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Partin v. Merchants & Farmers Bank3/11/2002
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF APPEAL, THIRD CIRCUIT, OFFICE OF WORKERS' COMPENSATION, DISTRICT NO. 2
In this case, Claimant, Eva Marie Partin, alleged that she suffered a compensable mental injury when her employer, Merchants and Farmers Bank, demoted her for lack of managerial skills after eighteen years of employment. The Office of Workers' Compensation (OWC) awarded compensation benefits to Claimant and the bank appealed. We granted certiorari to determine whether Claimant's mental condition is compensable under the Workers' Compensation Act. For the following reasons, we conclude that the bank's demotion of Claimant produced stress that was not unexpected or extraordinary as required by the Act, and we therefore reverse the order awarding benefits to Claimant.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
The record indicates that Claimant gave the following testimony at the compensation hearing. She began work with the bank in 1978 as a bookkeeper, after which she worked as a teller. Thereafter, she received a raise with a promotion to vault teller, and then a raise with a promotion to teller supervisor. She worked next as vault teller supervisor, and then received a raise and promotion to acting branch manager, followed by a promotion to branch officer. She requested a raise when she became a branch officer in 1994, but she did not receive it. When she asked if there were any improvements she could make in order to get the raise, her supervisor, Kay Wilbanks, did not give her any suggestions, but told her that not every promotion came with a raise. Claimant testified that, before the demotion in question, she had never been demoted, received a pay cut, punished for any misconduct, told that she did not have satisfactory management skills, or received written reprimands. She was comfortable with her status at the bank and had no idea there was a problem or a question about her job .
She further testified that she conducted a surprise audit of a teller, Helen Childers, on June 4, 1996. During the audit, she learned that Ms. Childers' drawer was over balance by five dollars, and that Andrea Howard, the vault teller, was under balance by five dollars. They investigated the problem and found a ticket showing that Ms. Childers had earlier bought change from Ms. Howard, and Ms. Childers had accidentally recorded on the ticket five dollars more than she should have. Claimant informed Ms. Childers that it was against bank policy to simply swap the five dollars in cash. Therefore, because Ms. Childers had already closed out her drawer, Claimant instructed Ms. Childers to make a handwritten "cash-in" ticket in the amount of five dollars, and she respectively instructed Ms. Howard to make a handwritten "cash-out" ticket in the amount of five dollars. Claimant made a corresponding notation on her cash audit sheet that Ms. Childers' drawer had an additional five dollars. Claimant explained that this was the legal way to correct the error and make the two tellers balance without exchanging cash. She knew that the bank had a policy against forced-balancing, and that it carried a penalty of termination, but she explained that this was not forced-balancing.
After settling the matter, Claimant left the two tellers and attended to other work. While Claimant was gone and without her knowledge, Ms. Childers failed to credit the cash-in ticket to her drawer. Ms. Childers then gave Ms. Howard the five dollars, which put them in balance, and they tore up their cash-in and cash-out tickets. This resulted in a five-dollar discrepancy between Ms. Childers' balance sheet and Claimant's audit sheet, because Claimants' audit sheet still indicated that Ms. Childers had five extra dollars.
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