By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//January 29, 2014//
United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit
Civil
Employment — FMLA
An employee may use time under the FMLA to accompany an ill family member on a vacation.
“If Beverly had sought leave to care for her mother in Chicago, her request would have fallen within the scope of the FMLA. So too if Sarah had lived in Las Vegas instead of with her daughter, and Beverly had requested leave to care for her mother there. Ultimately, other than a concern that our straightforward reading will ‘open the door to increased FMLA requests,’ the Park District gives us no reason to treat the current scenario any differently. Yet even if we credit the Park District’s policy concern, ‘[d]esire for what we may consider a more sensible result cannot justify a judicial rewrite’ of the FMLA. Gleischman Sumner Co. v. King, Weiser, Edelman & Bazar, 69 F.3d 799, 803 (7th Cir. 1995) (Flaum, J., concurring).”
Affirmed.
13-1445 Ballard v. Chicago Park District
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Chang, J., Flaum, J.