SPRINT/UNITED MANAGEMENT CO. v. MENDELSOHN

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379 OCTOBER TERM, 2007
Syllabus
SPRINT/UNITED MANAGEMENT CO. v.
MENDELSOHN
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the tenth circuit
No. 06–1221. Argued December 3, 2007—Decided February 26, 2008
In respondent Mendelsohn’s age discrimination case, petitioner Sprint
moved in limine to exclude the testimony of former employees alleging
discrimination by supervisors who had no role in the employment deci
sion Mendelsohn challenged, on the ground that such evidence was irrel
evant to the case’s central issue, see Fed. Rules Evid. 401, 402, and
unduly prejudicial, see Rule 403. Granting the motion, the District
Court excluded evidence of discrimination against those not “similarly
situated” to Mendelsohn. The Tenth Circuit treated that order as
applying a per se rule that evidence from employees of other supervisors
is irrelevant in age discrimination cases, concluded that the District
Court abused its discretion by relying on the Circuit’s Aramburu case,
determined that the evidence was relevant and not unduly prejudicial,
and remanded for a new trial.
Held: The Tenth Circuit erred in concluding that the District Court ap
plied a per se rule and thus improperly engaged in its own analysis of
the relevant factors under Rules 401 and 403, rather than remanding
the case for the District Court to clarify its ruling. Pp. 383–388.
(a) In deference to a district court’s familiarity with a case’s details
and its greater experience in evidentiary matters, courts of appeals up
hold Rule 403 rulings unless the district court has abused its discretion.
Here, the Tenth Circuit did not accord due deference to the District
Court. The District Court’s two-sentence discussion of the evidence
neither cited nor gave any other indication that the decision relied on
Aramburu or suggested that the court applied a per se rule of inadmissi
bility. Neither party’s submissions to the District Court suggested that
Aramburu was controlling. That court’s use of the same “similarly sit
uated” phrase that Aramburu used cannot be presumed to indicate
adoption of Aramburu’s analysis, for the District Court was addressing
a very different kind of evidence here. And the nature of Sprint’s argu
ment was not that the particular evidence was never admissible, but
only that such evidence lacked sufficient probative value in this case to
be relevant or outweigh prejudice and delay. Pp. 384–386.
(b) Because of the Tenth Circuit’s error, it went on to assess the rele
vance of the evidence itself and conduct its own balancing of probative

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380 SPRINT/UNITED MANAGEMENT CO. v. MENDELSOHN
Opinion of the Court
value and potential prejudicial effect when it should have allowed the
District Court to make these determinations in the first instance, explic
itly and on the record. Pp. 386–388.
466 F. 3d 1223, vacated and remanded.
Thomas, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
Paul W. Cane, Jr., argued the cause for petitioner. With
him on the briefs were Katherine C. Huibonhoa, Chris R.
Pace, John J. Yates, and Mark G. Arnold.
Deputy Solicitor General Garre argued the cause for the
United States as amicus curiae. With him on the brief
were Solicitor General Clement, Irving L. Gornstein, and
Ronald S. Cooper.
Dennis E. Egan argued the cause for respondent. With
him on the brief was Eric Schnapper.*
Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this age discrimination case, the District Court ex
cluded testimony by nonparties alleging discrimination at
the hands of supervisors of the defendant company who
played no role in the adverse employment decision chal
lenged by the plaintiff. The Court of Appeals, having con
cluded that the District Court improperly applied a per se
rule excluding the evidence, engaged in its own analysis of
the relevant factors under Federal Rules of Evidence 401 and
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the Chamber of
Commerce of the United States of America by Evan M. Tager, Robin S.
Conrad, and Shane Brennan; for the Employers Group by Lee T. Pater
son, Amanda C. Sommerfeld, Gene C. Schaerr, and Linda T. Coberly; and
for the Equal Employment Advisory Council et al. by Rae T. Vann and
Karen R. Harned.
A brief of amicus curiae urging affirmance was filed for AARP by Dan
iel B. Kohrman, Thomas W. Osborne, Laurie McCann, and Melvin R.
Radowitz.
Michael B. de Leeuw, Darcy M. Goddard, and Michael Foreman filed a
brief for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law et al. as
amici curiae.

