On February 7, 2019, the Village of Glenview, Illinois, voted to opt back in to the Cook County Earned Sick Leave Ordinance, effective July 1, 2019. In doing so, Glenview joins the growing list of suburban municipalities to reconsider their previous opt-outs, including Wilmette, Northbrook, and Western Springs. (Of note, Glenview also voted to opt … Continue Reading
An employee seeking the protection of FMLA leave must give adequate and timely notice of the need for leave. In situations where the leave is due to a qualifying reason for which the employer previously provided the employee FMLA leave, the employee must specifically reference either the qualifying reason for leave or the need for … Continue Reading
As of midnight December 21, 2018, 380,000 federal employees were placed on furlough. An additional 420,000 are considered “excepted” and have continued working without pay. Federal employers and employees should be aware of how the government shutdown impacts both paid time off requests as well as approved FMLA leaves. According to the Office of Personnel … Continue Reading
As discussed in a prior blog post, Michigan joined other states with paid sick leave laws on September 5, 2018, enacting the Earned Sick Time Act. Now, amidst political controversy, the Earned Sick Time Act (which never became effective) has been amended and renamed the Michigan Paid Medical Leave Act. The law requires employers in … Continue Reading
On November 16, 2018, the Austin-based 3rd Court of Appeals declared Austin’s paid sick and safe leave ordinance unconstitutional. Specifically, the court held the ordinance is preempted by the Texas Minimum Wage Act and is, therefore, unconstitutional. The Austin ordinance has been under attack since its inception. The Travis County District Court originally denied a temporary … Continue Reading
Since the FMLA came into existence, employers have been advised, where possible, to run FMLA concurrently with other leaves. Doing so prevents leave stacking. When reviewing FMLA policies, a common oversight we see is how employers handle the use of paid leave during FMLA. While the policies require employees to use earned vacation, sick or … Continue Reading
When an employee takes medical leave, treatment by a healthcare provider is often assumed, and the frequency of doctor’s visits is rarely scrutinized. The Pennsylvania federal court’s recent decision in Watkins v. Blind and Vision Rehabilitation Services of Pittsburgh alerts us that this is not always a wise approach. In evaluating FMLA leave entitlements, verifying … Continue Reading
As employers struggle with managing how much, if any, leave is required as an accommodation under the ADA, we are beginning to get more direction from the Courts to guide those decisions. In Easter v. Arkansas Children’s Hospital (E.D. Ark. Oct. 3, 2018) an employee was unable to work after exhausting her FMLA leave but … Continue Reading
“What did I do wrong?” and “Am I doing this correctly?” are frequent questions from clients regarding FMLA administration. This is the seventeenth in a series highlighting some of the more common mistakes employers can inadvertently make regarding FMLA administration. Being unaware of new FMLA interpretations from the U.S. Department of Labor. While the current … Continue Reading
With the increasing trend of telecommuting employees, it is not uncommon for a company to have small numbers of employees working from remote locations in various states. It is important that employers understand how FMLA eligibility is determined for remote workers. Some incorrectly believe that a work-at-home employee cannot qualify for FMLA if the home … Continue Reading
Teenagers are not the only ones dissatisfied when their pleas of “why” are met with a “because I said so.” It turns out that courts of appeal do not care for it either. Careful readers of this space know that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) may require employers to allow modified work schedules when … Continue Reading
A recent Third Circuit case, Sessoms v. Trs. Of the Univ. of Pa., 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 16611 (3rd Cir. June 20, 2018), serves as a reminder that while the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations to disabled employees, it does not obligate an employer to provide the accommodation requested … Continue Reading
As we have previously reported, on September 20, 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued a significant ruling for employers in Severson v. Heartland Woodcraft, Inc., 872 F.3d 476 (7th Cir. 2017), when it held that an multi-month, non-FMLA leave of absence is not a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with … Continue Reading
“What did I do wrong?” and “Am I doing this correctly?” are frequent questions from clients regarding FMLA administration. This is the fifteenth in a series highlighting some of the more common mistakes employers can inadvertently make regarding FMLA administration. Not properly communicating with an employee who is about to exhaust the 12 week leave … Continue Reading
Employees who take leave to care for a family member often have the ability to continue working during their leave if the caretaking obligations do not consume all of their time. If the employee asks to work limited hours while taking time off to care for a family member that is generally treated as a … Continue Reading
This week, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued FAQ guidance regarding the employer tax credit for paid family and medical leave. As a reminder, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (the Act) provides a tax credit to employers that voluntarily offer paid family and/or medical leave to employees. The FAQs clarify some of … Continue Reading
By the end of this year, employers with employees in the state of Washington must be ready to comply with last summer’s newly-enacted a paid family and medical leave law. Since the law’s passage, Washington has been busy fine-tuning the program and providing updates. Recently, Washington announced that employers with employees in the state of … Continue Reading
On April 12, 2018, the New Jersey State Senate, by a vote of 24-12, passed the New Jersey Paid Sick Leave Act (the “Act”). The Act, which passed the Assembly last month by a 50-24 margin, requires businesses of all sizes to provide up to 40 hours of paid sick leave to employees during an … Continue Reading
Is it compensable time when an employee takes frequent, 15-minute breaks each hour due to the employee’s serious health condition? Today, the United States Department of Labor (DOL) answered this question in a hot-off-the-press opinion letter, verifying that FMLA-covered breaks are not compensable. In today’s opinion letter, the DOL confirmed that frequent, 15-minute breaks taken … Continue Reading
Sometimes the actions a court doesn’t take can have a very big impact. The Supreme Court’s April 2, 2018 decision not to review a recent Seventh Circuit ruling is just one of the cases. In Severson v. Heartland Woodcraft, Inc., a widely-publicized decision relating to the availability of extended leave as a reasonable accommodation under … Continue Reading
Many employers have programs allowing employees to donate their own time off to another employee with serious medical or family issues. A dilemma often faced by employers with these policies is whether continued use of such donated time means the employee is not performing the essential function of attendance. On the one hand, the employee … Continue Reading
The Louisiana Court of Appeals—Fourth Circuit, recently overturned a trial court’s determination that an employee of a pest control company was not entitled to the payout of his accrued, but unused, vacation leave. Contrary to the findings of the trial court, the Court found that the terms of the policy were ambiguous and therefore, the … Continue Reading
As paid sick leave laws continue to pass across the nation, as recently seen in Austin, Texas, employers have focused on complying with the various state and local jurisdictions’ paid sick leave requirements . However, employers may forget, or might have to totally missed, that there is a federal paid sick leave law. Executive Order … Continue Reading
With the New Year fading from view in the rearview mirror and spring on the horizon (at least for those of us in the Midwest), there are several signs that disability and leave management issues will continue to be hot topics in 2018. First, a review of the EEOC’s press releases from the first two … Continue Reading
