Was the Termination of the Employee Wrong As He Was Qualified for the Job ?

In Hall v. Banc One Mgt. Corp., Franklin App. No. 04AP-905, 2006 Ohio 913, the Court, in considering the elements of the prima facie case, held that the trial court erred in concluding that another employee did not replace the plaintiff. Further, in finding that genuine issues of fact remained regarding the employer's non-discriminatory reasons for the RIF, this court found significant that: (1) the plaintiff was the only employee terminated; (2) the employer had no written plan to restructure or refocus government relations or reduce government relations costs through a RIF; (3) prior to terminating the plaintiff, no other employee had drafted documents proposing a new focus or structure for government relations; (4) the employer did not consider terminating other government relations personnel; (5) after plaintiff's termination, the government relations budget increased rather than decreased. The Court also found "undisputed evidence" demonstrating that the appellant in Hall was qualified to lead the Government Relations Group, both before and after its purported refocus to increase its reliance on industry associations for lobbying and to decrease its emphasis on BOPAC. Id., at P36.