have impacted Altitude's deliberative process-and Altitude has sufficiently shown that the fact exists, the Court deems it relevant.Fed.R.Evid. 104(b).Further, the Court finds this evidence is more probative than prejudicial, especially given that Mr. Romero was either unable or unwilling to articulate why said evidence will be, as he claims, unfairly prejudicial, confusing, misleading, or cumulative.See(Doc. # 142at 5);but see, e.g., Pinon Sun Cond. Ass'n, 2020 WL 1452166, at *3(obligating the party moving for exclusion to demonstrate inadmissibility).

Consequently, the Court DENIES Mr. Romero's motion in limine with respect to the evidence of his lewd behavior towards his female colleagues.

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