Human Resource Blog

Rescinding previously requested vacation time subsequent to motor vehicle accident

An employee was paid in advance for planned vacation time, as requested. She advised her supervisor that she was in a motor vehicle accident. A week later, she called and requested to reimburse us for vacation payment received, to save for future use.

Upon occasion, we do allow employees to switch previous time off requests/payments for alternate dates. However, would this be permitted under these circumstances? Being that employee could potentially be out on disability leave during this time, perhaps she is placing this request so that her disability payments are not adversely affected? What is the correct legal & ethical response?

Frankly, paying employees in advance for planned vacation time seems like a very poor HR policy to us. And this just illustrates one reason why. When the employee is unable to take the vacation as planned, it creates a mess. In this case, the employee is not entitled to short term disability payments because she was on vacation.

However, in the past you have permitted employees to switch previous payments for alternate dates. It would arguably be illegal discrimination (based on medical information or protected status ) to refuse to do so now. So the correct legal and ethical response would be: 1) Allow this employee to “switch” her vacation payments/dates and 2) Immediately issue a policy that employees will not be permitted to request vacation payment in advance, having all employees sign it.