A recent Connecticut Appellate Court case provides helpful reminders that:

  • regular, reliable attendance can be an essential function of many jobs; and
  • eliminating an essential job function is not a reasonable accommodation.

Plaintiff in Barbabosa v. Board of Education of the Town of Manchester was a full-time, one-on-one paraprofessional for schoolchildren. The trial court held

The situation is not that uncommon. An employer learns of a performance incident and the employee involved promptly requests FMLA leave. The employer then must decide how to address the incident while avoiding the risk of an FMLA or ADA claim. Will the law protect an employer that provides the employee FMLA leave while investigating

Add another FMLA victory for an employer who terminated a plaintiff based on its “honest belief” that the plaintiff was misusing FMLA leave.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the employer on the plaintiff’s FMLA interference claim. Dalpiaz v. Carbon County Utah (10th Cir. July 25, 2014).