Opinion ID: 767290
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Qualifications of Hasham and Smith

Text: 8 Hasham scored an 87 on the Supervisor I exam while Smith scored an 83. Hasham has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Karachi, Pakistan, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and a Masters of Science degree in Accounting from Roosevelt University in Chicago. At the time of the promotion at issue, Hasham had informed Zigelman that he was a certified public accountant (CPA), while Smith on the other hand, had a Bachelor's degree in accounting but was not qualified as a CPA. 9 According to Zigelman's testimony at trial, prior to his promotion of Smith, every supervisor in the Houston office was a CPA. Further, as of September 1993, Hasham had twelve and one-half years of tax auditing out-of-district accounts experience in contrast to Smith's six years. Moreover, Hasham had completed several difficult and large mega audits (audits of large multi- national corporations) for CBOE, while Smith had yet to complete even one as of September 1993 and had more aged audits 8 than Hasham. Also, prior to recommending Smith for the promotion, Zigelman contacted Lynn Thompson, Hasham's supervisor at the time, and received a favorable reference.