The Essential Guide to Family & Medical Leave

84 | the essential guide to family and medical leave
Lessons from the
Real World
An employee is not entitled to FMLA leave to
travel to retrieve adopted children more than
one year after adoption.
Bernardo Bocalbos, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in the
Philippines, worked as an assistant actuary for National Western Life
Insurance Co. In 1992, Bocalbos adopted his brother’s children, who lived in
the Philippines. In March 1995, after finally receiving the necessary visas for
the children, Bocalbos requested FMLA leave to travel to the Philippines to
retrieve the children. The request was granted. Prior to Bocalbos’s departure,
his supervisor informed him that he had to take certain actuarial exams
by May 1995 or he would be terminated. Bocalbos signed a memorandum
stating he understood this requirement. In April 1995, Bocalbos left for the
Philippines and returned to work in June 1995. Bocalbos did not sit for the
required exams prior to his departure. National Western terminated him for
failing to take the exams by May 1995. Bocalbos sued National Western for
retaliating against him for taking FMLA leave.
The court of appeals sided with National Western, holding that the leave
Bocalbos took three years after the adoption of the children was outside the
FMLA deadline for adoption-related leave, so he was not protected.
Bocalbos v. National Western Life Ins. Co. (5 th Cir. 1998) 162 F.3d 379.
Foreign adoptions like the one in the above “Lesson” are increasingly
common. Madonna and Angelina Jolie are just the most famous people
who have adopted children born in foreign countries, but your company’s
employees may choose to add to their families in this fashion, too. If an
employee must take time off to travel to take custody of a newly adopted
child and does so within one year of the finalization of the adoption, the
FMLA protects the employee’s right to do so.
Where an employee has already taken leave for the placement of a foster
child and later adopts that child, the FMLA does not give the employee
additional leave time for the adoption. The FMLA permits leave only for