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The Employer Handbook BlogSuspected FMLA Fraud? The Investigation May Need One More Call.
A signature mismatch can make HR suspicious. It can also have an explanation worth hearing before someone gets fired. Continue reading
Articles Posted in Family and Medical Leave
The Layoff Was Planned Before His FMLA Request. The Timing Became the Problem.
The company had decided to eliminate his job before he told his manager about his planned parental leave. So why did he get his termination notice in April when the other people on the layoff list remained until July?
A RIF Needed One More Answer: Why Was the Employee on Leave Chosen?
Calling a termination a reduction in force does not make the selection process disappear. If the paper trail cannot explain the choice, a jury may get the opportunity to examine it.
The Protected-Leave Problem That May Be Hiding in Performance Metrics
Protected leave can be approved on paper and penalized in a spreadsheet. A federal judge just allowed fourteen employment claims to proceed over an allegedly leave-blind performance system.
A False Cancer Diagnosis Could Not Cure the Employer’s Very Real ADA Problem
He claimed that when he told his employer he had cancer, his boss reacted by saying, “Are you f*****g kidding me? Your obligations are here.” As it turned out, the diagnosis was wrong. That did not spare his employer from facing an ADA trial.
A Supervisor Swore He Didn’t Know About the Disability. His Own Notes Said Otherwise.
A supervisor swore in an affidavit that he had no idea an employee was disabled. His own meeting notes said otherwise, and that contradiction just cost a Texas community college its win.
A Railroad Thought It Had Cracked the Code on FMLA Dishonesty. A Jury Gets to Decide If It Did.
Roughly one in ten of a railroad’s train and engine employees marked off using FMLA leave on Christmas Day. The railroad ran that spike through an algorithm, then a hearing, then a dishonesty finding, and a federal court just said a jury needs to check that whole chain.
What Actually Gets Employers Sued — Live and Free on Zoom, August 21, 2026 at Noon ET
Let’s be honest: nobody dreams of ending up on the wrong end of an employment lawsuit. And yet, every year, well-meaning HR teams and in-house counsel find themselves scrambling to answer the question, “Wait, how did this become a case?” Continue reading
The FMLA’s Second and Third Medical Opinion Process: A Rare Look at How It Works and What It Costs to Skip It
If you’ve never requested a second FMLA medical opinion, you’re not alone. Most employers haven’t. A Seventh Circuit case decided last month is a useful illustration of how that process works and why the details matter. This is the second post from that case — yesterday’s covered the FMLA falsification and transgender discrimination angles.
When Consistent Enforcement of Your FMLA Policy Is Your Best Discrimination Defense
A bus operator was fired for FMLA falsification and claimed his employer terminated him because he was transgender. The employer’s defense was simple: it fired four other employees for the same conduct around the same time. A federal appeals court just said that’s enough.