The Essential Guide to Family & Medical Leave

32 | the essential guide to family and medical leave
If your company fails to include FMLA information in its employee
handbook or benefits policies or to provide the information to an employee
requesting leave, it won’t be able to take action against an employee who
doesn’t comply with the requirements of the FMLA or your company’s own
leave policies. And, it may be liable for interfering with employee FMLA
rights in the same way we discussed in “Posting Requirements,” above.
Lessons from the
Real World
An employer that didn’t notify an employee in
writing of his FMLA obligations couldn’t argue
that he didn’t meet them.
Invacare Corporation employed Isaiah Taylor in its shipping department.
Taylor requested leave to care for his wife after back surgery. His supervisor
denied the leave, but Taylor took time off anyway and Invacare fired him. He
sued Invacare for violating the FMLA.
Invacare argued that Taylor’s need for leave was foreseeable and he’d failed
to give 30 days’ notice as the FMLA required. Taylor and a coworker testified
that Invacare hadn’t provided employees with FMLA notice information—
including the requirement to provide 30 days’ advance notice of foreseeable
leave.
Taylor won the case because Invacare had failed to inform its employees of
their obligations and rights under the FMLA. As a result, Invacare couldn’t
fire Taylor because he didn’t give the notice required by the FMLA.
Taylor v. Invacare Corp., 64 Fed.Appx. 516 (6th Cir. 2003).
Your company’s handbook or policies should include all company leave
policies that interact with FMLA rights, such as attendance policies, notice
requirements, and the like. We’ll discuss these policies, and how they interact
with the FMLA, in subsequent chapters.