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Clifford v. American Drug Stores8/22/2005
ssment claims, which she completed in early November 1977.
Another employee at the Diamond Bar store, Sofia Farah, testified that Doose sexually harassed her, did offensive things, and talked dirty. She observed him sexually harassing other women in the store, including Ryan and a customer. She reported the incidents in September 1997, first to loss prevention, then to Brad Adams, giving the names of the women involved.
Kristina Gadacz testified that she never worked in a store for which Doose was general manager, but he was market manager of the Sav-On Express in Buena Park when she worked there. He sexually harassed her on two occasions, exhibiting lewd, offensive, and inappropriate behavior. The first incident occurred in December 1996, at a Christmas party, but she was too embarrassed to report it until 1998, when she communicated it to Adams and a company lawyer who was with him.
Mark Colvin testified that he was a loss prevention agent in the Arcadia store when Doose was manager there in 1996 and 1997, and that he later became a loss prevention supervisor. He witnessed Doose engage in conduct that Colvin considered a violation of the company's sexual harassment policy toward three or four women employees. Six employees, including Stange, Ryan, and Carranza, reported Doose's conduct toward them, and in his opinion, the conduct violated Sav-On's sexual harassment policy. In late 1997 or early 1998, Clifford reported sexual harassment to him when he was on an assignment at the Baldwin Park store.
Colvin did not report any of the incidents or complaints, even though he knew he was supposed to do so, because he also knew that nothing would be done, except that he would be given a hard time. There had already been many complaints against Doose and nothing had been done, except that he had been transferred from store to store. Colvin valued his job and did not want to create problems for himself, and since Doose had been there a long time, he did not want to "go up against him."
Sav-On contends that the foregoing summarized testimony should have been excluded, because "due process prohibits admission of evidence of wrongful acts against others that has no specific nexus to the harm plaintiff suffered." As authority for its contention, Sav-On relies upon State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Campbell (2003) 538 U.S. 408 (State Farm). But State Farm addressed admission of evidence of other wrongful conduct in the context of a federal due process claim regarding the amount of punitive damages awarded. It did not articulate a broad exclusionary rule unrelated to the imposition of punitive damages, as Sav-On suggests.
Here, there is a specific nexus between the sexual harassment of other employees by the same person, and the retaliation of Clifford and other employees by managers of Sav-On for reporting that person. Far from requiring exclusion of evidence of the sexu
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