Valerie Daniels, individually v. State of Delaware, by

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
No. 01-3954
VALERIE DANIELS, individually and in her own right and as
parent and/or guardian of Christopher Michael Daniels;
CHRISTOPHER MICHAEL DANIELS, individually
v.
STATE OF DELAWARE, by and through its agents, servants and employees;
RUDOLPH HAWKINS, individually and in his official capacity
as a Delaware Corrections Officer; PAUL HOWARD, individually
and in his official capacity as Warden of Women's
Correctional Institute of Delaware; GRACE MARTIN,
individually and in her official capacity as a Deputy Warden
of the Women's Correctional Institute of Delaware; STANLEY
TAYLOR, JR., individually and in his official capacity as Chief
of The Bureau of Prisons, for the State of Delaware; ROBERT
WATSON, individually and in his official capacity as
Commissioner of Corrections for the State of Delaware;
THOMAS G. BAILOR, individually and in his capacity as
Internal Affairs Officer for the Department of Corrections
for the State of Delaware; JACK SINES, individually and in
his capacity as Internal Affairs Officer for the Department
of Corrections for the State of Delaware; STATE OF DELAWARE
DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, all individually, jointly and severally
Rudolph Hawkins,
Appellant
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Delaware
(D.C. Civ. No. 96-00009)
Honorable Joseph J. Farnan, Jr., District Judge

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Argued November 7, 2002
BEFORE: MCKEE and GREENBERG, Circuit Judges,
and LIFLAND, District Judge*
(Filed: December 4, 2002)
Gerald J. Williams
Gerald J. Grant, Jr. (argued)
Williams, Cuker & Berezofsky
1617 John F. Kennedy Boulevard
One Penn Center, Suite 800
Philadelphia, Pa. 19103
Gregg E. Wilson
Department of Justice
820 North French Street
Wilmington, DE 19801
Attorneys for Appellee
Christopher J. Curtin (argued)
Erisman & Curtin
629 Mount Lebanon Road
P.O. Box 250
Wilmington, DE 19899
Attorneys for Appellant
OPINION OF THE COURT
GREENBERG, Circuit Judge.
*Honorable John C. Lifland, Senior Judge of the United States District Court for the
District of New Jersey, sitting by designation.

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Rudolf Hawkins appeals from an order entered on October 1, 2001, denying his
post-trial motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict, which we treat as seeking a
judgment as a matter of law, and for a remittitur of punitive damages. Plaintiff-appellee,
Valerie Daniels, an inmate at the Women’s Correctional Institute at New Castle, Delaware,
where Hawkins was a correctional officer, brought this action against Hawkins and other
defendants charging that in or about the week of March 7, 1995, Hawkins, while on duty and
within the scope of his employment, forcibly engaged in sexual intercourse with her
causing her to become pregnant and then to deliver a male child. Daniels predicated the
action on 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and other federal and state law but, after the other defendants
obtained summary judgments, the case was tried to a jury only against Hawkins on the
section 1983 charge.
At the trial Daniels testified that Hawkins had sexual relations with her but
Hawkins testified that he did not do so. Two DNA tests were conducted to determine the
paternity of Daniels’ child. Daniels, however, had not properly identified an expert witness
regarding DNA evidence and thus could not introduce the evidence to show that Hawkins
was the child’s father. Nevertheless at a pretrial hearing the court ruled that one test could
be admitted to demonstrate that when he was “confronted” with the results of the test,
which tended to show that he was the father of Daniels’ child, “he left his job which is
evidence of his liability here on this sexual act.” App. at 201. Thus, the court viewed the
evidence as admissible to show Hawkins’ “state of mind.”
In fact, there was evidence at the trial that Hawkins was told that the DNA test

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showed that there was a very high possibility that he was the child’s father and when
confronted with this information, he resigned his position. Hawkins testified that he “only
resigned because I was coerced” when he was given the option of being arrested or
resigning. App. at 248-49.
In its charge to the jury the district court gave a limiting instruction consistent
with its pretrial ruling on the use of the DNA evidence as follows:
During the course of this trial, you heard testimony regarding a
DNA test. You are not entitled to consider the results of the DNA test in
determining whether the Defendant, Rudolph Hawkins, had sexual
relations with the Plaintiff, Valerie Daniels, or whether Mr. Hawkins is
the father of Ms. Daniels’s child. Rather, you are only to consider the
DNA evidence in determining what Mr. Hawkins’s state of mind was when
he resigned from his employment with the Wilmington Correctional
Institute. In other words, you can only consider the DNA evidence when
determining why Mr. Hawkins decided to resign.
App. at 135. Thus, it is clear that the court did not want the jury to consider the DNA
evidence to establish that Hawkins was the father but to consider it to demonstrate that he
was aware that there was evidence that he was the father when making his determination to
resign.
The district court submitted the case to the jury with the following substantive
instruction:
All individuals have a constitutional right to be free from deliberate
and arbitrary use of government power. If you find that the Defendant,
Rudolph Hawkins, had sexual relations with the Plaintiff, Valerie Daniels,
while Mr. Hawkins was employed at the Wilmington Correctional
Institute, and while Ms. Daniels was a prisoner, then you are instructed to
conclude that Mr. Hawkins did violate the constitutional rights of Ms.
Daniels.

