Lewis v. City of Chicago Police Department

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• finding that the trial court did 16 not abuse its discretion in excluding evidence of an investigation that “presents the question the 17 jury was tasked with answering” because “it could have confused the jury into thinking that the 18 issue was already decided”
• rejecting argument that excluding evidence of EEOC determination and internal investigation was in error because “it could have confused the jury into thinking that the issue [they were asked to determine] was already decided”
• when it is obvious that an adverse employment action occurred, courts should decide that issue as a matter of law
• “When a party fails to object to an instruction, the court will reverse only if there was a plain error affecting substantial rights.” (internal quotation marks omitted)
• “[E]ven if a judge’s [evidentiary] decision is found to be erroneous, it may be deemed harmless if the record indicates the trial result would have been the same.”
• “[In a prior case, the Seventh Circuit] drew a distinction between asking a jury to infer that a missing witness's testimony would be unfavorable (which is not allowed according to the missing-witness rule

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).