Source: https://federalfmla.typepad.com/fmla_blog/2006/12/index.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 13:53:37+00:00

Document:
In Collins v. The United States Playing Card Co., No. 1:05CV637 (S.D.Ohio Nov. 6, 2006), the employer moved for the dismissal of the employee's FMLA interference claim arguing that the employee's requests for breaks of a few minutes each during the course of the workday to get something to eat (he had diabetes) were not covered by the FMLA. The court disagreed. The Court found that leave during the workday by a diabetic employee in order to eat to correct low blood sugar when medically necessary may qualify as intermittent leave under the FMLA.
The Court initially noted that there is no limit on the size of an increment of leave when an employee takes intermittent leave under the FMLA. The Court distinguished the the two case proffered by the company as support for its position that Collins' unscheduled breaks were not protected by the FMLA, Mauder v. Metropolitan Transit Auth., 446 F.3d 574 (5th cir. 2006) and Hensely v. Cooper Standard Automotive, 2005 WL 1981448 (E.D.Tenn. Aug. 17, 2005).
In Mauder, the plaintiff employee was diabetic. He did not advise his employer that he had been diagnosed with diabetes. The insulin prescribed by Mauder's doctor had a side effect of uncontrollable bowel movements. As a result, Mauder made frequent trips to the bathroom that were not always at the scheduled break time. Mauder did not inform his supervisor of his medical condition until she emailed him concerning his tardiness in returning from scheduled breaks. When his supervisor asked Mauder to provide more information regarding his medical condition, Mauder refused. The Court found that Mauder failed to demonstrate that his medical condition left him incapacitated as required by the state, and thus he was not entitled to FMLA leave.
The Court distinguished Mauder by finding that Collins informed his employer of his condition with supporting medical certification of his need to leave. The Court concluded that Mauder did not find that the FMLA does not allow for periodic time away from one's work station. Rather, the Mauder court merely expressed in dicta that it had been "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 work, but merely periodic time away from a desk throughout a work day."
In Hensely, the plaintiff had undergone rotator cuff surgery and was required to perform 15-to 20-minute physical therapy exercises, which she did each day at work in the first-aid room. The employer terminated Hensley for sleeping in the first-aid room. Hensley sued alleging that she was never informed that intermittent FMLA leave was available, and that her termination violated the FMLA. The court concluded that the 15- to -20-minute exercises did not qualify as intermittent FMLA leave.
The Court in Collins' distinguished Hensely noting that Hensely never applied for intermittent FMLA leave for her exercises and Hensely had not been provided notice from her employer that she was eligible for FMLA leave. Collins, on the other hand, specifically requested intermittent FMLA leave to take breaks due to his medical condition.
The Court looked favorably on the decision in Sabbrese v. Lowe's Home Centers, Inc., 320 F.Supp. 2d 311 (W.D.Pa. 2004). In that case, a diabetic employee was requires to eat a scheduled intervals in order to control his blood sugar. One day Sabbrese left for lunch early in order to eat because he was feeling lightheaded and nauseous. He was disciplined for leaving his post early. He was terminated when he made physical contact with his supervisor at the disciplinary meeting.
Relying on Sabbrese, the DOL regulation that there is no limit on the size of an increment of intermittent leave, and Collins' eligibility for intermittent leave, the Court found that Collins may pursue his FMLA interference claim on the basis that the period of time for which he sought leave can qualify as intermittent leave under the FMLA.
Comment: I believe the decision is a correct interpretation of the DOL intermittent leave regulations. According to the Court in Collins and Sabbrese, intermittent FMLA leave is available for brief periods of absence from working, even though the employee remains at work.
In Sheville v. American West Airlines, Inc., No. CV05-02790-PHX-NVW, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88058 (D.Az. Dec. 4, 2006), Sheville alleged that he was terminated for exercising his statutory right to take FMLA leave for personal medical reasons. Sheville claimed that he took three months of FMLA-protected leave in the summer of 2000, shortly after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. He was terminated four years later on December 1, 2004. He took no FMLA leave for his medical condition between July 2000 and his termination. Instead, Sheville used his annual allotment of paid sick days to schedule medical appointments.
