Legal Question in Medical Leave in Pennsylvania

FMLA & Discrimination

I am currently in year 2 of FMLA as an employee with a severe, intermittent serious health condition. My employer's policy is to require all accrued PTO (sick, vaca, pers) be used before FMLA time can be taken. This leaves any time needed for personal medical appts not related to covered condition as unpaid time off that can be used against me. Further, attendance has been heavily weighted against me in performance & comp reviews as all categories are affected by attendance according to employer. Are either policies legal? Lastly, can they change time off policy due to frequent missed time (FMLA & other) when it has not been changed for all employees? Can I add other health conditions to FMLA if they are not serious, but need to be treated in order to keep it that way? Thank you!


Asked on 6/01/07, 4:45 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Roger Traversa Arjont Group (Law Office of Roger Traversa)

Re: FMLA & Discrimination

You asked about FMLA.

Your inquiry doesn't make sense. So i will try to provide an answer as close as possible.

FMLA guarantees an employee up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave in a 12 month period. The employer may set the period in any manner that it chooses as long as it is set the same for all employees.

An employer may not discriminate against an employee for taking FMLA and must preserve that employees position. FMLA leave may not be used against a person when considering performance. It is written into the law that employers may require employees to all accrued time before taking FMLA leave.

FMLA leave may be used for any medical condition of the employee or the employee's family, but an employer needs only give FMLA leave in increments of one full day. That means if your employer, as it sounds, is letting you use FMLA by the hour, then you have it much better than most.

Please do not ask follow up questions to this post directly.

Regards,

Roger

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Answered on 6/01/07, 7:17 pm


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