The Family and Medical Leave Act allows an employer to require that a employee’s request for FMLA leave be supported by a certification issued by the employee’s health care provider. An example of one of the right ways to do this, from a recent federal-court decision, follows after the jump…
In this case of first impression in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers PA, NJ, DE, and USVI, the court ruled that a supervisor in a public agency may be subject to personal liability under the Family and Medical Leave Act. The court further emphasized that there is “no reason to distinguish between public agencies and private employers under the FMLA insofar as individual liability is concerned.”
Details after the jump…
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The United States Department of Labor announced here yesterday that it is issuing proposed rules that would expand military family leave provisions under the Family and Medical Leave Act and incorporate a special eligibility provision for airline flight crew employees.
Details and links after the jump…
Last month, the U.S. Department of Labor published new fact sheets on its website. Employers and employees alike will want to check these out:
Here is a link to the FLSA fact sheet. This fact sheet provides general information concerning the FLSA’s prohibition of retaliating against any employee who has filed a complaint or cooperated in an investigation.
That’s right folks. It’s time for another edition of “Fact or Fiction” a/k/a “Quick Answers to Quick Questions” a/k/a QATQQ f/k/a “I don’t feel like writing a long blog post”. So, let’s get right to today’s question:
That Eddie Employee is a gamer.
While filling up at the Gas-N-Gulp on his way to work, out of nowhere, a punk teen whacked Eddie across the face with a skateboard. Youch! Jaw broken, Eddie got back into his car, drove to work, and somehow managed to stumble into HR. Spitting out blood and teeth, Eddie asked Agatha Administrator for a week off from work to go to the hospital to have surgery to fix his ugly mug and recuperate. However, as Eddie slurred and lisped out his request, he never specifically mentioned the letters “F-M-L-A”.
Back in 2005, a Pennsylvania federal court recognized in this opinion that an employee’s FMLA rights become sacrosanct upon requesting FMLA — even if the employee is not yet FMLA-eligible — provided that the employee has satisfied all FMLA service requirements when the FMLA begins. Where would this most likely arise? Why with pregnancy, of course. Something like:
- Female employee starts work;
- A few months later, she gets pregnant and requests FMLA to commence upon childbirth; and
- She gets fired before giving birth.
Hey, those sound like the facts of Pereda v. Brookdale Senior Living Communities, Inc., a case decided in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals last week. More on this case, together with a big helping of FMLA tips for employers, after the jump…
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As the year draws to a close, let’s take a look back at the most popular posts at The Employer Handbook in 2011, based on number of hits:
5. Social media and the workplace. School teacher Natalie Munroe made several appearances on the blog this year. Remember her? She was the blogging school teacher who wrote that her students were “utterly loathsome in all imaginable ways.” Although, Ms. Munroe eventually returned to work, her experience is a sound reminder to always think twice before hitting “send.” You can read the fifth-most-popular post, “Yes, you CAN discipline employees who abuse social media” here.
4. I’m a poet and I don’t even know it. I’m not sure what inspired the fourth-most-popular post. It must have been a slow news day. How else do I come up with the idea to Haiku — verbing a noun, sorry — about recent employment-law decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court?
A NJ court recently held that a business can force an employee to arbitrate FMLA claims — even if the arbitration agreement that the employee signs does not contain a specific FMLA waiver.
How does this all work?
Well, according to the NJ Superior Court in Flores-Galan v. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., N.A., “an agreement to arbitrate statutory anti-discrimination claims must be specific enough to put the employee on notice of the claims encompassed.” However, “an arbitration clause need not specify every conceivable statute that it covers.”
So, yeah, in cased you missed it, yesterday, was part one of a gripping two-part series about how employees who share XXX at work tend to get the short-end of the litigation stick should they later decide to sue their employers.
If you have 50 or more employees, you must abide by the Family and Medical Leave Act. The FMLA affords up to 12 workweeks of leave in a 12-month period, among other things, to care for a parent with a serious health condition. But let’s say that you have dropped the ball and failed to provide your employees with:
- information or notice explaining the provisions of the FMLA,
- information regarding how to file complaints for violations of the FMLA, and
- FMLA information in “any written guidance to employees concerning employee benefits or leave rights, such as in an employee handbook.”
Let’s even assume that one of your employees takes leave that would otherwise qualify under the FMLA, but you fail to tell that employee that the FMLA covers the leave.
Have you interfered with your employee’s FMLA rights? I’ll spin some Alice in Chains and drop the 411 after the jump…
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