FLMA and grandparent

lmccoy

I have an employee requesting FMLA to care for an invalid grandparent, who he lives with. I can't find anything in the statute stating grandparent is covered. However, I seem to remember a case a few years back where anyone living in the household was covered. Do any of you remember something like this?

dchr9203

Regs say spouse, child or parent (not parent's in-law), but they also cover an individual who stands or stood in loco parentis (acted as a parent). So it depends on the guy's relationship with the grandparent.

lmccoy

The employee is in the process of interdiction proceedings and will be the curator for his grandparent. If this occurs, I would think we would need to count any leave as FMLA. What are your thoughts.

dchr9203

I would approve/count it as FMLA.

marc

The regs do allow it for children who are wards. It does not seem to be much of a stretch to include a curator, although I am not sure what that means in a legal capacity. I don't think you are going to get a black and white answer for this one. If you allow it, what is your downside? To me, it only gets sticky if this EE runs out of FML and later needs it for some other event. I suppose this one could then be challenged. It's a stretch, but I am trying to come up with scenarios that would hurt you by allowing this one.

Seems a safe bet to go with it.

lmccoy

My main concern is that the employee will run out of FMLA. He just returned from eight weeks of leave and his wife will be giving birth in January. He plans on using two weeks leave at that time. We will be allowing him time off to take care of the grandparent, but I don't want to designate it FMLA in case he needs it in the future. On the other hand, if I don't designate there may be some ramifications.

Thanks for your thoughts on this.