Legal Question in Medical Leave in California

Re: documentation requests

The employer's request for certification has to be reasonable -- and cannot be a pretext for preventing you from working. If the employer is not satisfied with your doctor's opinion, the employer is allowed to send you for a second medical opinion. Also, the information sought by the employer from the doctor must be limited to whether or not you are able to work -- the employer is not allowed to invade your medical privacy, under the FMLA regs. . . . One court has ruled,

"an employer may not order an employee returning from FMLA leave to submit to a fitness-for-duty examination because of that leave, or because of an underlying condition that the employee's health care provider has certified will not interfere with the employee's ability to work, or because the employer views the certification as inadequate for its own purposes. An employer only has a sufficient 'business need' to examine a returning employee where the employee's ongoing limitations may interfere with her ability to work."