For those who don’t know yet, the Family and Medical Leave Act, or FMLA for short, was created primarily to address the growing problem of employees who had to deal personally with the physical and emotional issues caused by having a family member who was sick or in need of care. Sure, employees are kinda entitled to unpaid leave for family and medical purposes under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), but their jobs are safe.
You see, this very law states that workers are allowed to take as much as 12 weeks of unpaid leave in a 12-month period for reasons like serious health conditions or caring for a sick family member. But yes, there are rare cases where employees are disallowed to take additional leave after the end of 12 weeks. The proportion of workplace lawsuits claiming disability discrimination involving the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has increased. So yes, today we will look into FMLA Leave Extension Denial Lawsuit examples, and what really has been going on.
So What Really Are These FMLA Leave Extension Denials?
You see, when an employee’s time of 12 weeks of taking FMLA leave is over, the situation gets a bit tricky. Like, the Americans with Disabilities Act could require employers to provide additional leave as a “reasonable accommodation” for employees with disabilities if the need arises. Just so you know though, the employers’ role is to engage in an “interactive process” to determine whether it is possible to extend the leave or not without any significant impact on the business. All in all, if the above procedures are not followed, or if the leave is denied for an invalid reason, lawsuits often arise, and that is precisely what we are seeing here.
Key Case Studies and Lawsuits
One example of focus is a lawsuit filed against PACE Southeast Michigan in September of 2024, do you know anything about that? Well, you see, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) successfully sued the company for treating employees who were not able to return right after FMLA leave as if they had resigned. Then, two employees filed applications for more unpaid leave due to disabilities. But their requests were not granted, and they were terminated. The EEOC claimed that it infringed the ADA and stated the argument that PACE should have allowed such a request. The case illustrates the legal commitments of employers to have all leave requests from workers with disabilities taken into consideration, you know?
Not just that though, there is another case from the year 2022 where the example of a trucking company that was given a no-go to two workers who applied for extended leave after their FMLA leave had already ended is very representative of what we are talking about here. The company paid the parties a total of $65,000 to settle the case thus demonstrating that an employer can be fined for a few hours of denying leave even if that is short and very insignificant in the actual course of events.
In 2021 Kristina Kelley’s case was reported on in relation to the fact that FMLA issues can be a source of lawsuits. With this one, you see, Kelley, who was a supervising producer, took FMLA leave after having suffered a stroke. During this leave period, however, her co-workers contacted her regarding work, which is generally not allowed. Upon returning to work part-time, her boss changed the way her job worked which caused a negative impact on her performance that was a direct result of the changes made. And yes, eventually, she was fired. Kelley took a lawsuit for FMLA interference and retaliation against her employer partly based on a possible trial that could be a huge financial burden for her employer.
