Human Resource Blog

More than 1 FMLA Claim at a time

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I have an employee who has a current FMLA claim due to her daughter’s medical issues. Now, the employee is pregnant and asking for another FMLA claim. My understanding was that an employee can have more than one FMLA claim on file, provided they don’t use more than the 12 weeks allowed.

Is this correct?

You are correct in your assessment of this situation. An employee can take up to 12 weeks of unpaid FMLA total, in a 12-month period. All 12 weeks may be for the same reason, or the leave may be for several different reasons, but the leave is capped at 12 weeks in a 12-month period.

Theoretically, an employee could have 12 different qualifying reasons for FMLA leave, and take one week each time. However, if the employee took 13 weeks off, the employer could legitimately terminate him or her.

In this case, suppose the employee’s child has a serious health condition and the worker takes 4 weeks of FMLA. Then, she becomes pregnant and takes 4 weeks of FMLA due to severe morning sickness. When the baby is born, the employee is entitled to a maximum of 4 additional weeks of FMLA, for 12 weeks of FMLA total.

An employer can set the 12-month period for FMLA in any one of 4 different ways. The most common way to count FMLA leave is from the first day of leave. So an employee who took her first day of FMLA leave on January 20, 2008 could take a total of 12 weeks of leave before January 19, 2009.

In a few cases, disabled employees are entitled to additional time off under ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Under FMLA, the federal Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, employees are entitled to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a 12-month period.

FMLA leave may be used when an employee has a serious health condition. Or, when a member of the employee’s immediate family has a serious health condition. The regulations define “immediate family”  for FMLA purposes as a spouse, son or daughter, or parent.

Employees can also take FMLA leave to bond with a new child. This includes a newborn or newly adopted child, or a newly place foster child under the age of 18.

Generally employees must work at least 1,250 hours and have been employed at least 12 months before taking FMLA leave.