Generally, employees on FMLA don’t need to continue earning those benefits. Benefits are accrued based on employers’ individual policies.

For example, if your company gives employees vacation time based on the hours they work, they don’t need to accrue any PTO while on medical leave (as long as other types of unpaid leave are treated the same way).

The same goes for calculating seniority. Hours on FMLA don’t need to be factored into the equation.

But there is one area to look out for: Many companies let employees earn PTO while they’re out on paid vacation. When FMLA runs concurrently with paid leave, employers should continue following that policy.

Otherwise, they could get in trouble for treating an employee using FMLA leave differently than employees who haven’t taken FMLA.

In one recent case, an employee took FMLA to give birth. Originally, she was scheduled to take six weeks of leave, but she needed surgery that required another seven weeks off — putting her over the 12 weeks she was guaranteed under the law.

She called her supervisor and told him about the extra leave she needed, and he said that was fine.

However, he never told HR about the conversation. So when 12 weeks was up and the woman didn’t show, she was fired.

She sued, claiming she wasn’t aware she was out of leave — if she knew she’d have to come back earlier to save her job, she would have.

The court agreed. Since the manager basically added to the time the employee could take under FMLA, the company couldn’t fire her when she didn’t come back after 12 weeks.

Other cases like this have had similar outcomes. That’s why it’s key for managers to know the rights and responsibilities employees have under the law — and to get HR involved whenever necessary.

Cite: Cutting v. Ferrous Processing and Trading Co.

Of course, you know how to respond to FMLA requests. But you also know managers need to see you when they get a request — and that they don’t always do it.

As HR pros know, employees don’t qualify for FMLA leave if:

• they work in a location with fewer than 50 employees in a 75-mile radius
• they don’t have a “serious medical condition,” or
• they don’t meet the law’s 12-month/1,250-hour requirement.

But too often, managers mistakenly tell those employees they can take medical leave. That can cause huge legal problems later.

In one case, an employee found out she needed surgery. She scheduled the operation and asked her manager for FMLA, which he approved.

While she was gone, HR discovered she hadn’t met the 1,250-hour requirement. When she came back, her job was gone, due to a restructuring that took place while she was away.

Despite not being eligible for leave in the first place, she sued. She claimed her manager led her to believe she was eligible, and she would have rescheduled the surgery for a later date if she knew that wasn’t the case. The judge agreed, and the company lost the case (Cite: Kosakow v. New Rochelle Radiology Associates, P.C.).

Watch those handbooks

Another recent case involved a company with two locations: its main building and a smaller plant that had fewer than 50 employees and was more than 75 miles from headquarters. Employees in both places were given a copy of the same handbook — which included an explanation of FMLA rights that didn’t mention the size requirement.

An employee at the smaller plant took time off for an illness. He never specifically asked for FMLA leave. But apparently, his supervisor didn’t know he didn’t qualify for FMLA and didn’t tell him beforehand that the absences wouldn’t be allowed.

When he came back to work he was fired. He sued, claiming he was led to believe he was eligible for leave, so he couldn’t be fired for taking it. The court agreed (Cite: Myers v. Tursso Co.).

Steps to take now

Education and training is the key to preventing those problems. Two things companies can do to avoid being trapped into offering more than the law requires:

Keep policies up-to-date — It’s important to keep track of who’s covered and who isn’t and give the right policies to the right people. Also, to limit confusion, policies should mention all of the law’s eligibility requirements.

Train managers — Supervisors need to be aware of who’s eligible for leave, since they’re the first point of contact when employees need time off. They should be trained on the law’s requirements and told to bring FMLA issues to HR before approving or denying anything.

The law went into effect in Washington state on April 1. It allows victims of domestic abuse, sexual assault or stalking to take “reasonable leave,” in order to deal with legal issues, medical care and counseling. The leave can be paid or unpaid, and employers can run paid time off concurrently with the leave.

Also, employees must offer leave to family members of victims to help them deal with those issues. (More info from the Washington state government is available here.)

This is a growing trend in employment law, so if you aren’t covered in your state, you might be soon. A growing number of states have similar laws on the books, including Florida, Kansas and Oregon, which passed legislation last year.

On the federal side, a bill to give domestic abuse victims 30 days of leave has been introduced in the Senate, and is in the early stages of the legislative process. We’ll keep you posted.