Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, RETALIATION—S.D. Ohio: U.S. Bank officers, fired after reorganization, fail to show complaint motivated decision, (Aug 13, 2025)

By Todd Harrison, J.D.

Although a decisionmaker disavowed in an email any influence of the complaint on his evaluation, the court found it unsurprising to see a risk of litigation mentioned in a reorganization context.

U.S. Bank was entitled to summary judgment against the Title VII retaliation and hostile work environment, as well as an ADEA claim, brought by two former officers, a federal district court in Ohio found. The two had issues with their supervisor, who had a confrontational managerial style and was fond of regaling them with tales of his sexual exploits, eventually leading one of the officers to file a formal complaint against the supervisor, a complaint that the other officer supported. Not long thereafter, the officers found themselves out of a job following a reorganization. However, the evidence suggested that U.S. Bank was considering eliminating their positions prior to the complaint and that the complaint played no role in U.S. Bank’s decision (Pannek v. U.S. Bank National Ass’n, No. 1:19-cv-852 (S.D. Ohio Aug. 7, 2025)).

In January 2017, one of the officers joined U.S. Bank as vice president of governance control (Officer 1). He later recruited the other officer (Officer 2), a friend, to serve in a role leading vendor relations, a position that he started in August 2017.

New manager. Following a reorganization in October 2017, the officers began reporting to a new supervisor. The supervisor had been with U.S. Bank for 16 years and had a lengthy record of complaints regarding his managerial style.

Officer 1 quickly developed a negative opinion of the supervisor, whom he found belittling in his interactions with other employees. The officer was also subjected to tales of the supervisor’s sexual exploits in great detail. Like his friend, Officer 2 also found the supervisor to be off putting.

Reorganization. In early 2018, U.S. Bank underwent another reorganization involving a merger of its lending services department with its mortgage servicing department. After this reorganization, the officers, along with their supervisor, began reporting to a different manager.

The new manager began to assess whether there were any redundancies following the merger such that some roles could be eliminated. As part of this process, he sought feedback from the officers’ former supervisor. At the end of this process, the manager decided to terminate the officers on May 15, 2018, although he stated that he had largely reached this decision sometime in late February or early March.

Complaint. On March 27, 2018, while the manager’s evaluation process was ongoing, Officer 1 filed an ethics complaint with bank concerning his former supervisor’s unprofessional workplace behavior. The manager became aware of the complaint and subsequently sent an email to HR personnel stating that he was considering terminating the two officers for reasons unrelated to Officer 1’s complaint. HR launched an investigation into the supervisor, but ultimately no action was taken against him at that time. He was later fired following subsequent investigations.

After they were terminated, the officers filed this lawsuit asserting claims under Title VII and the ADEA.

Decision finalized. First, the court considered Officer 1’s claim that he suffered retaliation for filing the ethics complaint against his former supervisor. U.S. Bank argued that he failed to meet his burden as to causation because the manager who decided to fire him had formed an opinion that he would be terminated well before the officer filed his complaint. The court was not moved.

Although the manager had asserted that he had formed a negative view of the officer as early as February 2018, he did not finalize his decision to terminate the officer until that April, after the officer had filed his complaint. As such, the court found that the officer had established his prima facie case for retaliation.

Position eliminated. Shifting the burden to U.S. Bank to proffer a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its decision, it contended that the officer was terminated because his position was eliminated as part of a reorganization. The court determined that this satisfied U.S. Bank’s burden.

Timing. In an effort to show that this reason was pretextual, the officer first pointed to the timing of U.S. Bank’s decision. However, the court found that the timing of the decision actually cut in U.S. Bank’s favor, noting that the evidence indicated that the manager was seriously considering moving the officer’s direct reports over to another employee prior to the officer’s complaint as part of a larger reorganization in which several employees were going to be terminated.

Nothing about the timing of the officer’s complaint in relation to his termination indicated that U.S. Bank’s stated reasons for the termination—a reorganization and reduction in force—were mere pretext, said the court.

Processes. Next, the officer contended that the manager did not follow the standard peer group analysis (PGA) process for evaluating employees and deciding whom to terminate. However, the court found the evidence supported U.S. Bank’s argument that the manager followed the PGA process in broad strokes, even if he did not conduct it as fastidiously as was the norm.

