Legal Question in Medical Leave in Florida

Re: Intermittent leave

I am sorry to hear of your husband's illness. If the employer is subject to FMLA (basically, more than 50 employees), and your husband is eligible (has worked for the employer for at least 12 months during his life, and 1250 hours during the year preceding the leave), then he is entitled to FMLA protection.

He is not required to elect it himself, although it makes sense to protect his job, but the employer may denote the leave as FMLA either way. In reality, it will count as FMLA because the Supreme Court has ruled that you can only get 12 weeks for FMLA illnesses, whether or not someone calls it FMLA. So, if it was not "counted", but then your husband asked to take more than 12 weeks, the employer could say no.

As for the weeks, you get 12 work weeks (so it is 60 work days or 480 hours) during the 12 month period. (There are different ways of counting the 12 months. Some employers use a calendar basis, some use the employee's anniversary date, etc.) Once the 12 months starts anew, you get a new 12 weeks.

Leave can be used intermittently, such as for chemo, and also on a reduced basis such as 2 hours per day. For example, you might want to attend a doctor's appointment and then return to work so you don't burn a whole day of leave.

Your husband should always give as much notice as possible of the leave he needs (it is required to give notice when you know of the leave, up to 30 days in advance if you know of it that far in advance). Also, hopefully he will do well and be able to work wihout problem. If things progress well, he should try to be mindful of the employer's operation and schedule things if possible to avoid disrupting operations. But of course in such a serious situation as he now has, his first priority is following the doctor's advice and getting better.

If you have problems with the employer, you can file a complaint with the DOL (and also ask their advice) for free. There is a ton of FMLA info on the DOL website - dol.gov.

Best of luck to both of you.

Jeff Sheldon

The Sheldon Law Firm

Caveat: This is general advice only and should not be relied upon as legal advice because all facts and circumstances are not known to the author.