Dan Dixon v. City of Coeur D'Alene

MEMORANDUM

The City of Coeur d’Alene (“the City”) appeals the district court’s exclusion of polygraph evidence at trial and the denial of the City’s renewed motion for judgment as a matter law following a jury verdict in favor of Dan and Heidi Dixon. Because the parties are familiar with the history of this case, we need not recount it here. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we affirm.

I

Under our deferential standard of review, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion by excluding any mention that Dixon took — or would refuse to take — polygraph examinations. As we have previously stated, introduction of unstipulated polygraph evidence presents a “special risk that the jury might give excessive weight to the polygrapher’s conclusions,” especially if the case turns on the relative credibility of the parties. United States v. Ramirez-Robles, 386 F.3d 1234, 1245-47 (9th Cir.2004) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Even the introduction of the mere fact of testing, without disclosure of results, presents the real possibility that the jury could reasonably likely infer what the results are. United States v. Bowen, 857 F.2d 1337,…