What’s up with the Family and Medical Leave Act? Courts are deciding lots of interesting cases and swatting down employees whose claims are inconsistent with the FMLA’s purpose. Brace yourself for a string of sanity.
First, let’s travel to the Philippines and look at one employee who thought the FMLA protected her absences from work to visit her native country to see a faith healer. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sketched it out in its decision in Tayag v. Lahey Clinic Hospital Inc. (2011). Maria Tayag’s husband was ill. She decided to go to the Philippines with him to visit a faith healer. The problem was that her employer did not OK the leave, and she was terminated while she was overseas. She sued, claiming the FMLA protected the time off for the visit and thus her termination was unlawful. In affirming summary judgment for the employer, the appeals court noted that seeing a faith healer on a “healing pilgrimage” did not comprise medical care under the FMLA, which involves seeing a health-care provider. Because faith healers are not health-care providers, there was no FMLA violation.
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