How to avoid an expense report approved by HR Supervisor with one expense item "Denied" from routing

Hello, all!  I need help, please, with what I hope is just a configuration issue we have with expense report approvals.  (We are using FIN 9.2.11, with some patches from future PUMs).

The specific scenario is as follows. Let's assume Employee's supervisor is named John.  Also, note that "Deny" option is used in this example, but "Send Back" behaves in the same way.

1 - Employee submits expense report

2 - Expense report appears in John's worklist (presumably, as Employee's HR Supervisor).

3 - John denies one expense item and then Approves the overall expense report.

     > At this stage, Approval History shows submission by Employee, approval by John as HR Supervisor, and auto-approval by John as Expense Manager. <