Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-05-01172/USCOURTS-ca8-05-01172-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Jeffrey Chubb
Appellant
City of Omaha
Appellee

Document Text:

1

The Honorable Richard G. Kopf, United States District Judge for the District

of Nebraska.

 United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 05-1172

___________

Jeffrey Chubb, *

*

Appellant, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* District of Nebraska.

City of Omaha, Nebraska, *

*

Appellee. *

___________

Submitted: June 24, 2005

Filed: September 27, 2005

___________

Before ARNOLD, MCMILLIAN, and COLLOTON, Circuit Judges.

___________

ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.

Jeffrey Chubb appeals the entry by the district court1

 of summary judgment in

favor of the City of Omaha, Nebraska, on his claim that Omaha violated the Family

and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), 29 U.S.C. §§ 2601-2654, by denying him bonus

annual leave after he took FMLA leave. We review the district court's decision de

novo, see Mayer v. Nextel West Corp., 318 F.3d 803, 806 (8th Cir. 2003), cert.

denied, 540 U.S. 823 (2003), and affirm.

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The City of Omaha awards a police officer who does not take more than

40 hours of sick leave in a particular year with 2 hours of additional annual leave for

each pay period during that year in which the officer had at least 1000 hours of

accrued sick leave. For all of 2003, Mr. Chubb had at least 1000 hours of accrued

sick leave. When in that year he took three weeks of leave for surgery, however, he

"substitute[d]" accrued paid sick leave for FMLA leave, see 29 U.S.C.

§ 2612(d)(2)(B). (Although the term "substitute" is used in § 2612(d)(2)(B), that

term is somewhat misleading because the paid sick leave counts against the 12 weeks

of leave guaranteed by the FMLA, see 29 U.S.C. § 2612(c), (d)(1).) Since the paid

sick leave that Mr. Chubb took exceeded 40 hours, Omaha refused to award him the

annual leave bonus after he was restored to employment.

Mr. Chubb maintains that, by denying him the annual leave bonus, Omaha

failed to restore him "to an equivalent position with equivalent employment benefits,"

as the FMLA requires. 29 U.S.C. § 2614(a)(1)(B). He points to the regulations that

implement this requirement, specifically 29 C.F.R. § 825.215(c)(2), which requires

that bonuses "for job-related performance such as for perfect attendance" be available

to an employee "upon return from FMLA leave" when that employee "met all the

requirements for [the bonus] before FMLA leave began." The title for § 825.215(c),

however, is "Equivalent Pay," and what Mr. Chubb seeks is additional annual leave,

which the FMLA and accompanying regulations define as a "benefit" rather than

"pay." See 29 U.S.C. § 2611(5); 29 C.F.R. § 825.215(d). Therefore, we must

evaluate Mr. Chubb's claim based on the statutory and regulatory requirements for

benefits.

The FMLA limits the benefits to which a restored employee is entitled:

"Nothing" in the section on protection of benefits "shall be construed to entitle any

restored employee to – (A) the accrual of any ... employment benefits during any

period of leave; or (B) any ... benefit ... of employment other than any ... benefit ... to

which the employee would have been entitled had the employee not taken the leave."

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29 U.S.C. § 2614(a)(3). (The applicable regulation – 29 C.F.R. § 825.215(d)(2) –

essentially repeats the statutory language.) Mr. Chubb contends that he "would have

been entitled" to the annual leave bonus "had [he] not taken the leave," and thus the

above limitation still redounds in his favor. Omaha counters that it did not deny

Mr. Chubb the annual leave bonus because he took FMLA leave; instead it refused

him the bonus because he took paid sick leave concurrently with his FMLA leave.

Although the FMLA does not define "leave," the statute earlier uses the term "paid

... medical or sick leave" to refer to that specific kind of leave. See 29 U.S.C.

§ 2612(d)(2)(B). Therefore we interpret the term "leave" in § 2614(a)(3) to mean the

baseline, unpaid component of leave, apart from any substitution of paid sick leave.

See 29 U.S.C. § 2612(c); 29 C.F.R. § 825.207. Consequently, Omaha correctly

distinguishes between FMLA leave and paid sick leave.

Mr. Chubb further argues, however, that Omaha required him to use his paid

leave and that Omaha should not be allowed through such coercion to skirt the

FMLA's requirement that he be restored to equivalent benefits. Whether the City of

Omaha required Mr. Chubb to take paid annual or sick leave is unclear from the

record. Omaha's form for requesting FMLA leave asks employees to select either

paid sick leave or annual leave to run concurrently with FMLA leave and states that

employees "may not use unpaid leave until all paid leave is exhausted." But a letter

sent to Mr. Chubb after he filed his request promised that Omaha would "not require

that [Mr. Chubb] substitute accrued paid leave for unpaid FMLA leave." Because

Mr. Chubb appeals from the grant of summary judgment, "we view the facts ... in the

light most favorable to [him]." Kraft v. St. John Lutheran Church of Seward, Neb.,

414 F.3d 943, 945 (8th Cir. 2005). Therefore we will assume without deciding that

Omaha required Mr. Chubb to substitute paid leave for FMLA leave.

Mr. Chubb's contention nonetheless fails. Omaha permitted Mr. Chubb to take

either paid sick leave or paid annual leave concurrently with his FMLA leave, and

had Mr. Chubb chosen annual leave rather than sick leave he would not have forfeited

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his annual leave bonus. Thus, by electing paid sick leave he voluntarily ceded his

claim to the annual leave bonus. And even if Mr. Chubb had no paid annual leave

remaining when he took FMLA leave (we cannot tell from the record), the FMLA

allows Omaha to require that Mr. Chubb substitute paid sick leave for FMLA leave,

see 29 U.S.C. § 2612(d)(2)(B); 29 C.F.R. § 825.207(a). Without the substitution of

such paid leave, Mr. Chubb would have gone unpaid. The FMLA does not require

employers to provide paid leave, 29 U.S.C. § 2612(c), and we decline to punish

Omaha for putting Mr. Chubb in a better position than he would have enjoyed had

Omaha fulfilled only its minimum duties under the FMLA. See id.; cf. Ragsdale v.

Wolverine Worldwide, Inc., 535 U.S. 81, 96 (2002). Therefore we conclude that the

voluntariness of Mr. Chubb's election is of no moment, and that Omaha did not

violate the FMLA by denying Mr. Chubb an annual leave bonus after he took more

than 40 hours of sick leave during his FMLA leave.

Affirmed.

 ______________________________

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