Plaintiff Nycoca Hairston sued defendant Christine Wormuth, Secretary of the Department of the Army, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas raising claims of sexual harassment and retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The district court granted summary judgment to the Army on both claims, but the Eighth Circuit reversed as to the retaliation claim. Following a jury trial on the retaliation claim, the jury found in favor of the Army. Hairston appealed the denial of her post-trial motions and an evidentiary ruling to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Factual Overview
Hairston was hired at the United States Army’s Pine Bluff Arsenal in January 2013. She alleged that her immediate supervisor, Duane Johnson, sexually harassed her, including an incident where he put a saltshaker down her shirt at a party and made an inappropriate comment about a Victoria’s Secret fashion show. Hairston reported these incidents to the appropriate authorities.
Hairston claimed that after she reported the harassment, her supervisors retaliated against her by soliciting complaints from coworkers, producing a retroactive memorandum detailing prior misconduct, and giving her verbal counseling about an alleged performance failure from months earlier. On December 13, 2013, shortly after Hairston reported Johnson’s Victoria’s Secret comment, her second-line supervisor Deborah Moncrief fired her.
The Army presented conflicting testimony, claiming that Hairston’s behavior caused constant drama and chaos in the workplace. They alleged she resisted training, became argumentative, and that coworkers lodged complaints against her.
After a jury trial on the retaliation claim, the jury found in favor of the Army. Hairston filed post-trial motions for a new trial and to alter or amend the judgment, which the district court denied. Hairston appealed.
Legal Analysis
Appellate Jurisdiction: The court first addressed whether it had jurisdiction over Hairston’s challenge to the denial of her post-trial motions. Hairston filed her notice of appeal before the district court ruled on her post-trial motions and did not amend the notice after the ruling. The court held that it lacked jurisdiction over the post-trial motions because Hairston’s notice of appeal did not make her intent to appeal these rulings apparent, even when liberally construed.
Evidentiary Ruling: The court did have jurisdiction to address Hairston’s challenge to the district court’s decision limiting the testimony of her witness, Robert Harrison. Harrison was not allowed to testify about a military law enforcement investigation into Hairston’s conduct that occurred after she made her sexual harassment allegation. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding this evidence, finding it was not relevant to Hairston’s retaliatory discharge claim and unlikely to have substantially influenced the jury’s verdict.
The Eighth Circuit affirmed the judgment of the district court, finding it lacked jurisdiction over Hairston’s challenge to the denial of her post-trial motions and that the district court did not abuse its discretion in limiting Harrison’s testimony.
Schrag on Law 