Disclaimer:
This web site does not provide legal advice and is not a substitute for
legal advice.
-------------------------
Introduction to the
Family and Medical Leave Act
Reminder
If you have not read
Introduction to Legal Research and
Introduction to Employment Discrimination Law, you should read these articles first.
Overview of the FMLA
Eligible employees can take up
to 12-weeks of unpaid family or medical leave.
To be eligible, the employee
must have worked for the employer for at least 12 months and
have worked at least 1,250 hours during the preceding 12 month
period.
The FMLA only applies to
employers who have 50 or more employees within a 75 mile radius
of the worksite of the employee who wishes to take FMLA leave.
Medical leave may be taken for
a serious health condition of the employee. With respect to family leave,
it can be taken for various reasons:
-
Birth of child (if purpose of
leave is to care for the child)
-
Adoption of child or placement
of child with employee for foster care
-
In order to care for spouse,
child or parent who has a serious health condition
-
Because of any qualifying
exigency arising out of the fact that the spouse, child or
parent is on active duty (or has been notified of an
impending call or order to active duty) in the Armed Forces
in support of a contingency operation.
The addition of family leave for
employees who have a family member on active duty is relatively
new and those persons may be entitled to up to 26 weeks of
leave.
To learn more about the Family and
Medical Leave Act, go our the FMLA home page on our sister site,
Garland's Digest on Employment Discrimination Law. In addition,
to reading more about the FMLA, you will be able to search all
FMLA statutes and all FMLA regulations.