Dive Brief:
- A former SC Johnson employee can continue with his lawsuit alleging that a “burdensome” leave approval process interfered with his Family and Medical Leave Act rights, a federal district court held Monday.
- The employer had outsourced leave administration to Prudential, and the employee was fired, in part, for failing to follow the company’s procedures, according to court documents in Severson v. S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc.
- The employee sued, and SC Johnson moved to dismiss the claims. A federal district court judge, however, cleared the lawsuit for a jury trial.
Dive Insight:
With some exceptions — such as medical emergencies — an employer can generally require that workers follow its call-in procedures for FMLA-covered absences, according to both the U.S. Department of Labor and some federal court rulings.
Employers cannot, however, discourage employees from taking FMLA leave; such actions can amount to interference, which the law prohibits. And that’s what the Severson plaintiff alleged — that “significant problems” with the administrator’s system discouraged him from taking FMLA leave.
SC Johnson had approved intermittent FMLA leave for the employee, both for his own health condition and to care for his mother, according to court documents. After several months, it changed its process, outsourcing leave administration to Prudential.
Following periodic absences and a variety of problems with medical certifications and call-in procedures, SC Johnson fired the employee, citing “excessive absenteeism, providing false, dishonest, or misleading information in connection with a request for leave, and failure to follow the notification procedure for leave time.”
The worker then sued, alleging FMLA interference and retaliation. Specifically, he claimed it was “almost impossible to get ahold of anybody” at Prudential, and that when he alerted the employer, both his manager and HR assured him the situation would be fine.
SC Johnson asked a court to dismiss the lawsuit, but a federal judge declined the request, saying that “a reasonable jury could find that Prudential’s system for addressing FMLA requests created a ‘burdensome approval process’ that interfered with or discouraged [the employee] from taking FMLA leave.”
The court similarly allowed the employee to continue with his retaliation claim. The HR professional who drafted his termination letter was aware that he had issues with his FMLA leave, yet she did not speak with him or his supervisor about his absences before recommending his termination, the court noted. “Given these facts and the close timing between [the] requests for or use of FMLA leave and his termination, a reasonable jury could conclude that there is a causal connection between the two,” the judge said.
Attorneys for the plaintiff declined to comment and SC Johnson did not respond to requests for comment.
