Fired City HR Director Loses Sex Harassment, Retaliation Appeal

Reading, Pa.'s former human resources director was properly denied a new trial on her hostile environment claim because she couldn’t prove her evidentiary challenge, the Third Circuit ruled Monday.

Aida Acevedo didn’t show a coworker’s testimony regarding Acevedo’s reaction to a sexually graphic photo Natanael Rivera Colon, then-special assistant to the mayor, texted her was wrongly excluded from evidence as hearsay, a unanimous panel said. She didn’t establish her purported statement to the coworker occurred contemporaneous to receiving the photo, and the “state of mind” exception to federal hearsay rules only applies when the declarant hasn’t had time to reflect, ...