Plaintiff Amanda Howland brought employment discrimination claims against against her former business and romantic partner Christian Kjaer and the company they operated, Ellevet Sciences Inc.
Defendants Ellevet Sciences Inc and Kjaer filed motions in limine seeking to exclude the testimony of Amanda Levine, Esq., PI and Charles H. Heller, Ph.D.
Law And Legal Expert Witness
Amanda Levine, Esq., PI is a graduate of Middlebury College and of Boston College Law School. She is licensed to practice law by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and is licensed as a Professional Investigator by the State of Maine.
Levine regularly conducts neutral and comprehensive workplace investigations involving allegations of harassment, discrimination and serious employment misconduct. She also serves as an outside and neutral investigator for higher education institutions in Title IX matters.
Psychology Expert Witness
Charles Harris Heller, Ph.D is a licensed psychologist who specializes in the effects of intimate partner violence. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1979. His work experience includes: working as a clinical and forensic psychologist with inmates of various correctional facilities; working as a staff forensic psychologist at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Department of Biomedical and Health Services; and performing forensic and clinical duties at East Jersey State Prison (EJSP) in Rahway, New Jersey.
Discussion by the Court
A. Testimony of Amanda Levine, Esq., PI
Plaintiff designated Amanda Levine, an attorney and a professional investigator, to testify regarding the workplace conduct that Plaintiff experienced while working at Defendant ElleVet. Defendants contended that Levine should not be permitted to testify regarding: (1) implicit bias, (2) that women are more likely to experience harassment at work, (3) that Plaintiff was the victim of implicit bias, (4) that certain of Defendant Kjaer’s actions were discriminatory, and (5) the assessment of Defendant Kjaer’s credibility.
There is evidently no dispute that Levine, as an attorney and professional investigator with experience in investigating complaints of employment discrimination, had the requisite experience to testify regarding the need to conduct discrimination investigations, as well as the adequacy and substance of such investigations.
Analysis
It should be noted that the Defendants’ concerns regarding Levine’s qualifications and specialized knowledge to testify more extensively about unconscious bias and how it might affect the Plaintiff’s claims are valid. In particular, Levine evidently lacked specialized training, experience, or research in sociology, psychology, or neuroscience that would permit her either to establish the existence of novel or contested unconscious stereotypes or biases—that is, biases not yet well established in the legal context or still scientifically disputed—or to opine on the cognitive processes that might explain such biases.
Furthermore, even if Levine had the requisite qualifications and expertise to offer additional testimony on unconscious or implicit bias, the Court questioned whether such testimony would be helpful to the jury and whether its probative value would be substantially outweighed by the risk of juror confusion or improper reliance.
Similarly, Levine’s proffered opinion that women are more likely to experience harassment at work, which was apparently informed by statistical evidence from studies she had read, presented similar and additional concerns. As noted above, Levine evidently had not conducted any of those studies, nor did she have specialized training or research experience in any of the relevant fields of research.
Likewise, Levine’s opinions that the Plaintiff was the victim of implicit bias and that some of Defendant Kjaer’s acts and words were discriminatory presented the same concern. For similar reasons, Levine’s testimony regarding Defendant Kjaer’s credibility, or the factors she considered when assessing credibility, had to be excluded because it would not have been particularly helpful to the jury and would have risked misleading the jury and interfering with the Court’s instructions regarding credibility.
B. Testimony of Charles Heller, Ph.D
Defendants asserted that Heller’s proposed testimony involving the words “domestic violence,” “intimate partner violence,” and a “domestic violence assessment,” should be excluded under Federal Rules of Evidence 402 and 403 as irrelevant and unfairly prejudicial because in the mind of a layperson, the term “violence” implies physical abuse, which was not present here.
Plaintiff contended, however, that Heller should be permitted to use the term “violence” because, as an expert in the field, Heller considered the emotional abuse alleged here to be a form of domestic violence.
Heller’s view is supported by others, including the American Psychiatric Association, which defines domestic violence or intimate partner violence as not only physical force, sexual acts without consent, and stalking, but also “psychological aggression,” meaning “verbal and non-verbal behaviors intended to harm emotionally or exert control.”
While Heller’s possible reference to domestic violence and related terms generates concerns of unfair prejudice under Rule 403, at this stage, the Court cannot determine that, in all instances, the prejudice to Defendant Kjaer from the use of such terms substantially outweighs the probative value. Because the Court cannot assess all potential uses of the term outside the context of the trial, the Court defers ruling on the issue and will decide the issue at trial.
Defendants also argued that Heller should not be permitted to opine as to the way Plaintiff felt as a result of Defendants’ conduct and whether her beliefs were reasonable, including whether Plaintiff reasonably believed that she was in imminent danger. When diagnosing a condition, a treatment provider often accepts the client’s representations as accurate in the absence of any objective evidence to the contrary. As to Heller’s assessment of Plaintiff’s condition, therefore, the Court discerns no basis for exclusion.
Held
- The Court granted in part the motion to exclude the testimony of Amanda Levine.
- The Court granted in part, denied in part, and deferred in part the motion to exclude the testimony of Charles Heller.
Key Takeaway
The witness’ familiarity with certain statistics or studies from having read them in connection with discrimination investigations is not enough.
Even if Levine had sufficient experience to opine based on the cases she has personally investigated, the opinion would have little, if any, relevance to the individualized assessment the jury must undertake. Such an opinion resembles a propensity argument that courts generally prohibit (i.e., because women are more likely to experience discrimination at work, Plaintiff is more likely to have experienced discrimination in this case).
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Howland V. Ellevet Sciences Inc. |
| Docket Number: | 2:24cv442 |
| Court Name: | United States District Court, Maine |
| Order Date: | May 22, 2026 |
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