Court Imposes Liquidated Damages Against Employer for FMLA Interference

Calculating Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave can be a daunting task. The law provides employers with various options for determining how the 12 weeks plays out, and also sets forth various notice responsibilities, both for the employee and the employer. This proved to be a problem for one employer, however, who, while providing its employee with FMLA leave, failed to properly notify him of how it was calculating his leave, which ultimately cost the employer big.

The employee requested and was granted FMLA leave to deal with a non work-related injury. The employee was released to return to work with restrictions earlier than expected, and was also advised by his doctor that he could fully return to work before the end of his FMLA leave. The employee notified his employer by providing the doctor's note. The employer was unable to accommodate the employee's restrictions, however, so he remained out on his previously-approved FMLA leave. Though his original request for leave extended beyond this new date, his employer contacted him to inquire as to why he did not return to work on the earlier date. At that time, the employee advised that he was experiencing further health problems and would return on the original date. When he went in to see his employer to present a note for an extension of the original FMLA time period, he was informed that he had already been terminated for failing to return to work. 

After being sued for interference with FMLA leave, the employer asserted as a defense that it relied upon the 'rolling method' of calculating FMLA leave such that the employee's excused leave expired. The Court rejected this argument. The Court found that the employer never provided the employee with notice that it would be calculating his FMLA leave by using a method different than the standard calendar method, or, more importantly, did it ever notify him that his leave would expire prior to the date on which the employer had already approved as the expiration of his leave. Since the employee was therefore entitled to rely on the employer's prior representation that he had his original period of FMLA leave, his termination prior to that date was improper.

Calculating FMLA leave and ensuring compliance with the laws with respect to notifications are very important and can lead to costly mistakes. In this case, the employee was not only awarded back pay, attorney's fees, and pension benefits, but the Court also awarded him liquidated damages, reasoning that the employer's after-the-fact reliance on the rolling method of calculation, even though it was most prejudicial to the employee, was a pretextual reason for his termination.