Opinion ID: 2994198
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Burden of Proof and Jury Instructions

Text: The district court instructed the jury that the defendants had the burden to establish that Ms. Rice would not have been retained even if she had not been on FMLA leave./10 For the reasons that follow, we have concluded that this instruction is not an accurate reflection of the statutory mandate. In analyzing this issue, we must focus on the structure and the language of the statute. We begin with the structure. In King v. Preferred Technical Group, 166 F.3d 887 (7th Cir. 1999), Judge Kanne explained, in some detail, the structure of the FMLA. He noted that the Act establishes two categories of broad protections for employees. 166 F.3d at 891. First, in sec.sec. 2612-2615, the Act contains prescriptive protections for employees that are expressed as substantive statutory rights. As the