FMLA Question

tlnelson

Good afternoon,

I am looking for some feedback for this situation: I had an employee that needed to miss part of their shift due to her husband feeling ill. Her spouse ended up being taken by ambulance to the hospital and thankfully ended up not being a serious situation.

She brought in a Dr. note about the situation, and we believe that this would not fall under FMLA due to the situation being under the 3 day rule. Do we go ahead and offer her FMLA paperwork just to see if might qualify, or do we not need to in this case. Employee is out of PTO and does not have anything to cover her for the afternoon she missed and will be subject to disciplinary action. Just wondered what others would do in this type of situation. Feedback is appreciated. Thanks!

cnghr

Was the spouse admitted to the hospital for inpatient care?

sonny

If it was part of a shift with note, we would not do anything else.

Still Need Coffee

Unless there was an overnight stay or the incident required continuing treatment, I would not consider this FMLA, or even start the paperwork, it would simply fall under our usual unscheduled absence policy.

That being said, you asked what we would do in this situation, given the fact that your employee is out of PTO time.

If it were my company, we would probably deem this situation an "extenuating circumstance" and not penalize the employee. You need to take the action that would 1) support your policies, and 2) support your company's culture. If you have a very strict attendance guideline and don't have a precedent of making exceptions or considering extenuating circumstances, I probably wouldn't start now. Instead, follow your policies where attendance and discipline are concerned.

I don't know all the facts of the situation, but with the information you supplied, I would probably go with company precedent on this one.