Employment — FMLA

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United States Court of Appeals

Civil

Employment — FMLA

Where the employer terminated an employee soon after he requested leave for upcoming surgery, summary judgment should not have been granted to the employer on the employee’s FMLA claim.

“As of October 28, 2008, Lynch had decided to eliminate Friedman’s position and not Shaffer’s. Lynch even sent an email to his supervisor detailing why he did not think the elimination of any additional positions beyond Friedman’s was in the AMA’s best interest. Lynch also said in his deposition that downsizing Friedman’s position would be the “obvious choice” to anyone looking at the situation from the outside since the AMA was no longer proceeding with one of Friedman’s core campaigns.”

“Three weeks later, however, Lynch changed his mind. The only events of note in the interim were Shaffer’s request for leave on November 20 and the early November AMA Interim Meeting in Orlando. Shaffer sent Lynch an email on Thursday, November 20 informing him that he would be having knee replacement surgery in January and was setting up a claim for short-term disability benefits. When Lynch emailed Parenti on November 30 that he had now decided to eliminate Shaffer’s position and keep Friedman’s, he included the comment that ‘[t]he team is already preparing for Bill [Shaffer]’s short-term leave in January, so his departure should not have any immediate negative impact.’ A jury could find that this statement, the change in the decision of whom to terminate, and the timing of the new decision soon after Shaffer’s leave request support that his request for leave led to his termination.”

Reversed.

10-2117 Shaffer v. American Medical Association

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, St. Eve, J., Williams, J.