Sometimes, a worker’s requesting or taking Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) will cause an unethical employer to fire that employee wrongfully. Other times, though, a legally compliant employer legitimately needs to fire an employee on FMLA leave. Whether you are an employee caught in the former scenario or an employer thrust into the latter circumstance, you need a clear understanding of your FMLA rights and responsibilities, which is where the advice of an experienced Atlanta FMLA leave lawyer can be vital.
An example of the latter of those two FMLA situations occurred in a case that ended in federal litigation recently. The lawsuit pitted a municipal employer against one of its park employees.
The employee, M.M., was an assistant park manager who started and maintained a food pantry at the park’s family center. In early 2022, the city’s HR team enlisted a local police detective to investigate allegations that the manager had been unloading donated pantry items at her home and keeping them for herself
The police investigation confirmed the allegations against the manager. On Feb. 20, 2022, HR recommended that management fire her.
Three days before that recommendation, the manager requested FMLA leave for knee replacement surgery. The city approved the manager’s leave for Feb. 22 to May 22, 2022. Less than two weeks into her leave, the manager attended a Zoom meeting at the behest of her manager. During that meeting, the manager was informed that she was fired.
The manager sued for FMLA interference and retaliation alleging that the city violated the statute when it fired her while on leave, but the city successfully got the case thrown out, winning a motion for summary judgment. The federal district judge, citing a previous appellate decision, pointed out that an “employee’s right to return to work after taking leave is not unlimited; he is not entitled to ‘any right, benefit, or position of employment other than any right, benefit, or position to which the employee would have been entitled had the employee not taken leave.’”
In other words, an employee who exercises her FMLA rights is entitled to no fewer benefits than one who does not but is also not entitled to any greater benefit. The essential analysis is, “Would the employer have taken the same action if the employee was not on FMLA leave?”
In this case, the employer fired the manager for theft after receiving video proof that the manager took food pantry donations and dropped them off at her home. The employer terminated the manager “for committing theft, an act that discredited [the employer], in violation of the Employee Manual.” The manager had no evidence that the employer would have foregone or delayed firing her if she had been at work versus out on FMLA leave.
The Evidentiary Standard in Federal Cases in Georgia
The park manager’s case took place in Indiana. Here in Georgia, an FMLA case in federal court requires operating under the FMLA precedent established by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Last year, that court looked at the case of a Florida Walgreens worker who was fired while her request for FMLA leave was pending.
The court said that to prove FMLA retaliation, the worker must show that the employer’s retaliatory motive was the “but-for” cause of the adverse action. That means that the employer would not have endured the disputed adverse action but for the employer’s retaliatory motives.
The “but-for” test is a relatively employer-friendly one. The federal appellate courts for the Second and Third Circuits (which include places like New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania,) use the more employee-friendly “motivating factor” test, which declares the existence of a violation so long as the worker proves that retaliatory motives were a factor that drove the employer to take adverse action against the worker.
In the movies and TV, opposing sides are often depicted as black and white… all good or all bad. In the real world, that’s rarely true. Reality includes workers with serious performance issues and legitimate health needs requiring an FMLA-covered absence from work. Whether you are an employee who endured a wrongful termination or other punishment because you exercised your FMLA rights or you are an employer navigating potentially thorny FMLA compliance issues such as a desire to downsize or an employee with grave performance problems, you need legal counsel with an in-depth and up-to-date knowledge of this unique area of the law.
The skilled Atlanta FMLA leave attorneys at the law firm of Parks, Chesin & Walbert have the thorough knowledge and the direct experience you need to provide reliable answers to all your FMLA eligibility and compliance questions. Contact us today at 404-873-8048 or through this website to schedule a consultation to learn more.