Overview of Family Medical Leave Act, Age Discrimination and Disbility Acts

Business Law Competency 310.1.5 Labor and Employment Law

Situation A – Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993

The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 is a federal law that was put into place to protect an

employee's job for a leave due to personal or family illness. It allows an employee to take up to 12

weeks of unpaid leave to care for themselves, or someone in their family, to assist with serious medical

conditions. During this leave the employee's benefits, position, health benefits and pay are protected as

long as they meet the act's criteria. The employee is also protected from employer retaliation.

First it needs to be determined that employee A works for a company that is required to honor

the FMLA. An employe must work for a company that has at least 50 employees within a 75 mile

radius. Based off the information provided, Company X has 75 employees, although it does not state

that all the employee's work in the same location, I am going to assume they do based off lack of

information. Employee A is eligible for the FMLA based off company size.

In order to determine whether or not employee A is covered under the FMLA, we need to

evaluate his situation and compare his scenario against the guidelines of the FMLA. Employee A has

been with Company X for 2 years. FMLA requires an employee be with a company for 12 months and

worked for 1250 hours in the last 12 months. Based off the information provided, employee A has

worked for the company for 2 years, we can only assume in the last month he has worked the required

1250 hours. Employee A appears to be eligible based off length of employment.

The final factor that will be used to determine if Employee A is covered under the FMLA, is...

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...on C – Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 protects those with disabilities. An employer

cannot refuse employment to someone if there is not undue hardship for the company to make any

arrangements necessary for the employee or applicant to complete the job.

In this situation Company X states that the only reason that applicant A was denied employment

was because it would cause company X undue hardship. This is because in order for the applicant to

adequately complete the job he would have had to be able access all 7 floors of the headquarters. This

would have required the company to lower 2 of the elevator button pads 4 inches. The company did

not violate the act because the expenses would have been put the company in a tough spot in order to

accommodate the required customization of the elevators.