The negligent or incompetent character of an agent or employee is an essential element of a negligent entrustment claim. If the negligent character or incompetence of the agent or employee is at issue, evidence about the negligence or incompetence of the agent or employee is not barred by the rule prohibiting the use of a person's character to show the person's conduct.

Bowden v. McKenna, 600 F.2d 282, 285-286 (1st Cir. 1979) ("fifty pages of side-bar discussion" of admissibility held sufficient).A party objecting to an offer of evidence need not state the ground of its objection if the ground of the objection is already apparent.

Cf. United States v. Khorozian, 333 F.3d 498, 506 (3d Cir. 2003) (holding that the header or text of the fax was admissible and did not constitute hearsay evidence because "nothing said by a machine ... is hearsay" and....A statement can be hearsay only if the statement is "offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted." The purpose for which a statement is offered depends on the purpose of the offeror of the statement. Hence, a statement is offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted if the offeror (normally trial counsel) seeks to use the statement to show that the matter or proposition asserted by the declarant (the maker of the statement) is in fact true.

Cf. Treece v. Hochstetler, 213 F.3d 360, 363 (7th Cir. 2000) (holding, in plaintiff's civil rights action against police officer, police department, and city for malicious prosecution, that evidence of police officer's prior bad acts was inadmissible and properly excluded where it "did not 'bear a...That other wrongs or crimes show a person's pattern of conduct does not by itself make inapplicable either the prohibition in Federal Rule of Evidence 404(a) against the use of character or propensity to show that person's conduct on a particular occasion or the corollary prohibition in Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b) against the use of other wrongs or crimes to show character or propensity for the purpose of showing a person's conduct on a particular occasion.