Matt was a correction officer for the Camden County Board of Chosen Freeholders, which as an aside, sounds like something straight out of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
Before I digress further, Matt served as one of the caretakers for his mom, who suffered from dementia and required daily care. Matt sought FMLA leave,
I’ve often wondered — in fact, even discussed with clients — whether an employer could safely approve an employee’s FMLA-related absence and discipline the employee because he failed to timely report the absence.
I’ve theorized that an employer could pull off both because the discipline punished the late call-in, not the FMLA leave.
But I’ve
A week doesn’t go by without a client asking me whether they can discipline an employee for exceeding the number of absences allowed on their FMLA medical certification. The fact pattern usually goes something like this:
Johnny is an assemblyman at your 200-employee facility. He assembles johnson rods. He also has a chronic bad
One of the biggest headaches for employers when administering FMLA leave is how to deal with the employee who exceeds the frequency or duration identified on the employee’s medical certification. Nearly all of these situations involve intermittent leave, which is the type of leave most frequently abused by employees.
Take, for example, Joe, who suffers
Employers and fellow FMLA nerds, consider this an early holiday present: Courts are increasingly dismissing FMLA claims when they find that the employer has an honest belief that the employee has engaged in FMLA fraud.
This is a longer than usual post, but hang with me, as I share some best practices below.
When an employee takes FMLA leave, is an employer obligated to adjust its performance standards so as to avoid penalizing the employee? According to a recent federal court decision, the answer is Yes. And failing to do so sets the employer up for an FMLA interference claim.
The Facts
Take this situation: Jeff was
An employee enrolled in an addiction treatment program need not be under a doctor’s care or actually staying at a rehab institution to qualify for FMLA leave, according to a federal court in Texas. Picarazzi v. John Crane, Inc.
The Facts
Plaintiff Perry Picarazzi, a customer service representative for John Crane, Inc.(JCI), had a
All too often, employers are criticized for blunders they could have avoided when taking disciplinary action against an employee with a medical condition. However, a recent federal appellate court decision provides a glowing example of how an employer got it right when it disciplined an employee upon her return from leave under the Family and