Generally, courts require a short period of time between an employee's exercise of FMLA rights and an adverse action to draw the inference that the adverse action was casually related to the exercise of FMLA rights. The four year period normally is too long to establish the requisite casual connection.
To overcome the four-year argument, Sheville relied on a much shorter temporal gap of only four months. He argued that he informed management of his deteriorating medical condition after returning from five days of paid, non-FMLA sick leave in August 2004. He points to this as evidence that his termination four months later was due to his exercise of FMLA rights. The Court disagreed.
[R]equires Plaintiff to establish a casual connection between the taking of leave under the FMLA and the termination of employment. Yet Plaintiff's theory of causation is addressed to Plaintiff's unprotected activity- five paid non-FMLA sick days-- and his subsequent termination. Plaintiff may not elide his burden production under the Family Medical Leave Act by focusing on irrelevant leave.
Comment: To establish a wrongful discharge claim based on the use of FMLA leave an employee must initially establish that s/he took FMLA leave, they suffered an adverse action, and the adverse action was casually related to the use of FMLA leave. Where the only evidence of casual connection is the time between the exercise of FMLA rights and the adverse action, the shorter the period of time the better. anything more than six months will likely fail to establish the casual connection based on temporal proximity alone.
Here, the court is saying that the employee failed to establish that the adverse action was casually connected to the employee's exercise of FMLA rights because the employee was on non-FMLA leave. Clearly, to have a viable FMLA retaliation claim the employee must have exercised some FMLA right. That did not occur on Sheville.
Although the record is unclear, the court might not have adequately considered what Mr. Sheville was arguing. it is well established that an employee may take FMLA leave concurrently with paid leave. Therefore, the mere fact that Sheville was on paid sick leave is not necessarily dispositive of his claim that he attempted to asserted his FMLA rights on his return from five days of sick leave. If his five days of sick leave were caused by his multiple sclerosis, either for treatment or due to incapacity, that condition could be a chronic or permanent serious health condition for which he would be entitled to leave.
Employees may also request FMLA leave after they have returned to work. Remember, employees are supposed to give notice of the need for leave in advance, if they have advance notice, for medical treatment. If not,or if the leave was not foreseeable, an employee must provide notice of the need for leave as soon as practicable, which generally means within one or two business days of when the employee first learned of the need for leave. Such notice might be after the fact (although waiting five days is generally too long before giving notice, absent unusual circumstances). The employee also does not have to specifically identify the leave as FMLA qualifying. In this case, where the employer knows that the employee has a qualifying serious health condition, the employee could satisfy the notice requirement by simply stating that he used leave due to his multiple sclerosis, which he apparently did.
My point (and I do have one) is that the Court may have been a bit too hard on Mr. Sheville. The Court should have analyzed all of the facts to see if he was requesting FMLA leave on his return to work, and whether such a request was timely and adequate. Employers should not simply conclude that because an employee was on paid leave that was not designated as FMLA leave beforehand that the employee cannot effectively assert a claim for FMLA leave on their return to work.
In Lewis v. School District #70, No. 05-CV-776-WDS, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 86032 (S.D.Ill. Nov. 28, 2006), Ms. Lewis alleged that the defendants discriminated against her by transferring her in retaliation for requesting and taking FMLA leave. The Court defined the issue as whether plaintiff's transfer from the bookkeeper position to the teacher's assistant position was motivated by an impermissible retaliatory or discriminatory animus. Absent direct evidence of discrimination, the court applied the burden shifting framework of McDonnell Douglas. Under that scheme to survive a motion for summary judgment, Plaintiff must establish that: (1) she engaged in protected conduct; (2) the defendant's took adverse action; and (3) there is a casual connection between plaintiff's exercising her FMLA rights and her transfer.
