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Lindberg v. California Dep't of Education10/31/2005
the conduct of that person on a specified occasion. Subdivision (b) . . . clarifies, however, that this rule does not prohibit admission of evidence of uncharged misconduct when such evidence is relevant to establish some fact other than the person's character or disposition." (People v. Ewoldt (1994) 7 Cal.4th 380, 393 (Ewoldt).) "Motive" and "intent" are enumerated factors that subdivision (b) specifically identifies as falling within the exception to the statutory bar against misconduct evidence.
Defendants' intent and motive in reorganizing Lindberg's division, removing him as a compliance monitor and relegating him to a relatively nonfunctional position, and refusing to hire him into vacant job openings for which he was suitable and qualified, were key disputed material issues in the case. Lindberg claimed that these actions were motivated by retaliation for blowing the whistle on fraudulent CBO activity, in order to facilitate an unimpeded flow of money to these organizations. Defendants denied harboring any malevolent intent, claiming that their conduct constituted nothing more than legitimate acts of administrative decision making.
Testimony by other CDE employees who were similarly mistreated or disciplined soon after revealing CBO fraud or protesting CDE's failure to act on it was clearly relevant to these issues. As the court stated in Ewoldt, "` he recurrence of a similar result . . . tends (increasingly with each instance) to negative accident or inadvertence . . . or good faith or other innocent mental state, and tends to establish (provisionally, at least, though not certainly) the presence of the normal, i.e., [wrongful], intent accompanying such an act . . . ." (Ewoldt, supra, 7 Cal.4th at p. 402, quoting 2 Wigmore, Evidence (Chadbourn rev. ed. 1979) ยง 302, p. 241.)
Retaliation against other employees for similar activity was additionally relevant as supportive of the inference that defendants' conduct toward Lindberg was the "manifestation of a common design or plan." (Ewoldt, supra, 7 Cal.4th at p. 402.) "It is clear that an employer's conduct tending to demonstrate hostility towards a certain group is both relevant and admissible where the employer's general hostility towards that group is the true reason behind firing an employee who is a member of that group." (Heyne v. Caruso (9th Cir. 1995) 69 F.3d 1475, 1479.) Just as "`what may appear to be a legitimate justification for a single incident of alleged harassment may look pretextual when viewed in the context of several other related incidents'" (Jackson v. Quanex Corp. (6th Cir. 1999) 191 F.3d 647, 661), what may look like an innocent explanation for an employer's demotion or isolation of one employee may take on an entirely different complexion in light of evidence that other workers who engaged in the same protected activity suffered a similar fate. The evidence was therefore relevant as demonstrative of a general scheme to
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