O'MARY

I

Introduction

Just after attending a president’s meeting, Herb Craft, vice-president in charge of program development for Mitsubishi Electronics America, Inc., in 1990, called “most” of “his managers” into a conference room. One of those managers was Robert Jones. Craft told his managers that Mr. Ihara, who was the person responsible for founding the various Mitsubishi entities in the United States and was a senior managing director at Mitsubishi Electronics, had made a statement “about getting rid of managers who were over 40 and replacing them with younger, more aggressive managers.” At the meeting, Mr. Kawasaki, president of Mitsubishi Electronics, concurred with Ihara’s statement.

Jones later related what he heard at the meeting in a deposition in this age discrimination case against Mitsubishi Electronics. Before the case came to trial, however, Jones died. At trial, whether his deposition testimony concerning the meeting called by Craft could be admitted as evidence was the subject of a major dispute. After considerable argument, the trial judge decided to exclude the evidence as “hearsay of the worst order.” Mitsubishi Electronics ultimately obtained a defense…