Here, the court found that Lewis met the first two elements of the prima facie case: she engaged in protected activity by taking intermittent FMLA leave and suffered an adverse action, her transfer to a lower paid position. The Court found that Lewis was unable to establish a casual connection between her exercise of FMLA rights and her transfer. The Court observed that a connection can "only be shown by a demonstration that defendants would not have transferred plaintiff to the teacher's assistance position but for her engaging in protected activity under the FMLA."
Plaintiff improperly withheld Medicare payments from the paychecks of three employees even those employees had elected not to participate in Medicare.
The Court noted that the above-identified problems were not related to absenteeism. Plaintiff simply was no performing the bookkeeping function adequately even when she was at work. Because plaintiff could not demonstrate that defendants would not have transferred her to the teachers' assistant position but for her engaging in protected activity under the FMLA, the Court awarded summary judgment to the School dismissing the complaint.
Comment: The use of intermittent FMLA leave does not protected an employee from the consequences of their performance while working. If an employee fails to adequately perform their job they may be subject to adverse action just as if the employee had not taken FMLA leave. Note that the FMLA does not require an employer to reduce an employee's workload while the employee takes intermittent FMLA leave.
Mindy Marx had approved dependent care intermittent FMLA leave for her son Ryan, who suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. At all times relevant to her complaint Marx had received a 10-Point Final Letter pursuant to Whirlpool's Attendance Policy for unexcused, non-FMLA absences. Another non-FMLA absence and she would be terminated. On Friday, August 13, 2004, Marx was scheduled to work. She was observed stopping by the plant with another employee on two separate occasions over the course of a few hours to pick up her pay check. She did not appear to be working as scheduled. The employer was aware that Marx had approved intermittent dependent care FMLA leave for her son. Ryan was not with Marx on the two occasions she was observed at the plant.
On her return to work the following Monday, Marx requested FMLA leave for Friday. She claimed that the leave was qualifying because she made four telephone calls in the morning to arrange for a change in the care of her son. Marx admitted that the four telephone calls were the only thing she did related to Ryan's change in care on August 13, 2004. She spent the remainder of her shift picking up her paycheck, visiting her father's house, cashing the paycheck, and caring for her youngest son, River.
The Court noted that the FMLA permits an employee to take leave where an employee is "needed to care for" a family member. The FMLA defines "needed to care for" to compass both physical and psychological care. The terms also includes situations "where the employee may be needed to ...make arrangements for changes in care..." 29 CFR 825.116(b).
There was thus no imminent reason or emergency that required Plaintiff to specifically take off work or even make these alleged telephone calls on august 13, 2004.
Comment: The Court appears to be saying that Marx, who had approved intermittent FMLA leave at the time, is not entitled to take an entire day off from work where the actual time needed for the FMLA covered leave, in this case to make a few telephone calls to make changes in dependent care coverage, was for a period substantially less than a full work day.
Today the U.S. Department of Labor asked for public comments on all areas of the DOL FMLA regulations, although the DOL identified 12 areas special of interest. The request, which was published in the Federal Register today, could lead to the first significant overhaul of the the DOL's 13-year old FMLA implementing regulations.
According to Victoria Lipnic, Assistant Secretary for the Department of Labor's Employment Standards Administration, "the department has had the FMLA on its regulatory agenda for a number of years." She continued, "We've realized we need some fresh information and fresh thinking on the issues that have been developed over nearly a dozen years since the regulations were implemented. We'd like more input from the public, which is why we put our the request for information."
The announcement cited several factors for soliciting public comment: (1) rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts over the past twelve years invalidating some FMLA regulations and struggling to interpret others; (2) the Department of Labor's own struggles in administering the law; (3) public input in numerous Congressional hearings and public comments filed with the Office of Management and Budget in connection with three annual reports to Congress regarding the Costs and Benefits of Federal regulation; and (4) the effect of other legislative and regulatory changes, such as HIPPA and the ADA.
