So much about what I’m about to tell you is messed up.
Last night, I read a Sixth Circuit opinion about a maintenance technician whose job involved servicing and maintaining a fleet of police vehicles, as part of which he agreed to install new dashboard cameras in four police cruisers. Unfortunately for the plaintiff, he overpromised and underdelivered by telling his employer that he could complete the job in two weeks.
Over the following two weeks, the defendant checked on the plaintiff’s progress, and he assured the defendant that he would be done on time. On deadline day, however, the plaintiff failed to install three of the dashcams correctly. What happened to the fourth, you ask? He installed it in the wrong vehicle. Things went from bad to worse when the defendant learned that the plaintiff had spent several hours a day surfing personal websites on his computer during the two-week project.
Then, the plaintiff hit rock bottom.
On the eve of the deadline, the plaintiff’s wife had noticed him behaving oddly. The following day, his condition had worsened to the point where he had to be hospitalized and would spend three days inpatient psychiatric treatment.
Meanwhile, the defendant quickly moved to terminate the plaintiff’s employment. On the evening of the plaintiff’s hospitalization, the defendant documented all of the issues with the failed dashcam installation, including the plaintiff’s internet history. Two days later, with the plaintiff still hospitalized, the defendant decided to terminate the plaintiff’s employment. The defendant then sent a representative to the hospital with a termination letter informing the plaintiff that he had been fired, effective immediately.
So, the plaintiff sued for FMLA interference.
An employer that interferes with, restrains, or denies an employee’s attempt to exercise his FMLA leave rights violates the Act. However, if the defendant has a legitimate business reason for ending the plaintiff’s employment, it will prevail unless the plaintiff can demonstrate that the defendant’s reason for terminating him is pretextual. Here, since the defendant had sufficient, documented reason to terminate the plaintiff, his only chance to prevail was to show that those reasons didn’t really motivate the firing.
Unfortunately for the plaintiff, all he had was suspicious timing, hearsay statements from his wife that the defendant felt he was unsafe, and a comment about his hospitalization from a non-decisionmaker. None were enough to overcome the presumption that the plaintiff’s internet history and botched dashcam installation were the real reasons for ending his employment.
Was terminating an employee at the hospital during inpatient psychiatric treatment enough to ensure a one-way ticket to hell? Perhaps.
But it wasn’t FMLA interference.