FMLA Requests in the 21st Century

At the end of April, a federal court of appeals in Chicago, issued an interesting FMLA decision.

The employer used an automatic processing unit to handle the FMLA paperwork when an employee requested medical leave. The employer used FMLA forms with bar codes unique to each employee - the bar codes are automatically read by the processing unit's fax machine and then sorted into the appropriate file. The employee (whose spouse also worked for the employer) claimed he sent in an FMLA leave request using his wife's form (changing her name to his), that the processing unit lost it (in cyberspace), and therefore the employer imposed an unreasonable burden on his exercise of FMLA rights.

To this, the court replied: "an employee should know better than to submit a request for leave on another employee's form, even if the other employee is the person's spouse." In the end, however, the court said the employer was not at fault as the request never could be found even in the spouse's FMLA file.

Further, the employer was not unreasonable to the point of interfering with FMLA rights in refusing to give yet another extension of time for the employee to submit the form. This is the real value of the decision as it construes that part of the FMLA regulations which require extensions when "it is not practicable" to timely submit the FMLA request. 29 C.F.R. § 825.305(b). Refusals to grant repeated extensions are not an FMLA violation.

Usually, patience is a virute in dealing with FMLA issues. Forgiveness by the employer is also sometimes legally mandated. This case shows, however, that if employers are reasonable they can (and should) draw the line at giving repeated extensions to return the FMLA request forms.
While the decision isn't binding authority for Tennessee employer it addresses a point they can, until a contrary decision is issued, rely upon.