Dive Brief:

• The Family and Medical Leave Act does not protect employees on leave from termination unrelated to their leave, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held April 27 in Byrd v. Clay County, Texas.
• An employee who would have been fired had she not taken FMLA leave wasn’t entitled to be reinstated when her leave ended, it concluded in a lawsuit involving a county sheriff’s office in Texas. After a new Clay County sheriff was elected in 2020, he decided to replace several supervisors, including the plaintiff, according to the court. He emailed the supervisors individually, notifying them their employment would end in two weeks, the day he took office. The plaintiff — who later alleged she didn’t see that email — contacted the county about taking FMLA leave. A few days before she was scheduled to be terminated, a county representative granted her request; when her leave ended a month later, she was not reinstated and sued, alleging the county interfered with her FMLA rights.
• A district court granted summary judgment for the county and on appeal, the 5th Circuit upheld that ruling. The record was “indisputably clear” that if the plaintiff had not taken FMLA leave, she would have been fired weeks earlier, the appeals court said. When a plaintiff would have been lawfully terminated had they not taken leave, they can’t prove the employer interfered with their FMLA rights by not reinstating them, the panel explained. In other words, “employees can’t immunize themselves...

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