Does Supervisor’s ‘Weirdness’ Show Nurse Lost Job Because of FMLA Leave?

What Do You Think?

Philadelphia, PA (WorkersCompensation.com) -- When an employee sues for FMLA retaliation, one of the biggest hurdles she must clear is showing that her exercise of FMLA rights caused her employer to take negative action. There are often two ways to tell the story of what occurred, as a case involving a fired hospital worker illustrates.

A nurse supervisor for a hospital was "a very high-functioning operational leader," according to the hospital. The hospital even encouraged her to pursue higher education so that it might consider her for promotion.

The employee took FMLA leave from October to December 2020 for gallbladder treatment and recovery from COVID-19. When she returned to work in January 2021, she said, "a weirdness" infected her relationship with her direct supervisor, a nurse manager. In February 2021, the nurse manager questioned her ability to do some tasks she had previously performed. She also said the employee had significantly misrepresented on her time cards the amount of time she worked in person versus at home.

The direct supervisor consulted with an HR representative, who was not aware that the employee had taken medical lave. The HR representative recommended terminating the employee.

She sued the hospital for FMLA retaliation, claiming the hospital terminated her for exercising her FMLA rights. The District Court dismissed the case and the employee appealed to the 3d U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The 3d Circuit stated that to establish FMLA retaliation, an employee must demonstrate that: 1) she invoked her right to leave; 2) she suffered an adverse employment decision; and 3) the adverse action was causally related to her invocation of her rights.

Did the employee show her leave and firing were connected?

A. No. A lot of time passed between her leave and termination, and the HR representative didn’t know she had taken leave.

B. Yes. She was a good employee and her manager became negative right after she returned from leave.

If you selected A, you agreed with the court in Coleman v. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, No. 23-3064 (3d Cir. 10/15/24, unpublished), which held that the employee failed to establish an FMLA retaliation claim.

The court noted that temporal proximity can help show a causal connection between an employee’s exercise of FMLA rights and a negative employment action. Here, the three-month gap between the worker’s leave and termination was too wide to support her claim.

While the employee pointed to other indications that the hospital was engaging in reprisal, she was merely speculating, the court said. For example, the court wrote, “[w]hile [her supervisor]  questioned whether [the employee] could fulfill some of her duties in February 2021, that was over two months after she returned from FMLA leave, and [the supervisor’s] questions do not suggest a retaliatory motive.”

Finally, it was telling that the individual who recommended terminating the employee for lying on her timecard did not even know she had taken leave. “Thus, medical leave could not have been a ’factor’ in her decision,” the court wrote.

The 3d Circuit affirmed the District Court’s dismissal of the case on the basis that the employee failed to connect her termination to her medical leave.

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