01-1930 Collins v. NTN-Bower Corporation, et al.

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“Sometimes absence is required by an event that could not be predicted: for example, a family member who dies unexpectedly. That is not Collins’s situation.

Depression did not come on her overnight. In this suit she contends that it had been developing for years and that she had mentioned the problem to supervisors early in 1997, a year before the absence that led to her discharge. Once Collins knew that she had a problem, she could predict that this would lead her to miss work on occasion, and she could have given the notice contemplated by sec.825.302 long before March 1998.

Then when depression incapacitated her on a particular day she could have made clear the ‘serious’ nature of her condition by referring to knowledge already in the employer’s possession. A reference to being ‘sick’ not only withheld important information from the employer but likely threw it off the scent. Certainly it did not suggest to the employer that the medical condition might be serious or that the FMLA otherwise could be applicable. See Price v. Ft. Wayne, 117 F.3d 1022, 1026 (7th Cir. 1997). Like the district court, therefore, we conclude that Collins failed in her obligation to tell the employer enough to suggest that the FMLA may be pertinent.”

Affirmed.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois, McDade, J., Easterbrook, J.