Defense verdict reversed because admitting complaints against employee were prejudicial

One thing that someone complains about after every trial is that the other side offered prejudicial evidence that the judge should have excluded. It’s almost always a loser argument. But it carried the day in Argueta v. Worldwide Flight Servs. (D2d8 Nov. 8, 2023 No. B306910) [nonpub. opn.]. Dissenting, Justice Grimes still thought it was a loser argument—and not only that, it should have been deemed forfeited because the appellant unfairly presented the issue.

The plaintiff in this employment suit argued she was sexually harassed by her manager. But at trial, the employer offered several complaints that other employees had made about the plaintiff. The employer argued that the complaints were needed to show that the plaintiff had a motive to make her own complaint. The court admitted them. The court gave a limiting instruction that they were only to be considered for motive, but the employer used the opportunity to impugn the plaintiff’s character anyway.

The Court of Appeal reversed. There was no real dispute that the substance of the complaints was irrelevant. And while the fact of the complaint could be relevant to establishing that plaintiff had a motive to fabricate her complaint, that relevance was “extremely minimal.”

Aren’t evidentiary rulings reviewed under a highly deferential abuse-of-discretion standard? Yes, but “when the evidence at issue involves prior bad acts, substantial prejudice is inherent in the evidence and its admission requires "extremely careful analysis." Generally, such evidence is admissible only if it has "substantial" probative value. (See Brown v. Smith (1997) 55 Cal.App.4th 767, 791 (Brown).)” And when the relevant-to-prejudicial balance is lopsided in the wrong direction, a limiting instruction is too puny a corrective.

Pretty good analysis. But don’t make up your mind until you consider Justice Grimes’s dissent. She makes these solid points:

• To put in perspective the amount of time spent on the irrelevant complaints, the discussion took up 15 pages of the reporter's transcript, somewhere in the middle of 18 volumes of transcripts (i.e., thousands of pages).
• Even without the complaints, the defense discredited plaintiff’s testimony a bunch of other ways. Normally, this is fatal to a challenge to an evidentiary ruling. The fact that it was not fatal here is surprising.
• Plaintiff’s opening brief did not fairly present all the defense’s evidence supporting the judgment. This, too, normally is fatal to a challenge to an evidence-based challenge. But it wasn’t here, which is, again, surprising.
• Plaintiff could not prevail unless she carried her burden that the harassment was severe and pervasive. The jury found she did not carry that burden, and there was nothing in plaintiff’s challenge that would change that. (The opinion does not mention this, but that challenge should have been subject to the “almost impossible” finding-compelled-as-a-matter-of-law standard of review. (Atkins v. City of Los Angeles (2017) 8 Cal.App.5th 696, 734.) Instances of overcoming this standard are rare, bordering on the unique. Yet plaintiff’s achievement is not remarked on.)

This confirms that reversing based on an evidentiary ruling is still very, very difficult.