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FMLA Leave Rights May Extend to Siblings

by | Jan 16, 2025 |

In Chapman v. Brentlinger Enterprise, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that under the Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) an employee may be entitled to leave to care for a seriously ill sibling.

Law.  In general, the FMLA entitles eligible employees to 12 “workweeks” of leave in a twelve-month period: (i) for their own serious health condition; (ii) to care for a seriously ill or injured spouse, child or parent; (iii) for the birth, adoption or placement of a child; or (iv) to deal with “exigencies” related to their spouse’s military deployment.  The statute recognizes that an “in loco parentis” relationship may be recognized under the FMLA.

Facts.  An employee requested leave under the FMLA to care for her terminally ill sister.  Her employer responded that the FMLA did not provide leave to care for an adult sibling.  Despite this response, the employee did not report for work and was terminated for her absence.

The employee said that during her absence, she supported her sister financially by paying some portion of her bills and buying groceries and other essential household items.  She also cooked her sister’s meals and hand-fed her, helped her use the bathroom, cleaned her up when she was incontinent, brushed her hair and teeth, and took care of her apartment by cleaning, taking out the trash, and doing laundry.  She managed some of her sister’s medical needs by administering over-the-counter medications, using massage tools and hot-and-cold packs, and shifting her around in bed to prevent bed sores.

The employee sued in federal court and the district court ruled in favor of the employer, agreeing that the FMLA did not cover leave to care for an adult sibling.

Appeals Court.  The Court began by noting that, while the FMLA allows employees to take unpaid leave to care for certain relatives, siblings are not on the list.  However, the FMLA permits employees to take leave to care for an in loco parentis parent or child. Here, the employee argued that she cared for her sister, and she was responsible for her in the way a parent cares for a child, so she was in loco parentis to her sister.

The Court then said that because the FMLA does not define the term “in loco parentis,” it should look to the common law meaning of the term. According to the Court, “[t]he term in ‘loco parentis,’ according to its generally accepted common law meaning, refers to a person who has put himself in the situation of a lawful parent by assuming the obligations incident to the parental relation without going through the formalities necessary to legal adoption…. Importantly, in loco parentis parents do more than just provide aid to a loved one who could use the help; ‘kindness and generosity’ are not enough.  Instead, in these cases we asked whether the in loco parentis parent ‘assum[ed] the parental status,’ including by exercising control over or assuming obligations toward the in loco parentis child.” The Court also ruled that under the common law  in loco parentis relationships can form after the dependent has attained age 18 or after the onset of disability.

The Court concluded that, “Congress explicitly included in loco parentis relationships to reflect ‘the reality that many children in the United States today do not live in traditional ‘nuclear’ families with their biological father and mother’ and that ‘[i]ncreasingly, those who find themselves in need of workplace accommodation of their child care responsibilities are not the biological parent of the children they care for’ but instead are ‘simply their grandparents or other relatives or adults.’”

The Court therefore ruled that in loco parentis relationships can form between adults, including adults who also happen to be siblings.  Accordingly, the matter was remanded to the district court to determine whether the employee and her sister formed a relationship that was parental in nature, which would have entitled the employee to FMLA leave.