Opinion ID: 165332
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Arbitrary distinction between sole and joint employers

Text: 54 The challenged regulation also creates an arbitrary distinction between sole employers and joint employers. For example, if the employer is a company that operates a chain of convenience stores, the worksite of an employee hired to work at one of those convenience stores is that particular convenience store. See 58 Fed.Reg. 31794, 31798 (1993). If, on the other hand, the employer is a placement company that hires certain specialized employees to work at convenience stores owned by another entity (and therefore is considered a joint employer), the worksite of that same employee hired to work at that same convenience store is the office of the placement company. See 29 C.F.R. § 825.111(a)(3). 55 Assuming both employers employ more than 50 employees within 75 miles of their central office but fewer than 50 employees within 75 miles of the convenience store, the employee is ineligible for FMLA leave if the employer is a sole employer (e.g., the company that owns the convenience store chain) but eligible for FMLA leave if the employer is a joint employer (e.g., the placement company). 56 Accordingly, the joint employment provision creates the possibility that an employer's responsibility to provide FMLA leave to an employee will depend exclusively on whether that employer is a sole employer or a joint employer. This is true despite the fact that neither employer has an abundant supply of nearby employees to replace temporarily an employee taking leave and, consequently, are both subject to the burden Congress tried to alleviate by enacting the 50/75 provision. See discussion supra Section II.C.2. The effect of the joint employment provision is to require the joint employer to bear that burden even though the sole employer is relieved of that burden. Because both types of employers bear the burden the 50/75 provision was designed to alleviate, there is simply no basis in the statute or in logic for such a distinction. 2 We owe no deference to an agency's arbitrary construction of a statute. See Chevron, 467 U.S. at 844, 104 S.Ct. 2778. 57 In sum, the ordinary meaning of the term worksite, the congressional purpose underlying the 50/75 provision, and the arbitrary distinction the regulation creates between sole and joint employers all militate strongly against deference to the agency's construction of the statute as applied to Plaintiff. At bottom, Congress intended the term worksite to be construed as the employee's regular place of work, and we see no reason to apply a different definition to Plaintiff simply because she is jointly-employed. We turn next to the counter-arguments offered by the Secretary and Plaintiff.