Erika Jacobsen White, Principal at Joseph Greenwald & Laake, P.A., commented, “Workers in the U.S., and in particular low wage workers, already face significant risks in bringing forward claims of discrimination when their employers interfere with their FMLA rights.
The lived reality for many workers means that taking the unpaid leave afforded to them under the FMLA, if they qualify at all, is already extremely challenging and can mean financial hardship. The courts should not enact further judicially created barriers to worker rights where none exist in the plain language of the law. Congress was clear that employers should not be permitted to simply claim that they believed that a worker was taking leave for something other than its intended purpose in order to take an adverse employment action against them. To do so will only incentivize employers to further restrict worker rights, and undermine the spirit of the law.”
You can read the entire Law360 article here.
