Cole v. Reader's Digest Sales & Services, Inc.

139 F. App'x 707

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
• Decided: August 5, 2005
• Docket: 04-1788
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

Nancy Cole appeals the district court’s order granting summary judgment in favor of Reader’s Digest Sales & Services, Inc., on Cole’s gender and age discrimination claims. After hearing oral argument and reviewing the record, the parties’ briefs, and the applicable law, this court determines that a panel opinion addressing all of the issues raised would serve no jurisprudential purpose. We therefore affirm the district court’s decision for the reasons stated in that court’s opinion, with only the following exception.

The district court struck the expert affidavit of Edmund Cole, the plaintiffs husband, on the ground that, as her husband, he had “an obvious bias in favor of his spouse.” Nothing, however, in Fed. R.Evid. 702 disqualifies an individual from serving as an expert by virtue of his or her relationship to the plaintiff. See Braun v. Lorillard, Inc., 84 F.3d 230, 237-38 (7th Cir.1996) (“A litigant, or a litigant’s CEO, or sole stockholder, or mother, or daughter is not, by reason of his or her or its relation to the litigant, disqualified as an expert witness.”). Such a conflict of interest goes to the weight of the evidence, not its admissibility. See Tagatz v. Marquette Univ., 861 F.2d 1040, 1042 (7th Cir.1988) (“The trier of fact should be able to discount for so obvious a conflict of interest.”). Nonetheless, the district court’s error in striking Edmund Cole’s affidavit for bias was harmless, because, as the court alternatively concluded, the affidavit, even if admissible, failed to create a genuine dispute of fact. We therefore affirm.