Dive Brief:

• An employer may violate the Family and Medical Leave Act if it discourages an employee from requesting FMLA leave even if it doesn’t actually deny the request, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held (Ziccarelli v. Dart, No. 19-3435 June 1, 2022)).
• In September 2016, after being diagnosed with work-related PTSD, a corrections officer for the Cook County, Illinois, sheriff’s department called the agency’s FMLA manager to discuss taking leave, according to court documents. His doctor recommended that he attend an eight-week treatment program. But because he didn’t have eight weeks of available FMLA leave left for 2016, he planned to use a combination of FMLA leave, sick leave and annual leave to attend the program. The officer alleged the leave manager said he would be disciplined if he took more FMLA; the manager said she told him he would be disciplined if he took more leave than he had available.
• The officer retired and sued, alleging FMLA interference and constructive discharge. A federal district court ruled against him on both claims but on appeal, the 7th Circuit revived his interference claim. It held that a fact-finder would have to decide which of the starkly different accounts of the conversation was credible.

Dive Insight:

The FMLA provides eligible employees with up to 12 workweeks of unpaid leave a year, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The law also prohibits employees from interfering with, restraining or denying “the exercise of or...

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