In James v. FedEx Freight, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that a jury must decide whether an employer received sufficient information from an employee to be required to investigate a possible FMLA request.
Law. The FMLA provides that when an employee seeks leave for a FMLA-qualifying reason, the employee need not expressly assert rights under FMLA, or even mention FMLA. However, he must give the employer enough information for it to reasonably conclude that an FMLA-covered event may have occurred. If he does not provide enough information, the employer may request additional information before making a determination regarding FMLA leave.
While an employee may directly request FMLA leave, if an employer becomes aware of circumstances indicating that the FMLA might apply, it becomes the employer’s responsibility, not the employee’s, to determine whether a leave request is likely to be covered by the FMLA.
Generally, an employee must give 30 days’ advance notice for foreseeable leave, but if 30 days’ notice is not possible (e.g., because of a lack of knowledge of approximately when leave will be required to begin; a change in circumstances; or a medical emergency), notice must be given “as soon as practicable.”
Under the FMLA, it is “unlawful for employers to interfere with or deny an employee’s exercise of her FMLA rights.”
Facts. An employee told his employer that his wife was experiencing a “high-risk” pregnancy and that there would be times when he needed to leave early or miss days to care for his wife. No one informed the employee of his rights under the FMLA.
Later, on several occasions when the employee was required to work overtime, he responded that he needed to get home to his wife due to her high-risk pregnancy. He then left at his originally scheduled end time.
The employee was informed that this would be considered job abandonment. After he was terminated, he sued claiming interference with his FMLA rights. The district court dismissed the case, saying that the employee was fired for failure to follow his supervisor’s instructions regarding leave rather than for attempting to access his FMLA rights.
Court of Appeals. In its review, the Appeals Court noted that, “[an] employee is not required to mention the FMLA when giving notice, but the notice must be ‘sufficient to make the employer aware that the employee needs FMLA-qualifying leave, and of the anticipated timing and duration of the leave[.]’”
In this case, the Appeals Court ruled that the employee offered enough evidence to create a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether his wife needed care, a qualifying reason for leave under the FMLA, and whether the employer had sufficient notice. “Requiring ironclad proof is more than summary judgment requires, and in a situation like this one, it would allow an employer to benefit from its failure to comply with the FMLA.”
Therefore, the Appeals Court ruled that the district court erred in granting summary judgment to the employer and remanded the matter back to the district court for a jury to make the factual determination.