The Department's solicitation of public comment has long been anticipated since the United States Supreme Court's decision in Ragsdale v. World Wide, Inc. 535 U.S. 81 (2002). In its first case involving the FMLA, the Court ruled that the penalty provision in 29 CFR 825.700(a), which states "[i]f an employee takes ... leave and the employer does not designate the leave as FMLA leave, the leave taken does not count against an employee's leave entitlement[,]" was invalid because in some circumstances it requires employers to provide leave to employees beyond the 12-week statutory guarantee. Since that decision, the DOL has stated on several occasions over the years that it planned on reviewing the DOL's FMLA regulations.
the definition of a "serious health condition;"
The DOL also solicited comments addressing how to statistically determine FMLA usage, the financial impact of intermittent FMLA leave, and whether that impact changes depending on an employer's size.
Written comments should be submitted to Richard M. Brennan, Senior Regulatory Officer, Wage and Hour Division, Employment Standards Administration, U.S. Department of Labor, Room S-3501, 200 Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington D.C. 20210. Comments may be submitted by e-mail to whdcomments@dol.gov. Comments of 20 pages or less may be submitted by fax machine to (202) 693-1432, which is not a toll-free number. Comments must be received by 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Friday, February 2, 2007.
In Wood v. Handy & Harman Co., No. 05-CV-532-TCK-FHM, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 81186 (N.D.Ok. Nov. 6, 2006), the court found that the Plaintiff's opposition to the denial of FMLA leave to a co-worker constituted protected activity within the meaning of the anti-retaliation provisions of the FMLA.
To establish a prima facie FMLA retaliation claim, Wood had to show that: (1) he engaged in a protected activity; (2) Defendant's took an action that a reasonable employee would have found materially adverse; and (3) there exists a casual connection between the protected activity and the adverse action. The Defendant argued that Wood could not show that he engaged in "protected activity" within the meaning of the FMLA and, therefore, his FMLA retaliation claim must fail.
The Court initially noted that, typically, a plaintiff engages in the requisite "protected activity" simply by taking or requesting FMLA leave. Here, the protected activity was Wood's opposition to Defendant's treatment of a co-worker. Specifically, Wood's refused to deliver a memorandum that informed a co-worker on leave (to attend to her husband's illness) that her leave did not "qualify under the Family and Medical Leave Act." Wood refused to deliver the memo because he believed it violated Carter's FMLA rights. Woods was subsequently terminated. He sued his employer alleging that he was terminated in retaliation for engaging in protected activity, e.g., refusing to deliver the memorandum to his co-worker.
Individuals, and not merely employees, are protected from retaliation for opposing (e.g., file a complaint about) any practice which is unlawful under the Act. They are similarly protected if they oppose any practice which they reasonably believe to be a violation of the Act.
Woods, the Court held, can also demonstrate that he engaged in protected opposition activity if he reasonably believed that the denial of leave reflected in the memo to the co-worker violated the co-workers rights.
Here, the court found that Wood's subjectively believed that the decision in the memo to deny the request for FMLA leave violated his co-worker's FMLA rights. The Court referenced a statement to that effect in an affidavit submitted by Wood. Addressing whether Wood's subjective belief was objectively reasonably, the Court found that the record facts precluded summary judgment. As evidence that material facts were in dispute on this issue, the Court noted discrepancies between several management officials regarding FMLA coverage for the co-workers leave request.
Comment: The Court's decision effectively validates the extension of FMLA protections in 29 CFR 825.220(e) to employees who reasonably believe that they are opposing a practice that violates the FMLA, even if that practice turns out not to violate the FMLA. To establish a reasonable belief, the court required evidence that the employee both subjectively believed that the employer violated the employee's own or another's FMLA rights, and that the employee's subjective belief was objectively reasonable (e.g., a reasonable person with the same information could hold the claimed subjective belief).
The mere fact that the challenged practice is determined to be lawful will not defeat an FMLA retaliation claim if the employee subjectively believed it was unlawful, and that belief was objectively reasonable. Of course, a finding that the practice at issue is lawful will likely undercut the objective reasonableness of the employee's subjective belief that the conduct was unlawful.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.