Intermittent Leave

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Super Bowl.jpegThis morning, the sound of the morning alarm was harsh reality for scores of employees throughout Wisconsin.  After celebrating a Packers Super Bowl victory late into the night (a bitter pill for this Bears fan to swallow!), they have no interest in dragging themselves out of bed and heading into work.  For employers, you need not be located in Wisconsin to suffer the effects of the Super Bowl.  Case in point — I was talking with an HR professional (located outside of WI.) last week who was not looking forward to the day after Super Bowl Sunday, when she spends much of her day processing leave of absence requests — nearly all of which come from employees who called off right before the Monday morning shift started.

Some of the employees have fairly legitimate reasons for their absences (“My son, Johnnie, ate Aunt Erma’s chili last night and he can’t keep anything down this morning); others phone in ambiguous reasons such as, “I am taking FMLA again today,” or “Remember that thing I was dealing with three weeks ago … well, it’s acting up again.”

For HR professionals, the employer response to these phone calls is one of the most difficult they face: Do I count this as an ordinary sick day? Do I ask for more information? Can I ask for more information? What precise “thing” is “acting up” again?  Does this information trigger FMLA leave?

What can an employer do to obtain more information from the employee in these situations?Continue Reading Suffering from Super Bowl-Induced FMLA Leave?

For employers, it pays to listen closely to the reason for which an employee requests time off, since the reason may not always be covered by the FMLA.  Kind of like occasions when the employee tells you he needs time off to clean his mother’s flooded basement.

Take Joe Lane, a medical technologist for Pontiac Osteopathic Hospital.  Joe, who lived with his mother, sought and was granted FMLA intermittent FMLA leave for six months to care for his mom, who suffered from diabetes, high blood pressure, weight loss and arthritis.  He needed leave from time to time to provide her food and transport her to doctors’ appointments, which he did without issue for the next four months.

For Joe, when it rains, it pours. Literally. Right into his mother’s basement. Joe was absent for four consecutive days and, in violation of the Hospital’s personnel policies, he failed to call in his absences. Thereafter, he informed the Hospital that he would need additional time off to clean up flooding in his mom’s basement. He claimed that the “flood cleaning days” should be excused because his mother had hepatitis and the stagnant water was a “breeding ground” for the disease. The Hospital disagreed and fired him.

At that moment, Joe’s FMLA claims went down the drain.Continue Reading Cleaning Up Mom’s Flooded Basement Not Protected by FMLA

Managing long-term intermittent leave has long been one of the central problems for employers administering FMLA leave. Particularly problematic is the employee who presents a certification suggesting that he or she will need unscheduled leave with little or no notice to the employer over a period of months or years based upon self-diagnosed, unverifiable symptoms…

World Cup soccer ball pic.jpgA couple weeks ago, as I was preparing a witness for his deposition (in a Title VII and FMLA case), it dawned on both of us that his deposition would take place mere hours after the deciding Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.  Upon this realization, his face grew a bit pale, and he began wondering out loud whether he would be in the best shape for a deposition the day after a Chicago Blackhawks victory.  [Insert here: visions of a late night at the local pub.]

No worries — both my client and the Blackhawks came out on top.  However, the more I considered the above exchange, the more I wondered whether this scenario raises a common issue for employers as they administer FMLA leave — Do major sporting events, such as the Stanley Cup and ongoing World Cup, invite widespread abuse of FMLA leave?Continue Reading He Shoots . . . and Misses! Does the World Cup Invite FMLA Abuse?