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403, and remanded with instructions to admit the challenged
testimony. We granted certiorari on the question whether
the Federal Rules of Evidence required admission of the tes
timony. We conclude that such evidence is neither per se
admissible nor per se inadmissible. Because it is not en
tirely clear whether the District Court applied a per se rule,
we vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand
for the District Court to conduct the relevant inquiry under
the appropriate standard.
I
Respondent Ellen Mendelsohn was employed in the Busi
ness Development Strategy Group of petitioner Sprint/
United Management Company (Sprint) from 1989 until 2002,
when Sprint terminated her as a part of an ongoing compa
nywide reduction in force. She sued Sprint under the Age
Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), 81 Stat.
602, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 621 et seq., alleging disparate
treatment based on her age.
In support of her claim, Mendelsohn sought to introduce
testimony by five other former Sprint employees who
claimed that their supervisors had discriminated against
them because of age. Three of the witnesses alleged that
they heard one or more Sprint supervisors or managers
make remarks denigrating older workers. One claimed that
Sprint’s intern program was a mechanism for age discrimina
tion and that she had seen a spreadsheet suggesting that a
supervisor considered age in making layoff decisions. An
other witness was to testify that he had been given an un
warranted negative evaluation and “banned” from working
at Sprint because of his age, and that he had witnessed an
other employee being harassed because of her age. App.
17a. The final witness alleged that Sprint had required him
to get permission before hiring anyone over age 40, that
after his termination he had been replaced by a younger em
ployee, and that Sprint had rejected his subsequent employ
ment applications.

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382 SPRINT/UNITED MANAGEMENT CO. v. MENDELSOHN
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None of the five witnesses worked in the Business Devel
opment Strategy Group with Mendelsohn, nor had any of
them worked under the supervisors in her chain of command,
which included James Fee, Mendelsohn’s direct supervisor;
Paul Reddick, Fee’s direct manager and the decisionmaker
in Mendelsohn’s termination; and Bill Blessing, Reddick’s
supervisor and head of the Business Development Strat
egy Group. Neither did any of the proffered witnesses
report hearing discriminatory remarks by Fee, Reddick, or
Blessing.
Sprint moved in limine to exclude the testimony, arguing
that it was irrelevant to the central issue in the case:
whether Reddick terminated Mendelsohn because of her age.
See Fed. Rules Evid. 401, 402. Sprint claimed that the testi
mony would be relevant only if it came from employees who
were “similarly situated” to Mendelsohn in that they had the
same supervisors. App. 156a. Sprint also argued that,
under Rule 403, the probative value of the evidence would be
substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice,
confusion of the issues, misleading of the jury, and undue
delay.
In a minute order, the District Court granted the motion,
excluding, in relevant part, evidence of “discrimination
against employees not similarly situated to plaintiff.” App.
to Pet. for Cert. 24a. In clarifying that Mendelsohn could
only “offer evidence of discrimination against Sprint employ
ees who are similarly situated to her,” the court defined
“ ‘[s]imilarly situated employees,’ for the purpose of this rul
ing, [as] requir[ing] proof that (1) Paul Ruddick [sic] was
the decision-maker in any adverse employment action; and
(2) temporal proximity.” Ibid. Beyond that, the District
Court provided no explanation of the basis for its ruling. As
the trial proceeded, the judge orally clarified that the minute
order was meant to exclude only testimony “that Sprint
treated other people unfairly on the basis of age,” and would
not bar testimony going to the “totally different” question

