Jill L. Craft
BATON ROUGE – A Baton Rouge woman is suing her employer after the board and her supervisor allegedly harassed her for reporting allegedly unlawful activity at the credit union.
Rhondalyn Williams filed suit against East Baton Rouge Teachers Federal Credit Union in the 19th Judicial Court on Oct. 29.
The plaintiff claims she has been an employee of the credit union since June of 2006. She was hired as a teller and worked her way up to loan assistant manager. The plaintiff asserts prior to June of 2012, she had never received any write ups during her employment with the credit union.
In June of 2010, the plaintiff claims she observed her supervisor, Evangeline Spurlock, was engaging in discriminatory lending practices.
Williams claims Spurlock allegedly denied five people loans because they were from the Philippines even though they met lending criteria. Williams alleges Spurlock approved some applicants for loans even though they didn't meet the objective criteria, but were approved on the basis of their relationship with Spurlock.
Williams claims Spurlock was exempting herself from paying fees and charges on her personal account, she was approving mileage she accrued for work done for the credit union since her hire date in 2004, and approved monthly salary bonuses for $4,500 to her account. She also claims Spurlock opened an account for her mother, but excluded her mother's social security number to prevent the account from affecting her mother's social security payments.
Spurlock also allegedly broke privacy laws when she routinely called her sister, an employee of Our Lady of the Lake, to obtain medical information about employees of the credit union and their families.
On June 10, 2012, Williams claims she reported the inappropriate and/or unlawful practices to the board of the credit union and National Credit Union Association.
After Spurlock found out, Williams claims she has been retaliated against and harassed.
Williams claims she has been arbitrarily demoted from a salaried position to an hourly position. She also states her scheduled break was taken away after Spurlock knew she used the break to pick up her son from school.
Williams claims that on July 20, 2012, she received a letter from the board of the credit union that stated she was disloyal and untrustworthy.
She was also accused of violating her "fiduciary duties" which were "owed to management so that EBRTFCU won't have to be under the spotlight of the NCUA."
Williams also claims in August of 2012, an account belonging to her husband was manipulated so that it would be charged fees it had not received in the past.
An unspecified amount in damages is sought for damage to her reputation, attorney fees, compensatory damages, court costs and mental anguish.
The plaintiff is represented by Baton Rouge attorney Jill L. Craft.
The case has been assigned to Division F Judge Timothy Kelly.
Case no. 616605.