Fact or Fiction: Breaks/lunch taken at work may qualify for FMLA

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.”

The Family and Medical Leave Act permits employees to take leave on an intermittent basis or to work a reduced schedule under certain circumstances, such as caring for a parent with a serious health condition. Intermittent leave can be days, hours, or even minutes off of work. Indeed, when an employee takes FMLA leave on an intermittent or reduced leave schedule basis, the employer must account for the leave using an increment no greater than the shortest period of time that the employer uses to account for use of other forms of leave provided that it is not greater than one hour and provided further that an employee’s FMLA leave entitlement may not be reduced by more than the amount of leave actually taken.

When employees use minutes of intermittent FMLA, it’s generally in the form of early dismissals or late arrivals to work. But what about FMLA leave during breaks and lunches, when the employee never actually leaves the office? Can that time be used for intermittent FMLA leave?

According to this recent case, periodic time away from one’s desk throughout the work day — but not out of the office — is not FMLA leave. The court was “unable to locate a case where ‘temporary’ FMLA leave was awarded in such a context-where the leave given does not constitute time away from a place of work.”

The answer to today’s “fact or fiction” is fiction.