” An employee’s absences far exceeded the amount of medical leave his doctor estimated he’d need on his FMLA certification forms. What happened next landed his employer in some pretty hot water.”
By Jared Bilski
Here the scenario: An employee’s absences far exceeded the amount of medical leave his doctor estimated he’d need on his FMLA certification forms. What happened next landed his employer in some pretty hot water.
James Hansen was an employee at Fincantieri Marine Group (FMG) who suffered from depression.
He provided FMG with a medical certification stating that his depression was a serious health condition and that he’d have episodic flare-ups that would periodically prevent him from working.
According to Hansen’s certification, his doctor estimated there would be around four flare-ups over a six-month period — and these flares would probably carry a duration of incapacity of two to five days per episode.
Problem was, Hansen ended up having 10 episodes in three months. Obviously, this was way out of line with his doc’s estimates, so FMG wanted to make sure everything was alright.
Cryptic note, cryptic response
FMG’s response, however, was what started a chain of events that led to Hansen’s FMLA interference and retaliation lawsuit. But we’ll get to that later.
Rather than contacting Hansen about the need for recertification, FMG went right to his doctor — via a TPA — and asked him simply to make the following confirmation: “[Jim]‘s 7/1 absence is out of his frequency and duration. Please confirm item#7.”
Not only was this request overly vague, it actually referred to the wrong question on Hansen’s medical certification.
And the doctor simply responded with: “7/6/11: Item#7 confirmed. P.”
Then, instead of seeking additional info, FMG denied Hansen’s request for FMLA leave and sent a letter informing Hansen his request was denied because his approved leave under his medical certification had already been used up.
Hansen then had a series of absences that were all denied because of the vague confirmation the company had received from his doctor.
Eventually Hansen was terminated for attendance reasons because, as FMG put it, even though Hansen had been granted FMLA leave, he exceeded the frequency his doctor certified.
As we mentioned earlier, Hansen then sued FMG for FMLA interference and retaliation .
No recertification request
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Photo credit Cory Doctorow
Jared’s writing career began in 2005, when he became an assistant editor for PGA Magazine, a leading trade publication for the golf industry. In 2008, Jared joined Progressive Business Publications (the parent company of PBP Media and HR Benefits Alert), and has covered a number of business areas such as marketing, finance, and HR and benefits, and written several white papers. For the past three years, Jared has worked exclusively in the HR and Benefits field, as editor-in-chief of the semimonthly print newsletter What’s New in Benefits & Compensation, administrator of Whats News in Benefits and Compensation and, recently, as a contributing editor on the HR Benefits Alert website. Jared graduated from Penn State University where he majored in English. He is also a frequent contributor to a number of humor websites. Find Jared on Google+.