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The Family and Medical Leave Act lets qualified workers take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave each year. This leave is protected, so the job is safeguarded.
Covered employees may use the Family and Medical Leave Act to take unpaid leave that is protected. According to the Department of Labor, you may also use this leave intermittently or on a reduced schedule when medically necessary and for qualifying family or personal circumstances. It is also possible to use this leave for bonding with a newborn or newly placed child, provided both the employer and employee agree.
It sounds simple in summary, but the law is built around a set of specific thresholds. Certain factors affect both sides of the employment relationship. These factors include who actually qualifies, what counts as a covered employer, and what happens when a request for leave is denied or a job isn’t there when someone returns.
Berchem Moses PC advises and defends management across a wide range of workplace matters, and this area includes family and medical leave disputes. Let’s discuss the rights of an employee under the Family and Medical Leave Act.
Who Qualifies for FMLA Leave
Eligibility is based on three specific facts rather than a general sense of tenure or good standing. A worker must have worked for their employer for a minimum of 12 months. These months do not need to be consecutive and can be counted over time within the first work year.
A worker qualifies for FMLA leave if they have at least 1,250 hours in the last 12-month period, starting from the date the leave is scheduled to begin. This would be about 24 hours per week, on an average. They must work at a place that employs no less than 50 people within a 75-mile radius.
That last point causes more confusion than the other two combined. A company can have thousands of employees nationally and still have no FMLA-covered location if its individual offices are small and spread out.
Public agencies and public and private elementary and secondary schools are covered regardless of size, which is a separate rule from the 50-employee threshold that applies to private employers.
What the Leave Actually Covers
FMLA leave can be used for several occasions for emergencies and other incidents in an employee’s life. This benefit can be used in case the employee has a serious health condition. It is also possible to use it to care for a spouse, child, or parent with a serious health condition.
Other emergencies include the birth or placement of a child or certain needs arising from a family member’s military deployment. It can be taken all at once or, when medically necessary, intermittently or on a reduced schedule.
The leave itself is unpaid under federal law, but an employee can typically choose, or an employer can require, that accrued paid leave run concurrently with it.
Job protection is the other half of the guarantee. An employee returning from FMLA leave is entitled to the same position or a virtually identical one, with the same pay, benefits, and other terms of employment. Group health coverage must continue during the leave under the same terms as if the employee had continued working.
State law can also expand on federal protections in ways that matter to the outcome. California’s counterpart to the FMLA, for instance, applies to smaller employers than the federal law does and interacts with the state’s broader disability accommodation requirements. The California Family Rights Act provides more extensive protection for workers dealing with severe medical issues.
Since it is a very common occurrence where employers terminate employees so they don’t have to provide any more medical or disability leave. But all employees have significantly more protection under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act. A Los Angeles Family Medical Leave Act lawyer can help you understand your rights to take medical leave for health setbacks without fearing retaliation from your employer.
Where Employers Run Into Trouble
Most FMLA violations are not the result of employers deliberately ignoring the law. They come from process gaps. Examples of these are situations when a supervisor doesn’t recognize that a pattern of absences might be FMLA-qualifying. Other commonly encountered problems by managers involve the late submission of the FMLA form and rules that limit a worker’s medical leave regardless of the employee’s condition.
As FMLA compliance affects the hiring process, payroll, and day-to-day supervision of all facilities, it is usually reasonable to manage leave of absence in standard HR practices rather than treat it as an isolated or occasional administration of leave.
What to Do When Leave Is Denied or Retaliated Against
If an employee believes their FMLA rights have been violated, there are several ways to address such issues.
One example of violation may involve the improper denial of eligible leave. Another example of a violation is retaliation or termination for taking protected leave. The failure to return the employee to the same or an equivalent position afterward is also a breach of FMLA laws.
The investigation of violations and compliance with FMLA provisions normally falls under the responsibilities of the local department of labor.
The affected employee may also choose to file a civil action in court independently. Depending on the circumstances, potential remedies may include lost wages, employment benefits, other financial losses, and liquidated damages equal to that amount unless the employer can show it acted in good faith.
Different cases concerning the Family and Medical Leave Act invariably boil down to three issues. The first concerns whether the employee was entitled to leave. The second issue concerns the nature of the leave that was requested. The third concern is whether the employer complied with the support and reinstatement duties.
It is far more cost-effective to address such concerns well in advance, before a dispute arises, than to be required to commit resources to resolve them after a dispute has already occurred.
