What Went Wrong? Supervisor's 'Vacation' Comment Helps Move Tool Manager's FMLA Case to Jury

Cherry Hill, NJ (WorkersCompensation.com) -- Many FMLA retaliation claims move forward to a jury trial simply because the employee’s supervisor said the wrong things.

What to say and not to say isn’t an exact science. But it’s not rocket science either, for the most part. It helps to be consistent, to tell the truth, and to avoid angry comments about FMLA or other types of leave. A case involving a tool manager with a history of severe back problems who took four weeks of FMLA leave shows that to be true.

In Boyd v. Riggs Distler & Company, No. No. 1:20-CV-14008-KMW-EAP (D.N.J. 12/29/22), the long-time tool manager for a contractor alleged that the company terminated him because his supervisor resented his use of FMLA leave for back surgery. In a discipline memorandum, the supervisor cited insubordination and absenteeism as the bases for the termination.

The court explained that, once an employer gives a valid, non-retaliatory reason for terminating an employee, the employee can only proceed to trial if he establishes that the employer’s reasons were a pretext for retaliation.

To show pretext, the worker just has to point to weaknesses, implausibility, inconsistencies, incoherencies, or contradictions in the employer's proffered reasons such that a jury could rationally find those reasons to lack credence.

There were a few things that (assuming the employee’s allegations turn out to be true), caused the case to take a wrong turn, from the company’s perspective. In finding that the tool manager established pretext, the court pointed to the following, among other things:

1. Incoherencies in the company’s proffered reasons for not permitting the tool manager to return to work. At the end of the employee’s leave in April 2020, when the employee’s doctor cleared him to return to work, the company instructed the tool manager to stay home for a month due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On its face, that seemed like a genuine justification, the court indicated. But it was undermined by the fact that the company simultaneously permitted the tool manager’s subordinates to continue working on-site during the same period.
2. Comments from the tool manager’s superiors suggesting intolerance of his FMLA leave. The employee stated, for example, that shortly after returning to work from FMLA leave, he tried to discuss a scheduled vacation with his supervisor. The supervisor allegedly responded: "You have been on vacation for four months. The supervisor, citing the employee’s use of PTO time, also allegedly stated in the discipline memo that the company is "very busy," and that it needs "reliable consistent help.” The tool manager contended that the supervisor’s reliance on his use of PTO was evidence that the supervisor and company were holding his FMLA leave against him.
3. Contradictions and falsities in the supervisor’s discipline memorandum. The employee said there were things in the memorandum that didn’t jive and other things that never happened. The memo said that the employee "came into [the supervisor’s] office demanding an answer as to what to do with the furniture sitting in the aisle." The memo also stated that the employee told his supervisor "get out of [his] chair and do some work." According to the tool manager, he never made those statements.

“Though the company’s reasons for termination may be legion, there is enough evidence that could lead a reasonable jury to disbelieve [the company] or to question its motives for terminating Plaintiff,” the court wrote.

The court denied the company’s motion for summary judgment.

Get your compliance on! Head over to WorkCompResearch for rules, regs, cases, statutes, and more.

Share This Article: