FMLA Changes for 2009 - the Facts

by Michael Holzschu

FMLA CHANGES

The Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division published a Final Rule under the Family and Medical Leave Act. The final rule becomes effective on January 16, 2009, and updates the FMLA regulations to implement new military family leave entitlements enacted under the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2008. It also includes revisions in response to public comments received on the proposed rule issued in February 2008.

Here are the highlights of the regulatory changes in the final rule. The information below comes from the Department of Labor's FMLA Final Rule Fact sheet, which is available on the Wage and Hour division's Final Rule page.

Military Family Leave: Section 585(a) of the NDAA amended the FMLA to provide two new leave entitlements:

1)  Military Caregiver Leave (also known as Covered Servicemember Leave): Under the first of these new military family leave entitlements, eligible employees who are family members of covered servicemembers will be able to take up to 26 workweeks of leave in a “single 12-month period” to care for a covered servicemember with a serious illness or injury incurred in the line of duty on active duty. Based on a recommendation of the President’s Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Warriors (the Dole-Shalala Commission), this 26 workweek entitlement is a special provision that extends FMLA job-protected leave beyond the normal 12 weeks of FMLA leave. This provision also extends FMLA protection to additional family members (i.e., next of kin) beyond those who may take FMLA leave for other qualifying reasons.

2)  Qualifying Exigency Leave: The second new military leave entitlement helps families of members of the National Guard and Reserves manage their affairs while the member is on active duty in support of a contingency operation. This provision makes the normal 12 workweeks of FMLA job-protected leave available to eligible employees with a covered military member serving in the National Guard or Reserves to use for “any qualifying exigency” arising out of the fact that a covered military member is on active duty or called to active duty status in support of a contingency operation. The Department’s final rule defines qualifying exigency by referring to a number of broad categories for which employees can use FMLA leave: (1) Short-notice deployment; (2) Military events and related activities; (3) Childcare and school activities; (4) Financial and legal arrangements; (5) Counseling; (6) Rest and recuperation; (7) Post-deployment activities; and (8) Additional activities not encompassed in the other categories, but agreed to by the employer and employee.

The final rule also includes two new DOL certification forms that may be used by employees and employers to facilitate the certification requirements for the use of military family leave.

• The Ragsdale Decision/Penalties: The final rule includes a number of technical regulatory changes to reflect current law following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Ragsdale v. Wolverine World Wide, Inc., which invalidated a penalty provision of the regulations. Ragsdale ruled that the current regulation’s “categorical” penalty for failure to appropriately designate FMLA leave, which in that case would have required the employer to provide an additional 12 weeks of FMLA-protected leave after the 30 weeks of leave the employee had already received, was inconsistent with the statutory entitlement to only 12 weeks of FMLA leave and contrary to the statute’s remedial requirement that an employee demonstrate individual harm. Several other courts have also invalidated similar categorical penalties in other notice provisions of the current regulations. The final rule therefore removes these categorical penalty provisions and clarifies that where an employee suffers individualized harm because the employer failed to follow the notification rules, the employer may be liable.
   

• Light Duty: At least two courts have held that an employee uses up his or her 12 week FMLA leave entitlement while on a “light duty” assignment following FMLA leave. Under the final rule time spent performing “light duty” work does not count against an employee’s FMLA leave entitlement and that the employee’s right to restoration is held in abeyance during the period of time the employee performs light duty (or until the end of the applicable 12-month FMLA leave year). If an employee is voluntarily performing a light duty assignment, the employee is not on FMLA leave.
   

• Waiver of Rights: The final rule codifies the Department’s longstanding position that employees may voluntarily settle or release their FMLA claims without court or Department approval. Although this is not a change in the law, the clarification is needed because a recent Fourth Circuit decision interpreted the Department’s regulations as prohibiting employees from either prospectively or retroactively waiving their rights. Prospective waivers of FMLA rights continue to be prohibited under the final rule.
   

• Serious Health Condition: The final rule retains the six individual definitions of serious health condition while adding guidance on three regulatory matters. One of the definitions of serious health condition involves more than three consecutive, full calendar days of incapacity plus “two visits to a health care provider.” Because the current rule is open-ended, the Tenth Circuit has held that the “two visits to a health care provider” must occur within the more-than-three-days period of incapacity.

Under the final rule, the two visits must occur within 30 days of the beginning of the period of incapacity and the first visit to the health care provider must take place within seven days of the first day of incapacity. A second way to satisfy the definition of serious health condition under the current regulations involves more than three consecutive, full calendar days of incapacity plus a regimen of continuing treatment. The final rule clarifies here also that the first visit to the health care provider must take place within seven days of the first day of incapacity. Thirdly, the final rule defines “periodic visits” for chronic serious health conditions as at least two visits to a health care provider per year since that provision is also open-ended in the current regulations and potentially subjects employees to more stringent requirements by employers.

• Substitution of Paid Leave: FMLA leave is unpaid. However, the statute provides that employees may take, or employers may require employees to take, any accrued paid vacation, personal, family or medical or sick leave, as offered by their employer, concurrently with any FMLA leave. This is called the “substitution of paid leave.” The current regulations apply different procedural requirements to the use of vacation or personal leave than to medical or sick leave. Complicating matters even further, the Department has treated family leave differently than vacation and personal leave. Accordingly, under the final rule, all forms of paid leave offered by an employer will be treated the same, regardless of the type of leave substituted (including generic “paid time off”). An employee electing to use any type of paid leave concurrently with FMLA leave must follow the same terms and conditions of the employer’s policy that apply to other employees for the use of such leave. The employee is always entitled to unpaid FMLA leave if he or she does not meet the employer’s conditions for taking paid leave and the employer may waive any procedural requirements for the taking of any type of paid leave.
   
• Perfect Attendance Awards: The final rule changes the treatment of perfect attendance awards to allow employers to deny a “perfect attendance” award to an employee who does not have perfect attendance because of taking FMLA leave as long as it treats employees taking non-FMLA leave in an identical way. This addresses the unfairness perceived by employees and employers as a result of requiring an employee to obtain a perfect attendance award for a period during which the employee was absent from the workplace on FMLA leave.
   
• Employer Notice Obligations: The final rule consolidates all the employer notice requirements into a “one-stop” section of the regulations and reconciles some conflicting provisions and time periods under the current regulations. Further, the final rule clarifies and strengthens the employer notice requirements in order to better inform employees and allow for a better exchange of information between employers and employees. Employers will be required to provide employees with a general notice about the FMLA (through a poster, and either an employee handbook or upon hire); an eligibility notice; a rights and responsibilities notice; and a designation notice. In order to ensure employers are able to better inform employees under the new notice provisions, the final rule extends the time for employers to provide various notices from two business days to five business days.
   
• Employee Notice: The final rule modifies the current provision that has been interpreted to allow some employees to provide notice to an employer of the need for FMLA leave up to two full business days after an absence, even if they could have provided notice more quickly. Lack of advance notice (e.g., before the employee’s shift starts) for unscheduled absences is one of the biggest disruptions employers point to as an unintended consequence of the current regulations. The final rule provides that an employee needing FMLA leave must follow the employer’s usual and customary call-in procedures for reporting an absence, absent unusual circumstances. The final rule also highlights (without changing) the existing consequences if an employee does not provide proper notice of his or her need for FMLA leave.
   
• Medical Certification Process (Content and Clarification): The final rule, which is the result of significant stakeholder feedback (including a Fall 2007 meeting at the Department on medical certifications) recognizes the advent of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the applicability of the HIPAA privacy rule to communication between employers and employees’ health care providers. Further, in response to specific concerns raised by employees about medical privacy, the Department has added a requirement to the final rule that specifies that the employer’s representative contacting the health care provider must be a health care provider, human resource professional, a leave administrator, or a management official, but in no case may it be the employee’s direct supervisor. Further, employers may not ask health care providers for additional information beyond that required by the certification form. The final rule also improves the exchange of medical information by updating the Department’s optional Form WH-380 to create separate forms for the employee and covered family members and by allowing—but not requiring—health care providers to provide a diagnosis of the patient’s health condition as part of the certification.

In addition, the final rule specifies that if an employer deems a medical certification to be incomplete or insufficient, the employer must specify in writing what information is lacking, and give the employee seven calendar days to cure the deficiency. These changes will improve FMLA communications, protect the privacy of workers, and help ensure that the employees who need leave will get it and not be subject to repeated requests for additional information or be denied FMLA leave on a technicality.

• Medical Certification Process (Timing): The final rule codifies a 2005 DOL Wage and Hour Opinion letter that stated that employers may request a new medical certification each leave year for medical conditions that last longer than one year. The final rule also clarifies the applicable time period for recertification. Under the current regulations, employers may generally request a recertification no more often than every 30 days and only in conjunction with an FMLA absence unless a minimum duration of incapacity has been specified in the certification, in which case recertification generally may not be required until the duration specified has passed. Because many stakeholders have indicated that the current regulation is unclear as to the employer’s ability to require recertification when the duration of a condition is described as “lifetime” or “unknown,” the final rule restructures and clarifies the regulatory requirements for recertification. In all cases, the final rule allows an employer to request recertification of an ongoing condition every six months in conjunction with an absence.
   
• Fitness-For-Duty Certifications: The current FMLA regulations allow employers to enforce uniformly-applied policies or practices that require all similarly-situated employees who take leave to provide a certification that they are able to resume work. This is called a “fitness-for-duty” certification. The final rule makes two changes to the fitness-for-duty certification process. First, an employer may require that the certification specifically address the employee’s ability to perform the essential functions of the employee’s job. Second, where reasonable job safety concerns exist, an employer may require a fitness-for-duty certification before an employee may return to work when the employee takes intermittent leave.

Earlier article about the FMLA Changes

Below is an article we posted in 2008 about the then upcoming FMLA changes. Please note that the "insert" referred to below is now replaced by the newly released FMLA poster.

On February 11, 2008, The US Department of Labor  issued an insert for the current FMLA poster and also issued a Notice of Proposed Rule Making to Amend the FMLA.

The insert for the FMLA poster addresses the two new qualifying events that President Bush signed into law on January 28, 2008 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2008 (NDAA), Pub. L. XXXX. Among other things,  the NDAA amends the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) to permit a "spouse, son, daughter, parent, or next of kin" to take up to 26 workweeks of leave to care for a "member of the Armed Forces, including a member of the National Guard or Reserves, who is undergoing medical treatment, recuperation, or therapy, is otherwise in outpatient status, or is otherwise on the temporary disability retired list, for a serious injury or illness."

The provisions in the NDAA providing this leave are effective at two different times.

• Event 1 will not be effective until the Secretary of Labor issues the final regulations. 

• Event 2 is effective immediately.

(Scroll down to see the details of the new qualifying events.)

In the interim, the Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division will require employers to act in good faith in providing leave under the new legislation. Because the NDAA amends the FMLA, FMLA-type procedures should be used as appropriate (for example, procedures regarding substitution of paid leave and notice). There is also the possibility that the FMLA final changes may affect USERRA requirements also.

The original provisions of FMLA remain and will apply to these new types of FMLA leave, including employer coverage, employee eligibility requirements, health insurance continuation, and reinstatement rights. As with the original program, employees may use the leave on an incremental basis or in the smallest increment that the employer's payroll system tracks or leave-tracking system is setup for.

The legislation creates two new qualifying events to the original four of FMLA:

1) Leave During Family Member's Active Duty -- Employees who have a spouse, parent, or child who is on or has been called to active duty in the Armed Forces may take up to 12 weeks of FMLA leave yearly when they experience a "qualifying exigency." By its express terms, this provision of the NDAA is not effective until the Secretary of Labor issues final regulations defining "any qualifying exigency."

2) Injured Service member Family Leave -- Employees who are the spouse, parent, child, or next of kin of a service member who incurred a serious injury or illness on active duty in the Armed Forces may take up to 26 weeks of leave to care for the injured service member in a 12-month period (in combination with regular FMLA leave). This provision is effective with signing. The Department of Labor is preparing updated information.

Steps employers should take now to comply:

• All employees should be notified of the new leave entitlements.

• You should revise your current FMLA policies and procedures to reflect these changes to the FMLA. This will include requests for FMLA forms, response forms and medical certification forms.

• Be aware that the new regulations from the Department of Labor will probably become available faster then usual.

Michael A. Holzschu is the managing principal in the firm of Holzschu, Jordan Schiff & Associates specializing in Human Resource Systems, with a special focus on employee handbooks, job descriptions, performance appraisal systems, harassment training, safety and quality issues. He can be contacted at (248) 476-6907 or by email at mholzschu@hjsa.com or mholzschu@businessknowhow.com . The company's client base is primarily small to medium employers from all types of industries located throughout the United States.