intermittent FMLA

mmurnahan

If a person has been approved for intermittent FMLA for a family members serious health condition. And this employee misses 4 hours FMLA time on Monday. Do you allow the person to make up the time? And if they make up the time it would not count as FMLA hours becuase there are no missing hours. We have a policy under no circumstancs can a person make up FMLA hours. But I feel this will force people to lie and indicate that they have a doc appointment for themselves and then be able to make it up. How does everyone else handle intermittent partial day FMLA? Would mandatorilly saying you can not make up any hours, be discriminatory since it is allowed under non-fmla absence?

PAhr

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 06-12-03 AT 02:48PM (CST)[/font][p]If you allow other employees to do this practice then you should allow anyone on FMLA to do this as well. You should not treat an employee differently due to FMLA. And as we just saw from another post, it will save you the outrage you may feel if you are subsiquently lied to.

mmurnahan

thanks for the feedback. I agree with you, but I can't get my director to agree. She insist that intermittent FMLA can not be made up under no circumstances. And if they do make the time up, the hours still count toward the FMLA hours. So we have a person who may be 3 hours late becuase the alarm clock did not go off on time, and that employee makes up the time, and is not penalized. Another person who has intermittent FMLA for a chronically ill child who has to leave 3 hours early is not allowed to make up the time. I think you may see us in court.

LindaS

Mary - one suggestion that may help is to obtain information regarding some of the cases that have gone before various courts where supervisors have been held personally liable for FMLA infractions. I know of one case (can't remember the company) where two supervisors were held personally liable to the tune of $400,000 a piece. Maybe providing some of this information to the director may help sway her decisions.

PAhr

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 06-13-03 AT 10:43AM (CST)[/font][p]That case was Schulz v. Advocate Health and Hospital Corp. Your employer would also be wise to read up on all the FMLA regulations, especially 825.220 where it goes into some detail about the options an employee has when an employer fails to treat the employee in the same manner as all other similarly situated employees.

LindaS

I agree. Do not treat an FMLA eligible employee any differently from any other employee. We have a Flextime policy in place and FMLA time is ONLY charged if the employee misses time, notifies us it is for FMLA (and the ee has been previously approved for leave), and does not make the time up. It is their choice whether or not to make that time up.