Lack of Clarity Led Company into expensive legal waters

 

Even when you’re trying to be generous to employees, it still pays to double-check all of your pay policies say exactly what you want them to.

 

This is especially true when it comes to paid leave policies and their interplay with the Family and Medical Leave Act. (FMLA).

 

After all, the FMLA can be tricky, as one employer just learned.

 

Policies failed to mention each other

 

FX Direct Dealer, LLC, a trading company, had a nice paid maternity leave policy. It stated full-time workers could receive full wages for eight weeks and an additional four weeks of unpaid leave after the birth of a child. What the policy didn’t do, however, was mention how it affected FMLA leave. As a result, an employee though she could take 12 weeks of FMLA leave after giving birth.

 

But the company fired her when she failed to return to work after using 12 weeks of maternity leave. It said her maternity leave and FMLA leave concurrently (since that’s what the FMLA allows), so she ran out of leave.

 

She sued for FMLA interference, and the court agreed that when read together the two policies could lead to an employee to believe that maternity and FMLA leave could be taken consecutively. It sent the lawsuit to a jury trial. Now FX Direct is facing an expensive legal battle or settlement.

 

Important: You can run paid leave concurrently with FMLA, but your policies must spell that out clearly.

 

More info: tinyurl.com/fmla539