Opinion ID: 215905
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Farhner's Contentions

Text: Farhner argues that even though he was terminated on the grounds of insubordination, such termination was unlawful and the Plan Administrator should have looked beyond the plain meaning of the Plan to accurately determine whether Farhner's termination was proper. The FMLA entitles a qualifying employee to take leave if the employee has a serious health condition rendering the employee unable to perform essential job duties. Culpepper v. BlueCross BlueShield of Tenn., Inc., 321 Fed.Appx. 491, 495 (6th Cir.2009). Before an employer can give FMLA leave, however, the employee must provide notice and a qualifying reason for the leave. Id. Whether the notice is sufficient depends on whether the employee provides enough information for the employer to reasonably conclude that the leave is needed for a serious health condition. Branham v. Gannett Satellite Info. Network, Inc., 619 F.3d 563, 572 (6th Cir. 2010); Cavin v. Honda of Am. Mfg., Inc., 346 F.3d 713, 723 (6th Cir.2003); Gipson v. Vought Aircraft Indus., Inc., 387 Fed. Appx. 548, 555 (6th Cir.2010) (The information that the employee convey[s] to the employer [must be] reasonably adequate to apprise the employer of the employee's request to take leave for a serious health condition that render[s] him unable to perform his job). Once the employee gives notice, the employer may request medical certification from a health care provider; however, this request must be in writing and must detail the employee's specific obligation to provide certification and the consequences of failing to do so. Branham, 619 F.3d at 572; 29 C.F.R. §§ 825.301(b)(1)(ii), 825.305(d). In response, the employee must provide the certification in a timely manner or at least within fifteen days. 29 U.S.C. § 2613(a). Farhner contends that KCSR's requests for additional medical documentation were not sufficient to trigger Farhner's duty to provide certification to KCSR. Rather, Farhner alleges that KCSR failed to meet its obligations under the FMLA, and therefore, Farhner was not insubordinate. Instead, he argues that his actions were protected by the law. As a result, Farhner asserts that the Plan Administrator's benefits determination was arbitrary and capricious because the Plan Administrator should have looked beyond the stated reasons for Farhner's termination and determined that it was unlawful. Even if Farhner's arguments regarding KCSR's obligations under the FMLA are meritorious, Farhner cannot identify, and the Court has not found, any cases to support his proposition that the Plan Administrator was required under the Plan to make an accurate determination regarding those obligations. Even Besten v. Delta America Reinsurance Company, which is factually similar, is distinguishable from this case. There, this Court found the Plan Administrator's denial of severance pay benefits was arbitrary and capricious because the Plaintiff-Appellant's termination was not proper. Specifically, the Plaintiff-Appellant's employment was terminated by his employer, Delta, on the grounds of insubordination after he wrote a memorandum to the president of the company complaining about the denial of his request ... to attend a tax update seminar. Besten, 1999 WL 1336061, at . As a result of Plaintiff-Appellant's discharge, he was denied severance pay benefits by Delta, who also served as the Plan Administrator. Id. This Court concluded that a finding of insubordination was not justified because writing memoranda to management, supervisors, or personnel clerks appear[ed] to be reasonably consistent with the directives of the Delta Employee Manual. Id. at . Accordingly, Delta's decision to deny Plaintiff-Appellant severance pay benefits was held to be arbitrary and capricious. Id. However, in Besten, the plain language that governed differed from the plain language in this case. There, the terms of the Plan state[d] that benefits [would] be denied when ... a beneficiary [was] dismissed for cause as defined in the Delta Employee Manual. Id. at . In other words, the benefits determination was directly intertwined with the decision to dismiss the Plaintiff-Appellant. Under the clear terms of the Plan, it was necessary for the Plan Administrator to look at the conduct of the potential beneficiary to determine if he was properly discharged for cause as defined in the employee manual. Here, the terms of the Plan are specifically defined by the plain language of the Plan itself. Therefore, the Plan Administrator needed to look only at the stated reason for Farhner's termination, not the underlying conduct, to determine if such reason fell under the list of exclusions outlined by the Plan. See also Cline v. Ret. Plan for the Glass Rock Plant & Millwood Plant of Oglebay Norton Indus. Sands, Inc., 346 Fed.Appx. 8, 9 (6th Cir.2009) (finding that the relevant inquiry was not whether Plaintiff was actually disabled at the time of termination, but whether he was terminated because the employer considered him disabled, where the plain language of the Plan stated that a participant who terminates employment as a result of a disability ... shall be entitled to [d]isability [b]enefits hereunder). This case is also distinguishable from Besten because there Delta served as both the Plaintiff-Appellant's employer and as the Plan Administrator. Id. at  1. Therefore, Delta had the ability to accurately ascertain the lawfulness of the Plaintiff-Appellant's discharge. In contrast, KCSR and the DIPP are two separate entities. Thus, the DIPP would not be a proper party to a suit alleging a violation of the FMLA, and it would not have the ability to properly defend against such type of suit.