All in attendance sat up and took notice when midway through a three-day conference on employment compliance, a branch chief of the U.S. Department of Labor’s enforcement division said that the agency expects to increase on-site investigations into whether companies are complying with the Family and Medical Leave Act.
Consider the following scenario: You are a nonunion employer who has just conducted an internal investigation into a harassment complaint by an employee (let’s call her Monica).
Say a client informs you that an executive may be discharged, and asks for advice. The executive’s high salary and superior communication skills would make this a relatively dangerous termination.
In an effort to root out employee abuse of Family and Medical Leave Act violations, employers are increasingly relying upon the “honest suspicion” defense – and winning.
11-2318 Pagel v. TIN, Inc.
11-2238 Nicholson v. Pulte Homes Corp.
11-3420 Scruggs v. Carrier Corp.
11-3400 Jones v. C&D Technologies, Inc.
A Sioux Falls mother who once worked for Midcontinent Communications has filed a federal lawsuit against the company alleging sex discrimination.
The slow economy and competitive labor market may be contributing to the upswing in discrimination claims by pregnant women in the workplace, employment attorneys say.
A state employee who was denied leave for his own sickness cannot sue the state for violating the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Supreme Court has ruled in a 5-4 decision.
10-1016 Coleman v. Court of Appeals of Maryland
The Department of Labor has announced proposed revisions to regulations implementing the Family and Medical Leave Act that would expand military family leave provisions and incorporate a special eligibility provision for airline flight crew employees.
An employer may be liable for firing a pregnant employee after being informed that she planned on taking maternity leave after she became eligible under the Family and Medical Leave Act, the 11th Circuit has ruled in reversing a dismissal.
The Supreme Court wrestled Wednesday with how a federal law that grants workers time off for family and medical reasons applies to state government workers in a case that could affect millions of them.
10-3330 Makowski v. SmithAmundsen, LLC
Employment
FMLA; exacerbation
The Garland’s Digest is a free web-based index of “over 4,500 summaries of federal appellate court decisions from September 1996 to May 2009 and a searchable index of over 4,500 court decisions from September 1996 to date.”
Employment FMLA The termination of an employee who took time off work because of a family member’s medical emergency, but failed to communicate with the employer during the absence, did not violate the FMLA. “[T]he regulations explicitly provide that employers may require their employees to comply with their “usual and customary notice and procedural requirements” [...]
Employment ADA; FMLA Where an employee was terminated for being intoxicated at work, the termination did not violate the ADA or FMLA. “Taking the record in the light most favorable to Ames, her ADA claims cannot survive summary judgment. For either a discrimination claim or a failure-to-accommodate claim, Ames must show that she has a [...]
