A former Huntington Bank branch manager is suing the bank after she alleged she was fired for taking family medical leave to care for her dying daughter.
Terri Estepp, a nearly three-decade employee of the bank, took time off to care for her ailing daughter Samantha, who died of breast cancer last year.
Estepp claims that after using four of the 12 weeks allotted by the Family and Medical Leave Act – a federal law requiring employers to give employees unpaid leave for certain medical and family reasons – and requesting her time be extended due to her daughter’s worsening condition, she was fired.
"I told my employer I needed to go back to my kid. She needed me, and they showed up that day and they fired me," Estepp told Grand Rapids ABC affiliate WZZM.
"It really hurt her. She started to cry on the phone. She said, ‘Mom, you lost your job because of me,’" Estepp said.
She alleges she was never given a specific reason for her termination, despite asking for one. Her daughter died 10 days later.
A Huntington spokesperson said in a prepared statement that Estepp’s termination was unrelated to her FMLA leave.
Estepp’s attorney Sarah Prescott told Banking Dive that her client’s 400-page personnel file, though, was filled with nearly 30 years of praise, raises and promotions, with no performance write-ups or indications of failures.
“In the last quarter that she worked there, her branch was number one in the country. She was the branch manager. That was pretty consistent for her – she was a very, very top-rated person,” Prescott said.
Before Estepp returned from her four weeks of FMLA, texts between her and her district manager indicated that the manager was excited to have her back, Prescott said. But soon after Estepp said she unexpectedly needed to extend her leave, the same manager fired her.
According to the lawsuit, the district manager was overcome with emotion while firing Estepp.
“As Ms. Estepp fumbled for some lawful explanation for being fired on a random Tuesday evening, her boss simply begged her to hand over her keys and leave the building, because there were no other words she could speak through her tears,” the lawsuit said.
Prescott said that emotional reaction, and the fact that the district manager re-credentialed Estepp to access personal customer information before she came back from leave, would have been “strange” if plans were already in the works to terminate Estepp.
“[Employers] just don't terminate people on a Tuesday afternoon, right after bringing them back and fully reintegrating them on a Monday morning; and human beings don't sob to the point where they can barely talk about information that they've known for longer than a few days,” Prescott said.
Estepp filed the case in the Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division on Monday.
A Huntington spokesperson said that the bank does not comment on active litigation but is “committed to compliance with all employment laws, including the Family and Medical Leave Act,” and added that the bank “acted appropriately in this matter.”
“We were saddened to learn of her daughter’s passing and extend our condolences to Ms. Estepp and her family,” the spokesperson said
