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25 words on Sprint/United Management
February 26, 2008 by Ross Runkel at LawMemo
Lots of people held out a false hope that Sprint/United Management v. Mendelsohn (US Supreme Court 02/26/2008) would decide whether so-called "me-too" evidence could be used in a discrimination case. They hoped for a bright line to be drawn that would settle the question for all future cases.
Well, I'm sorry, but this case was not so much an employment law case as it was an evidence case. It turned on the proper role of the trial courts versus the appellate courts in applying the Federal Rules of Evidence.
Here's what I learned in law school (oh so long ago) and what this decision actually says - in 25 words:
It is the trial court that decides fact-sensitive questions on the relevance of evidence, subject to abuse-of-discretion review. Let the trial court do its job.
It took the Supreme Court only nine pages, with a unanimous decision.
Now everyone can go back to their specific cases and continue to work through the difficult questions of relevance that will - as always - turn on the specific facts of the individual case. There will not be one single answer that will fit all cases.
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