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You have heard evidence during the course of this trial regarding
whether Ms. Daniels consented to having sexual relations with a prison
guard. The issue of whether or not Ms. Daniels consented to having
sexual relations is not an issue in this case; if you determine that Mr.
Hawkins had sexual relations with Ms. Daniels, you are to conclude that
Mr. Hawkins violated Ms. Daniels’s constitutional rights.
App. at 136. Accordingly, paternity was not the ultimate issue, though there can be no
doubt that if Daniels established that Hawkins was the father of her child she would have
proven that he violated her constitutional rights. In fact, the jury found in favor of Hawkins
and returned a verdict in her favor for $25,000 compensatory damages and $100,000
punitive damages. After the court denied Daniels’ post-trial motion he appealed.
In this case the district court had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1343 and
1367 and we have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. The parties agree that we use an
abuse of discretion standard on this appeal as they view the case as involving a weighing
process with respect to the admission of the contested DNA evidence under Fed. R. Evid.
403. See, e.g., United States v. Mathis, 264 F.3d 321, 326-27 (3d Cir. 2001). It appears to
us, however, that the DNA evidence in the context of the trial here was simply inadmissible
and thus the court erred as a matter of law in admitting it. We need not dwell, however, on
this point as obviously a court would abuse its discretion if it admitted inadmissible
evidence.
We also make another preliminary point. As we have indicated, Hawkins did not
move for a new trial in the district court. Rather, he moved for a judgment as a matter of
law. App. at 141. Yet in his motion he stated that he was proceeding pursuant to Fed. R.

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Civ. P. 59 which deals with new trials rather than Fed. R. Civ. P. 50 which deals with
motions for judgment as a matter of law. We have concluded that, in fact, Hawkins is
entitled to a new trial but plainly is not entitled to a judgment as a matter of law because
quite aside from the disputed DNA evidence there was direct evidence supporting the
verdict including Daniels’ testimony that Hawkins had nonconsensual sex with her in her
cell.
In the circumstances, we will treat Hawkins’ post-trial motion as seeking a new
trial. We see no prejudice to Daniels in treating it this way, particularly inasmuch as Rule
50 provides that on a renewed motion for judgment after trial if a verdict has been returned
the court may order a new trial. Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(b)(1)(B). Moreover, in his brief on this
appeal Hawkins seeks “a new trial on liability,” Br. of Appellant at 30, and Daniels does not
suggest that he is barred procedurally from obtaining that remedy.
On the merits we conclude that we must reverse and remand the case to the district
court for a new trial. The district court in denying Hawkins’ post-trial motion for a
judgment as a matter of law explained that “[t]he trial came down to whether the jury
believed [Daniels’] version of the facts or [Hawkins’] version of the facts, and [Hawkins’]
state of mind at the time he resigned was of critical importance in assessing the credibility
of [Hawkins’] testimony . . . and . . . the jury was instructed accordingly.” App. at 6-8.
We agree with the district court that the jury had to decide whether Daniels’
testimony that Hawkins had sex with her was true and obviously in making this
determination had to consider Hawkins’ testimony that he never had sex with her. We are

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quite unable to understand, however, how Hawkins’ state of mind when he resigned assisted
the jury in making this determination. Hawkins knew whether he had had sex with Daniels
before he was confronted with the DNA evidence. In fact, the only thing the DNA evidence
could show with respect to Hawkins’ state of mind was that he knew there was a strong case
against him. But that evidence did not in any way when used for that purpose tend to
support a finding that Hawkins in fact had sex with Daniels. Therefore the evidence had no
“tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of
the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence.” See Fed.
R. Evid. 401. Accordingly, as used here the DNA evidence was not relevant and was not
admissible.
Daniels correctly points out that courts “regularly admit otherwise inadmissible
evidence for a limited purpose,” citing United States v. Werme, 939 F.2d 108, 114 (3d Cir.
1991). The problem here, however, is that the DNA evidence was not admissible for the
limited purpose to which the court consigned it. Furthermore, we cannot possibly conclude
that the admission of the evidence was harmless error as plainly it was highly prejudicial to
Hawkins and, indeed, may have been a significant factor that the jury considered in arriving
at its result. See Becker v. Arco Chem. Co., 207 F.3d 176, 179 (3d Cir. 2000);
McQueeney v. Wilmington Trust Co., 779 F.2d 916, 923-27 (3d Cir. 1985). Thus, we must
reverse and order a new trial.
We close our discussion of the DNA evidence, however, with the following
observation. We are not suggesting that if at the retrial Daniels lays a proper foundation for

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the evidence that the results of DNA testing will be inadmissible. After all, if, as appears
to be the case, the DNA testing shows by well over a 99% probability that Hawkins was the
father of Daniels’ child it is not immediately apparent to us why such proof, considering
when the child was born and when Daniels was incarcerated, would not tend to show that he
had sex with Daniels in the prison. But we do not decide that issue at this time as it is not
before us.
Hawkins also challenges the extent of the punitive damages award against him. It
occurred to us that inasmuch as a court of appeals may remand a case for a new trial on only
certain issues that it might be possible for us to allow the damage verdict to stand and
remand the case for a new trial on liability only. See Childers v. Joseph, 842 F.2d 689, 699
(3d Cir. 1988). If we contemplated ordering such a limited remand we would address
Hawkins’ appeal on the damages issue. We have determined, however, that we should order
a new trial on all issues as we cannot say with certainty that this case meets the exacting
criteria for a limited retrial we discussed in Childers. We are encouraged to reach this
result by the fact that Daniels does not suggest that if we reverse and order a new trial we
should limit the trial to a determination of liability.
For the foregoing reasons we will reverse the order of October 1, 2001, and will
remand the matter to the district court for a new trial on all issues. The parties will bear
their own costs on this appeal.
TO THE CLERK:

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Please file the foregoing not precedential opinion.
/s/ Morton I. Greenberg
Circuit Judge
DATED: December 4, 2002

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