Tag: FMLA

Federal Court Finds Employee's Termination Immediately After FMLA Leave Is Evidence of Retaliation A federal district court in Georgia has found that evidence that an employee was repeatedly asked to return to work from Family and Medical Act (FMLA) leave and discharged immediately upon return is sufficient to survive a motion for dismissal. In this case, the plaintiff was employed as a financial account manager for a metal fabrication company prior to his termination in late 2019. In early 2019 the plaintiff's wife, mother-in-law, and daughters were in a catastrophic car crash, which led to the death of his mother-in-law and extensive injuries to the other occupants. The plaintiff requested and was granted FMLA leave to care for his family through Aug. 20, 2019. During the plaintiff's leave, there were multiple occasions in which his supervisor allegedly requested that he return to work. On the first of these, the plaintiff claims to have been offered a company laptop to work from home and that his supervisor stated he would take the plaintiff's return to work into account when it came time to decide bonuses. On the second occasion, the plaintiff claimed to have been instructed by his supervisor to return to work to deal with a personnel issue. The plaintiff requested and received permission to discuss the personnel issue with HR, which resulted in different discipline from what the supervisor wanted. At the same time, the plaintiff claims the supervisor asked him to perform work from the company laptop he was sent. However, this laptop had still not arrived, and when it did, it was not functional. Later the manager of HR requested that the plaintiff come into the office to deal with another personnel issue. During this time, the plaintiff asked the IT manager to install programs onto his personal computer to allow him to perform work from home. When the plaintiff returned to work after his FMLA leave, he was fired immediately, with the stated reasons being his inability to manage his employees and attempting to have company software installed without permission. Notably, prior to taking FMLA leave, the plaintiff had not received any complaints relating to performance issues. The plaintiff then filed suit alleging FMLA interference and retaliation, arguing that the employer had failed to properly calculate his use of FMLA leave and had violated his rights by requesting he return on multiple occasions. The defendant followed this with a motion for summary judgment. The court found that the plaintiff had failed to show any evidence of miscalculation. However, the evidence he provided showed he was instructed to return to the office and had even received a suggestion that it would impact his bonus. As a result, the court found the evidence was sufficient to create an issue of material fact for a jury to consider, and as such, the court rejected the defendant's motion for summary judgment on the claim of interference. For the claim of retaliation, the court found that the temporal proximity between the protected activity of FMLA leaves and the dismissal, namely the same day, was likely sufficient to establish a causal connection between the two. Further, the court found that the employer's claims that they were unrelated, namely an inquiry from the plaintiff about placing his family on his company-provided insurance plan and installing company software, failed to hold up. The fourth concluded that neither of these activities appeared to be misconduct, and the former had not been provided as grounds for termination prior to the lawsuit at all. As a result, the court rejected summary judgment on the claim of retaliation as well. Employer Takeaways Whether an employer has strong grounds for dismissal or not, dismissing an employee soon after return from FMLA is likely to be held as evidence of possible retaliation. If an employee must be terminated in such a case, it is crucial to have strong documentation showing the reasons why the action was taken. You can verify your employee qualifications easily when you switch to Pre-employ’s background checks. Talk to a sales representative today. STAY COMPLIANT WITH YOUR BACKGROUND CHECKS

Tag: FMLA

Federal Court Finds Employee’s Termination Immediately After FMLA Leave Is Evidence of Retaliation

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