Opinion ID: 2400529
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Family and Medical Leave Act Claim

Text: Mr. Woodland also maintains that genuine issues of material fact remain with respect to his FMLA claim. We hold, to the contrary, that the FMLA claim was never stated with sufficient clarity in any of Mr. Woodland's pleadings in the trial court, and that the claim should have been dismissed for that reason. Mr. Woodland's complaint did not assert any substantive deprivation of rights under the FMLA. The only mention of the FMLA in the complaint was the allegation that appellees had retaliated against him by refusing to let him exercise his rights to take accrued sick leave as a reasonable accommodation as required by the District of Columbia Human Rights Act ... and unpaid leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. The complaint did not even allege that Mr. Woodland was an eligible employee covered by the FMLA i.e., that he had worked the requisite number of hours during the previous year. See 29 U.S.C. § 2611(2)(A); see also, e.g., Boyce v. New York City Mission Society, 963 F.Supp. 290, 298 (S.D.N.Y.1997) (dismissing FMLA claim because of failure to plead any facts establishing that plaintiff met the 1250-hour eligibility requirement); Spurlock v. NYNEX, 949 F.Supp. 1022, 1033 (W.D.N.Y.1996) (same). Finally, the prayer for relief at the end of the complaint did not even mention the FMLA. [1] The trial court therefore should have dismissed the FMLA claim, to the extent that there was one, under Civil Rule 12(b)(6), rather than granting summary judgment on it.