Mender v. Chauncey

Ginger Mender, who was elected mayor of the Village of Chauncey, alleged that immediately after she took office, the Village conspired to force her to resign. She claimed that Village employees refused her an office, keys to Village buildings, basic office equipment, and disrupted her attempts to speak at Village council meetings with ridicule and laughter. After she refused a request to resign, three different petitions were filed in the Athens County Court of Common Pleas. She filed suit for gender discrimination, among other claims, in the Athens County Court of Common Pleas. The defendants argued that the disagreements were not gender discrimination but political power struggles. After a jury trial, the court granted the Village’s motion for a directed verdict. The Court of Appeals for Ohio affirmed, holding that the evidence was insufficient to support a prima facie case of gender discrimination; even though her successor was a man and thus outside the protected class, the voters of the Village rather than the Village government itself made the decision regarding her replacement.