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Bank Officer Sues for Age and Sex Discrimination Aug. 7, 2000 (Ornel Inc.) Marie Lovas began working at First National Bank of Burton, Ohio (FNB) in the bookkeeping and operations areas on Feb. 12, 1967. In Jan. 1981, FNB merged with Huntington National Bank of Columbus, Ohio and Lovas was promoted to Operations Manager, an officer position. As Operations Manager, Lovas managed accounting employees and created operational plans and audits. Lovas received consistent performance evaluations of "meets expectations" throughout her employment at Huntington. Following the 1981 merger, Huntington transferred operations-related functions from the individual bank branches to centralized centers, reducing the need for operations-related staff at each branch. In addition, computer systems reduced the need for processing staff at each branch. By 1991, the necessary operations' staff in the Burton office fell from over a dozen employees to one -- Lovas.
In 1991, William Hoag was assigned as City Executive for Huntington in Burton overseeing the five branches within Geauga County. Also in 1991, Hoag installed Charles Bixler as Manager of retail banking operations, supervising operations in the Huntington branches. Although Lovas frequently worked with Hoag, she reported directly to Bixler, who evaluated her performance.
In 1994, due to the reduction in operations-related work, Lovas was assigned the position of City Office Compliance Officer/Operations Specialist in charge of reports for installment loans and the remaining operations' functions in the Burton office. On internal Huntington forms, Bixler designated Lovas's new position as a demotion. Although Lovas's salary remained the same, her salary grade was lowered and she considered the new position a demotion. Hoag considered Lovas' new duties an alternative to eliminating her position.
In 1995, Huntington moved the installment loan compliance process from the Burton branch to a centralized center in Dover, Ohio. Huntington's removal of the compliance process eliminated the "city compliance" portion of Lovas's position, leaving only the "operations specialist" duties. Huntington also instructed Hoag to reduce salary, advertising expenses, and charitable contributions within the Geauga County offices. As part of this reduction, Hoag entirely eliminated Lovas's "operations specialist" position due to a lack of work.
Hoag spoke with human resources representative Sandra Clarke about eliminating Lovas's position and indicated that he and Bixler would assume Lovas's remaining operations specialist duties. Although Hoag designated Lovas's position for elimination, the human resources department deemed both Lovas and Bixler as candidates for the reduction-in-force (RIF) because they were the employees involved in the operations' function of the bank.
Clarke, following the instructions of Huntington's vice-president of human resources, Cheri Webb, used Huntington's method of ranking employees competing for a particular position to determine which employee would be terminated in the reduction. Clarke scored Lovas and Bixler in five performance categories, with the scores compiled from their two most recent performance evaluations. The five performance categories were assigned numbers based on information from the performance evaluations. Lovas's performance evaluations used in the analysis had been completed by Bixler prior to the RIF, and no other personnel information was used in the evaluation. After Clark completed the comparison process, Bixler received a score of 22 and Lovas received a score of 18.05.
On Sept. 6, 1995, Clarke presented the results to Hoag, who made the final decision to terminate Lovas and transfer her remaining duties to himself, Bixler, and a temporary employee. Later that day, Hoag and Webb informed Lovas of her termination. Lovas participated in a transition program offered by Huntington, but did not obtain a new position within the transition period. Lovas was officially terminated on March 6, 1995.
Lovas filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court For The Northern District Of Ohio on July 8, 1997, alleging, among other things, that Huntington: (1) violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA") (2) discriminated on the basis of sex in violation Title VII, (3) discriminated on the basis of sex and age in violation of OHIO law.
The district court dismissed Lovas's case without a trial.
Lovas appealed to the United States Court Of Appeals For The Sixth Circuit which upheld the district court ruling.
Notes
Lovas v. Huntington National Bank, 2000 U.S. App. LEXIS 11840 (United States Court Of Appeals For The Sixth Circuit) (May 22, 2000)
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