Both officers worked in high-level positions, observed the court, and it made sense that the manager’s process in evaluating leadership would be somewhat more informal than his process for evaluating lower-level employees. This fact was underscored by the email sent by the manager to HR shortly after Officer 1 had filed his complaint, stating the reasons why he was considering eliminating their positions outside of having anything to do with the complaint.

This email, continued the court, was also relevant to Officer 1’s argument that the manager questioned the timing of the complaint, suggesting that the manager himself made a connection between the complaint and the termination. However, “in the present environment, where employers are well aware of the commands of the anti-discrimination laws and eager to avoid impropriety that risks litigation, it is unsurprising to see the risk of litigation mentioned in an internal correspondence in the context of a discussion about consolidation of departments and a reduction in force,” said the court.

Failure to investigate. As to the officer’s assertion that U.S. Bank failed to adequately investigate his complaint, perhaps making U.S. Bank more inclined to punish him for making the complaint rather than punishing the wrongdoer, the court found any connection to be too attenuated to support a finding of pretext.

Open positions. Finally, the court addressed the officer’s contention that he was passed over for open and available positions. However, the officer failed to point to any evidence that he was qualified for any particular position that became available during this time period. Accordingly, he failed to adduce any evidence of pretext and summary judgment was granted against his retaliation claim.

Third-party retaliation. Turning to Officer 2’s third-party retaliation claim, the court noted that much of the analysis regarding Officer 1’s retaliation claim applied here as well. However, the court found that two points merited further analysis.

First, the officer also pointed to other open and available positions to support his claim for pretext. He had applied to several positions but never received an interview. The officer highlighted the fact that he received an award given to only 1 percent of U.S. Bank’s workforce as evidence that he was a high-performer. These facts presented a stronger case than that of Officer 1, but the court ultimately found them unavailing, finding that in the end the officer merely disagreed with U.S. Bank’s assessment of his performance, which was not enough to support a finding of pretext.

Second, the court addressed the officer’s former supervisor’s input in the new manager’s hiring decision. The supervisor had recommended another employee over the officer shortly after he was contacted regarding Officer 1’s complaint. However, the court found this alone was not sufficient to support a finding of pretext and the officer had failed to raise a genuine issue as to whether the manager terminated him in retaliation based on Officer’s 1 complaint.

Retaliation based on participation. Next, Officer 2 argued that he was terminated in retaliation for participating in U.S. Bank’s investigation of the supervisor. The court again found the officer failed to adduce evidence of pretext for many of the same reasons given in its analysis of his third-party retaliation claim.

HWE. Both officers asserted claims for a hostile work environment based on their supervisor’s conduct. U.S. Bank argued that any harassment they may have experienced was not based on sex, nor was the alleged harassment severe or pervasive. The court agreed.

In on the “jokes.” To support their claim, the officers presented what the court considered to be a novel or unusual theory of sexual harassment: their supervisor discussed his sexual exploits with them because they were men whereas he did not discuss those exploits with women working at the bank. The court concluded that the officers were not being discriminated against as men but were arguably being treated more favorably “by being let it on jokes their female colleagues in the workplace are not.” As such, the complained of conduct “falls in the broad category of objectionable and unwise workplace conduct that is outside Title VII’s reach,” said the court.

Age discrimination. Finally, the court turned to Officer 1’s age discrimination claim, wherein he alleged that he was terminated because of his age and replaced by a younger employee. The court was not moved.

Both the officer’ role and the role of his ultimate replacement were eliminated as part of the RIF. U.S. Bank then chose the replacement over the officer for the newly created combined position. As such, the officer was not “replaced” for age discrimination purposes, he was just not selected for the new position, explained the court. Accordingly, summary judgment was granted against this claim.

The case is No. 1:19-cv-852.

Judge: Hopkins, J.

Attorneys: Joshua Michael Smith (Stagnaro, Saba & Patterson) for Mark Pannek and Thomas Strotman. Patricia Anderson Pryor (Jackson Lewis) for U.S. Bank National Association.

Companies: U.S. Bank National Association

Cases: Retaliation Discharge Layoffs Discrimination AgeDiscrimination SexualHarassment OhioNews