Young v. James Green Management, Inc.

• Decision Date: 05 May 2003
• Docket Number: No. 02-2381.,02-2381.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit
• Parties: Leshon YOUNG and Glendell Mays, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. JAMES GREEN MANAGEMENT, INCORPORATED, Defendant-Appellee.

Page 616

327 F.3d 616

Leshon YOUNG and Glendell Mays, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. JAMES GREEN MANAGEMENT, INCORPORATED, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 02-2381.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued January 16, 2003.

Decided May 5, 2003.

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Bob L. Perica (Argued), Hoefert & Perica, Alton, IL, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Rex Carr (Argued), Carr, Korein, Tillery, Kunin, Montroy & Glass, East St. Louis, IL, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before FLAUM, Chief Judge, and COFFEY and RIPPLE, Circuit Judges.

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge.

The plaintiffs, Leshon Young and Glendell Mays, brought this action against their former employer, James Green Management, Inc. ("Green"). They alleged that they had been terminated on account of their race in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq. The jury returned verdicts in favor of Green. The plaintiffs then sought a new trial on the ground that they had been prejudiced by several evidentiary rulings. The district court denied the motion. On appeal, the plaintiffs submit that the district court committed reversible error in making several evidentiary rulings. For the reasons set forth in the following opinion, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

I BACKGROUND

A. Facts

Green is a real estate management firm that manages several different apartment complexes in southern Illinois. One such complex is the Chateau Apartments ("Chateau"). On January 3, 2000, after speaking with Gary Olson, the complex's property manager, Leshon Young, an African-American, began working at Chateau as a maintenance worker. Two weeks after he began work, Mr. Young was promoted to acting maintenance supervisor by Gerald Clark, an upper-level manager. On or about February 1, 2000, Glendell Mays, also an African-American, began working at Chateau as a painter. He also had been interviewed by Olson.

Sometime during the first week of February 2000, Olson called Mr. Young into the office; he proceeded to tell Mr. Young that he had been instructed by Gerald Clark to "get rid of Glen [Mr. Mays] because he was black." Trial Tr. II at 217. Olson also told Mr. Young that he planned to tell Mr. Mays about Clark's statement. In reply, Mr. Young, fearing that such a disclosure would cause Mr. Mays' work performance to suffer, asked Olson not to tell Mr. Mays.¹ Mr. Young, citing earlier experience dealing with racial discrimination, also indicated to Olson that he personally would speak to Mr. Mays. See id. at 217. Despite Mr. Young's request, Olson promptly informed Mr. Mays that he had been asked to fire Mr. Mays because he was black.

Mr. Mays asked Mr. Young whether it was true that Green wanted to fire him because he was African-American, and Mr. Young responded, "that's what I heard." Id. at 218. Mr. Mays testified that he did not take any action at that time in response to Olson's allegations because he was uncertain whether to believe Olson. See id. at 169.

On February 11, 2000, Mr. Young's promotion to acting maintenance supervisor was confirmed, and he was given a retroactive pay increase. That same day, Olson faxed a letter to Green's corporate headquarters stating that he was resigning "effective immediately" because he had been instructed by an unidentified Green supervisor (whom Olson identified at trial as Gerald Clark) "to `hide out' a minority worker for the next week and [to] `get rid of him' on the first opportunity" because "`James Green doesn't like blacks working for him. We already have Lee and that is one too many.'" Plaintiffs' Trial Ex.1. According to Olson's testimony at trial, the African-American individuals referenced in the letter were Mr. Young and Mr. Mays.

Sometime during the evening of February 11, 2000, Olson called Mr. Young. When Mr. Young informed Olson of his pay increase, Olson told Mr. Young that he received the raise because of the resignation letter that Olson had sent to Green earlier that day. Olson faxed a copy of the letter to Mr. Young the next day; Olson also informed Mr. Mays of the letter's content. In response to the allegations made in Olson's resignation letter, Mr. Young allegedly told Mr. Mays that they needed to work extra hard to ensure that they did not lose their jobs: "[L]ook, we need to work as hard as we can ... because we don't need to give them any reason to fire us. We don't need—we can't give them any type of excuse [] for them to fire us." Trial Tr. II at 219.

