The Business Of Law

Here’s an amazing statistic I recently came across. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, in one year alone, they received 1,983 complaints of employees treated unfairly under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Of those, 1,087 were found to be true violations resulting in $1.5 million in back wages for the workers. The primary violation found was that people who tried to take leave for family reasons were wrongfully terminated.

At Sokolove Law, we talk about our mission of providing access to justice and helping those who have no chance in our legal system. These are the people we’re talking about. Someone who loses their job simply because their employer refuses to grant them leave to care for a sick family member, or support a pregnant spouse.

But they’re also the kinds of cases that allow us to do well while doing good. The reason is that the FMLA is pretty clear cut, and yet as we’ve seen people violate it all the time. When they do, we and our co-counsel firms will be there.

The FMLA permits eligible employees to take up to a total of 12 work weeks of unpaid leave during any 12 month period for one or more of the following reasons:

• Birth and care of a newborn child of the employee
• Placement with the employee of a child for adoption or foster care
• Care of a spouse, child or parent with a serious health condition
• Serious health condition of the employee

In January 2009, the FMLA was amended to include employees who take a leave because of any qualifying exigency relating to the active duty or call to active duty of a spouse, child or parent.

Employers are required to continue to provide benefits and to reinstate the employee to their old job or an equivalent one when they return.

Unfortunately employers either don’t grant the leave, or fail to reinstate the employee. In the worst circumstances, they actually terminate the employee allegedly for “cause” which is very often not the case.

Under the FMLA, employees who prevail in court can collect actual damages for lost wages, benefits and expenses plus interest. In addition the can collect lawyer fees and equitable relief (meaning reinstatement to their job). FMLA even allows parties to collect liquidated (double) damages unless the defendant can prove they acted in good faith.