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“whether the [reduction in force], which is [Sprint’s] stated
nondiscriminatory reason, is a pretext for age discrimina
tion.” App. 295a–296a.
The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit treated the
minute order as the application of a per se rule that evidence
from employees with other supervisors is irrelevant to prov
ing discrimination in an ADEA case. Specifically, it con
cluded that the District Court abused its discretion by rely
ing on Aramburu v. Boeing Co., 112 F. 3d 1398 (CA10 1997).
466 F. 3d 1223, 1227–1228 (CA10 2006). Aramburu held that
“[s]imilarly situated employees,” for the purpose of showing
disparate treatment in employee discipline, “are those who
deal with the same supervisor and are subject to the same
standards governing performance evaluation and discipline.”
112 F. 3d, at 1404 (internal quotation marks omitted). The
Court of Appeals viewed that case as inapposite because
it addressed discriminatory discipline, not a companywide
policy of discrimination. The Court of Appeals then de
termined that the evidence was relevant and not unduly
prejudicial, and reversed and remanded for a new trial.
We granted certiorari, 551 U. S. 1113 (2007), to determine
whether, in an employment discrimination action, the Fed
eral Rules of Evidence require admission of testimony by
nonparties alleging discrimination at the hands of persons
who played no role in the adverse employment decision chal
lenged by the plaintiff.
II
The parties focus their dispute on whether the Court of
Appeals correctly held that the evidence was relevant and
not unduly prejudicial under Rules 401 and 403. We con
clude, however, that the Court of Appeals should not have
engaged in that inquiry. Rather, as explained below, we
hold that the Court of Appeals erred in concluding that the
District Court applied a per se rule. Given the circum
stances of this case and the unclear basis of the District

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Court’s decision, the Court of Appeals should have remanded
the case to the District Court for clarification.
A
In deference to a district court’s familiarity with the
details of the case and its greater experience in eviden
tiary matters, courts of appeals afford broad discretion
to a district court’s evidentiary rulings. This Court has
acknowledged:
“A district court is accorded a wide discretion in de
termining the admissibility of evidence under the Fed
eral Rules. Assessing the probative value of [the prof
fered evidence], and weighing any factors counseling
against admissibility is a matter first for the district
court’s sound judgment under Rules 401 and 403 . . . .”
United States v. Abel, 469 U. S. 45, 54 (1984).
This is particularly true with respect to Rule 403 since it
requires an “on-the-spot balancing of probative value and
prejudice, potentially to exclude as unduly prejudicial some
evidence that already has been found to be factually rele
vant.” 1 S. Childress & M. Davis, Federal Standards of Re
view § 4.02, p. 4–16 (3d ed. 1999). Under this deferential
standard, courts of appeals uphold Rule 403 rulings unless
the district court has abused its discretion. See Old Chief
v. United States, 519 U. S. 172, 183, n. 7 (1997).
Here, however, the Court of Appeals did not accord the
District Court the deference we have described as the “hall
mark of abuse-of-discretion review.” General Elec. Co. v.
Joiner, 522 U. S. 136, 143 (1997). Instead, it reasoned that
the District Court had “erroneous[ly] conclu[ded] that
Aramburu controlled the fate of the evidence in this case.”
466 F. 3d, at 1230, n. 4.
To be sure, Sprint in its motion in limine argued, with a
citation to Aramburu’s categorical bar, that “[e]mployees
may be similarly situated only if they had the same supervi

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sor,” App. 163a, and the District Court’s minute order mir
rors that blanket language.
But the District Court’s discussion of the evidence neither
cited Aramburu nor gave any other indication that its deci
sion relied on that case. The minute order included only
two sentences discussing the admissibility of the evidence:
“Plaintiff may offer evidence of discrimination against
Sprint employees who are similarly situated to her.
‘Similarly situated employees,’ for the purpose of this
ruling, requires proof that (1) Paul Ruddick [sic] was
the decision-maker in any adverse employment action;
and (2) temporal proximity.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 24a.
Contrary to the Court of Appeals’ conclusion, these sen
tences include no analysis suggesting that the District Court
applied a per se rule excluding this type of evidence.
Mendelsohn argued on appeal 1 that the District Court
must have viewed Aramburu as controlling because Sprint
cited the case in support of its in limine motion. But nei
ther party’s submissions to the District Court suggested that
Aramburu was controlling. Sprint’s memorandum in sup
port of its motion mentioned the case only in a string cita
tion, and not for the proposition that only “similarly situated”
witnesses’ testimony would be admissible.2 App. 163a.
Mendelsohn did not cite the case in her memorandum in op
position, see id., at 208a, and Sprint did not address it in its
reply brief, see id., at 221a.
1 Although, as noted above, the parties do not address in their filings
before this Court the grounds on which we base our decision, we shall
consider the relevant arguments they made before the Court of Appeals.
2 Even if Sprint had argued that Aramburu requires a per se rule ex
cluding such evidence, it would be inappropriate for the reviewing court
to assume, absent indication in the District Court’s opinion, that the lower
court adopted a party’s incorrect argument. Cf. Lawrence v. Chater, 516
U. S. 163, 183 (1996) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (“[W]e should not assume that
a court of appeals has adopted a legal position only because [a party] sup
ported it”).

