It sounds though, that you were disciplined for not providing notice when calling in sick. Anytime you find you mght not ba able to get to work, it is ussually good practice to provide as much notice as possible to your supervisor. Regardless of the law, you are still going to be working for that supervisor afterwards, and showing that consideration can mean a lot in building and maintaining trust and open communications with the boss.

This article is also misleading about requesting recertifications. They cannot be requested every 30-days. If the intermittent leave documentation states the employee has chronic condition, the medical certification is valid for the entire 12-month period. We can only request a recertification if circumstances change (e.g. note says employee suffers from migraines and will be out for 1-2 days, once per month, when s/he has a migraine, but the employee is absence more frequently) or if we have reason to question the legitimacy of the leave (e.g. employee has migraines every Monday morning). In addition, recertification cannot be requested if you send the employee for a second opinion.

This is actually harder than it sounds. The company may not contact the employee’s doctor directly per the FMLA regs. 29 CFR 825.307 “If an employee submits a complete certification signed by the
health care provider, the employer may not request additional information from the employee’s health care provider. However, a health care provider representing the employer may contact the employee’s health care provider, with the employee’s permission, for purposes of clarification and authenticity of the medical certification.”

I have found that when sending the certification through the employee to the doctor returns pretty much the same non-specific information. Finding a “health care Provider” to get clarification is even harder (we have no health care provider contracted to get clarifications from other health care providers) our EAP program would not help with this. I recently had an employee who was diagnosed with COPD. The episodes were “episodic” and the treatments couldn’t be locked down either. The doctor returned the form with the same vague language.

My own experience with my doctor was that when I need to take time off for a medical reason, the doctor asked me “how much time I wanted.” I was suprised at this “blank check” approach, but I understand, the doctor is concerned about the patient’s health (and continued business as a patient).

He was fired for taking unnecessary leave — but he took the company to court and won. Just because he was well enough to do some construction didn’t necessarily mean he could still do his job (Cite: Weimer v. Honda of America Mfg., Inc.).”

This is absolutely ridiculous. What job did he have at Honda that was so difficult where he still had the strength to build a porch but could not do his work? Sounds like a very liberal judge to me. I hope Honda appealed the ruling.