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Mar 7, 2019

Missouri Supreme Court: There Must be Sufficient Evidence at Trial to Support Each Alternative of a "Disjunctive" Jury Instruction

The Missouri Supreme Court's recent holding in Kader v. Bd. of Regents underscores the importance of ensuring that each alternative of a disjunctive verdict directing instruction is supported by sufficient evidence at trial. Because the Court found there was not substantial evidence to support each alternative of the circuit court's disjunctive instructions, the instructions were erroneous and prejudicial. As a result, it reversed the $2.5 million verdict in favor of plaintiff Kader, a former Harris-Stowe State University ("HSSU") professor, who filed claims of national origin discrimination and retaliation against HSSU under the Missouri Human Rights Act.

Kader, an Egyptian national, came to the United States in 1999 to pursue her graduate education. After working on the faculty at HSSU while completing her doctorate, she was promoted to assistant professor upon completion of her studies when she received her degree.  In a performance review several years later, Kader believed she received lower ratings because of her race, religion and national origin and filed a discrimination complaint with HSSU.  

Plaintiff worked at HSSU under a J-1 visa, which is a non-immigrant visa for individuals approved to participate in work and study based exchange visitor programs.   A J-1 visa requires an employer sponsor and the facility where she attended graduate school originally sponsored her visa from 2007 until 2010.  HSSU supplied information needed to maintain her visa while she was on the HSSU faculty and indicated it would assist her with obtaining a new visa when her J-1 expired.  Typically, exchange visitors on J-1 visas return to their home countries for at least two years when their visas expire and then apply for a new visa if they decide to return.  Kader did not want to return to Egypt so she filed for a waiver of the two year waiting period to obtain an H1-B visa and continue teaching at HSSU. 

While waiting to learn if she received a waiver of the two year waiting period, she applied for an O-1 extraordinary person visa as an alternate means to obtain work authorization.  She requested HSSU provide documentation to supplement her O-1 application, which HSSU supplied.  When Kader had not heard about whether her visa was granted, she contacted the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services and learned it had requested additional information from HSSU, but had not received a response.  Two days before her J-1 visa expired, plaintiff contacted HSSU about her O-1 application and the request for additional information.  HSSU denied receiving the request.  The O-1 application was then denied and HSSU did not appeal the denial. 

Kader then did not receive the waiver she sought in conjunction with her H1-B visa request before her J-1 visa expired.  Because she no longer had J-1 status, she was required to leave the U.S. within 30 days unless she obtained another visa. HSSU notified her that her contract for the next academic school year would not be renewed because she lacked a valid visa.

Kader filed suit against HSSU, alleging race and national origin discrimination and retaliation under the MHRA. The jury returned a verdict in plaintiff's favor on retaliation and national origin discrimination for $750,000 in actual damages and $1.75 million in punitive damages. HSSU appealed, asserting that two disjunctive jury instructions were erroneous and prejudicial.  Specifically, HSSU argued that the instructions permitted the jury to find HSSU liable for conduct that is not actionable under the MHRA.

During trial, the court instructed the jury to rule in plaintiff's favor on her national origin discrimination claim if: (1) the jury found HSSU failed to do one or more of five listed acts, including HSSU did not appeal the denial of the O-1 visa petition; (2) plaintiff's national origin or discrimination complaints were a contributing factor to HSSU's failure to do any of those acts; and (3) such failure damaged plaintiff.

Similarly, the other disjunctive jury instruction at issue on the retaliation claim also instructed the jury that it must return a verdict for plaintiff if (1) plaintiff made complaints of discrimination; (2) HSSU failed to do any one of five acts, one of which was not appealing the denial of the O-1 visa petition; (3) plaintiff's complaints of discrimination were a contributing factor in defendant's failure to do one of the five acts; and (4) defendant's actions directly cause or contributed to plaintiff's damages. 

The Missouri Supreme Court emphasized that for disjunctive verdict directing instructions to be appropriate, each alternative must be supported by substantial evidence.  Such an instruction is prejudicial when substantial evidence does not support each disjunctive alternative because there is no way to determine which theory the jury chose.  Therefore, there must have been substantial evidence at trial that HSSU's failure to appeal the denial of plaintiff's O-1 visa application constituted an unlawful employment practice under the MHRA.  Because there was no evidence, the circuit court erred by including a disjunctive instruction that HSSU's failure to seek an appeal of the O-1 visa application in its disjunctive jury instructions.

The outcome in this case serves as an important reminder to defendants that if the plaintiff has failed to introduce sufficient evidence at trial of some element of claimed unlawful conduct, any disjunctive jury instruction proffered by the plaintiff that includes the unsupported claim should be challenged.