fmla leave

angieje

employee was hired while pregnant. Employer aware of pregnancy. the employer is a retailer and the employee was hired as a customer service person whose duties included stocking some items. She can stock items if the items can be retrieved from a shopping cart and the items do not weigh 15 pounds. the job requires lifting more than fifteen pounds. Employee cannot lift more than fifteen pounds. Most of the time she will not have to lift fifteen pounds However, there may be sometimes she will have to lift more than fifteen pounds. The employer has placed her on fmla leave. Is this proper? is there a violation of ada?

lrobb

If she was hired while pregnant and placed on FMLA for pregnancy how does she meet the one year 1250 hours for FMLA?

Orlaw

FMLA: As mentioned above, she likely does not meet the 1,250 hours requirement, and, unless she has gone way, way over on the pregnancy, she certainly doesn't meet the 12 months requirement. Assuming TN does not have a state leave law with different lower eligibility requirements, she does not appear to be eligible.

ADA: Because of its temporary nature, pregnancy is not considered a "disability." If, however, the employee is experiencing some sort of substantial complications that limit a major life activity (e.g. diabetes, depression, high blood pressure...etc.), she may be entitled to an accommodation. Her lifting restrictions sounds like a run of the mill pregnancy limitation.

PDA: One law that you probably need to worry about is the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (as well as any similar state laws). To comply, you simply need to treat pregnancy like any other similar short-term disability. Have you ever had to deal with a non-pregnant employee who could not lift 15 lbs? If so, how did you handle the situation? Is this one being handled similarly? I'd take a close look at this issue to be safe.