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Mendelsohn further argued that the District Court’s use
of the phrase “similarly situated,” also used in Aramburu,
evidenced its reliance on that case. Although the District
Court used the same phrase, we decline to read the District
Court’s decision as relying on a case that was not controlling.
Aramburu defined the phrase “similarly situated” in the en
tirely different context of a plaintiff ’s allegation that nonmi
nority employees were treated more favorably than minority
employees. 112 F. 3d, at 1403–1406. Absent reason to do
so, we should not assume the District Court adopted that
“similarly situated” analysis when it addressed a very differ
ent kind of evidence. An appellate court should not pre
sume that a district court intended an incorrect legal result
when the order is equally susceptible of a correct read
ing, particularly when the applicable standard of review is
deferential.
Mendelsohn additionally argued that the District Court
must have meant to apply such a rule because that was the
nature of the argument in Sprint’s in limine motion. But
the in limine motion did not suggest that the evidence is
never admissible; it simply argued that such evidence lacked
sufficient probative value “in this case” to be relevant or out
weigh prejudice and delay. App. 156a.
When a district court’s language is ambiguous, as it was
here, it is improper for the court of appeals to presume that
the lower court reached an incorrect legal conclusion. A re
mand directing the district court to clarify its order is gener
ally permissible and would have been the better approach in
this case.
B
In the Court of Appeals’ view, the District Court excluded
the evidence as per se irrelevant, and so had no occasion to
reach the question whether such evidence, if relevant, should
be excluded under Rule 403. The Court of Appeals, upon
concluding that such evidence was not per se irrelevant, de

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cided that it was relevant in the circumstances of this case
and undertook its own balancing under Rule 403. But ques
tions of relevance and prejudice are for the District Court
to determine in the first instance. Abel, 469 U. S., at 54
(“Assessing the probative value of [evidence], and weighing
any factors counseling against admissibility is a matter first
for the district court’s sound judgment under Rules 401 and
403 . . . ”). Rather than assess the relevance of the evidence
itself and conduct its own balancing of its probative value
and potential prejudicial effect, the Court of Appeals should
have allowed the District Court to make these determina
tions in the first instance, explicitly and on the record.3 See
Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U. S. 273, 291 (1982) (When
a district court “fail[s] to make a finding because of an erro
neous view of the law, the usual rule is that there should be
a remand for further proceedings to permit the trial court to
make the missing findings”). With respect to evidentiary
questions in general and Rule 403 in particular, a district
court virtually always is in the better position to assess the
admissibility of the evidence in the context of the particular
case before it.
We note that, had the District Court applied a per se rule
excluding the evidence, the Court of Appeals would have
been correct to conclude that it had abused its discretion.
Relevance and prejudice under Rules 401 and 403 are deter
mined in the context of the facts and arguments in a particu
lar case, and thus are generally not amenable to broad per
se rules. See Advisory Committee’s Notes on Fed. Rule
Evid. 401, 28 U. S. C. App., p. 864 (“Relevancy is not an inher
ent characteristic of any item of evidence but exists only as
a relation between an item of evidence and a matter properly
3 The only exception to this rule is when “the record permits only one
resolution of the factual issue.” Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U. S.
273, 292 (1982). The evidence here, however, is not of that dispositive
character.

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provable in the case”). But, as we have discussed, there is
no basis in the record for concluding that the District Court
applied a blanket rule.
III
The question whether evidence of discrimination by other
supervisors is relevant in an individual ADEA case is fact
based and depends on many factors, including how closely
related the evidence is to the plaintiff ’s circumstances and
theory of the case. Applying Rule 403 to determine if evi
dence is prejudicial also requires a fact-intensive, context
specific inquiry. Because Rules 401 and 403 do not make
such evidence per se admissible or per se inadmissible, and
because the inquiry required by those Rules is within the
province of the District Court in the first instance, we vacate
the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case
with instructions to have the District Court clarify the basis
for its evidentiary ruling under the applicable Rules.
It is so ordered.