As of March 1, 2000, Chateau had only three maintenance workers, two of whom were African-American (Mr. Young and Mr. Mays) and one of whom was white. There was also a white property manager, Magdaline Oates. On March 6, 2000, the entire crew was terminated, including the plaintiffs. Loren Brown, Green's General Manager, testified that he believed the overall appearance of Chateau had steadily declined over the last few weeks and that the crew members had lost interest in their jobs. Brown noticed that trash was not being picked up and work orders were piling up. Brown also observed that Mr. Mays was not painting the apartments in the correct manner; his work was careless and sloppy. Brown spoke to Gerald Clark and Magdaline Oates about his concerns; and, on one occasion, he actually drove Oates around the complex to point out the deficiencies in the crew's work. At some point, it also came to Brown's attention that Mr. Young was spending too much time sitting behind his desk in the office when he should have been in the field performing work orders. See Trial Tr. IV at 11. Brown blamed the entire crew for the "trashy" appearance of the complex; he sensed that the entire crew did not take pride in their work and that a change was needed. Id. at 14. He determined that he "needed a new crew." Id. at 13. On Brown's direction, Gerald Clark fired the entire Chateau crew, including Mr. Young and Mr. Mays, on March 6, 2000.

The plaintiffs believed that they were terminated because of their race. In their view, Green's explanation for their termination was not credible because they had worked "twice as hard" once they learned from Olson that Green's management wanted to terminate Mr. Mays because he was African-American. Trial Tr. II at 169.

Following the plaintiffs' termination, Green retained four different individuals as subcontractors to maintain Chateau. These individuals, all white, were fired after two weeks of work because they failed to meet management's expectations.

After Olson terminated his employment with Green, he moved into Chateau to care for a disabled woman, Rebecca Luebbert, with whom he later became romantically involved. Olson testified that, when he was leaving the apartment one day, he encountered Loren Brown, who related that the company had received an EEOC letter and that Olson's resignation letter had created a problem. Olson further testified that he agreed to provide Green with a letter retracting his accusations of discrimination in exchange for a letter of recommendation and the forgiveness of $800 in back rent. Olson, in fact, did provide Green with a letter of retraction. However, Loren Brown testified that he never made such an agreement with Olson and that the meeting concerned only Olson's interest in getting a letter of recommendation.

At trial, Gerald Clark testified that he never instructed Olson to "hide out" or terminate Mr. Mays because of his race. He denied having any conversation with Olson in which he expressed the racist sentiments attributed to him in Olson's resignation letter. According to Clark's testimony, Olson fabricated the entire conversation. Also at trial, Rebecca Luebbert testified that, shortly after Olson's resignation, he approached Mr. Young while he was painting an apartment at Chateau and told him that he should "just take [his] time" completing the work and "let them fire [him]." Trial Tr. III at 174-75. Luebbert further testified that Olson gave his pager number to Mr. Young and instructed him to contact Olson if Green fired Mr. Young. See id. at 175. Finally, Luebbert testified that Olson had told her that, in return for helping plaintiffs win their lawsuit against Green, he would share in their award. See id. at 178.

B. District Court Proceedings

Following the jury verdicts in favor of Green, the plaintiffs moved for a new trial on the ground that certain evidentiary rulings by the district court constituted reversible error. In particular, plaintiffs claimed that the district court erred by: (1) excluding Gary Olson's resignation letter from evidence except for the limited purpose of explaining why a subsequent letter of retraction was written; (2) excluding the EEOC determinations of discrimination from evidence; and (3) allowing Green's counsel to elicit details regarding Gary Olson's prior convictions and bad acts and to read from the deposition testimony of an unrelated civil case involving Rebecca Luebbert during cross-examination. The district court denied plaintiffs' motion. The court determined that Olson's resignation letter was properly excluded as inadmissible hearsay because the relevant statements were written after Olson resigned and, therefore, the statements were not admissions by Green because Olson no longer was Green's employee. The court further determined that the EEOC determinations were properly excluded because they were unreliable and untrustworthy. Finally, the court determined that plaintiffs' counsel "opened the door" to the entire line of questioning relating to Gary Olson's convictions and his involvement with Rebecca Luebbert's unrelated civil case and, therefore, Green's counsel "was properly allowed to explore these issues during his cross-examination." R.40 at 2.

II DISCUSSION

A. Standard of Review

The evidentiary rulings of the district court are given special deference; we shall not reverse such rulings unless the district court abused its discretion. See United States v. Lea, 249 F.3d 632, 641 (7th Cir....