Family Medical Leave Act

[lanatiychuk]

California

Under the family medical leave act, does my husband need to provide a medical certificate for the care of a 1 month old baby?

He works for Albertsons, they are eligible for FMLA, but they are giving us a hard time, claiming he needs to provide a medical certificate to care for a 1 month old baby. I would think it common sense of what is included in taking care of a baby, sleepless nights, colic, headaches... and so on.

Sometimes, i the mother am just too tired, we also have a 1 year old. I would like him to take the day off and take care of the kids so I can rest. my husband does not have a set schedule and is a part time on call but he usually works 60 hours a week, and works 10-15 hour days, which leaves me with 2 infants sometimes for a week without any kind of break, and maybe 4 hours of sleep a night. If you can answer this question I would greatly appreciate it, I can not seem to find a section of Employment or Labor Law that pertains to such a benefit.

 

[Beth3]

If your husband has worked for his employer for at least 12 months and has worked at least 1,250 hours during the 12 months prior to the birth of the baby, he is ENTITLED to up to 12 weeks of leave time in the 12 month period following the birth of the baby. No medical certificate is necessary, nor does the baby have to be ill. The FMLA allows for parental leave for both mother and father.

If they doubt you've had a new baby, I suppose they can request to see a copy of the birth certificate but a medical certificate is NOT necessary because, as I said, the FMLA entitles him to 12 weeks of parental leave. Plug in "FMLA" into any search engine and I'm sure you'll find an enormous amount of information on that law. He can print it out and take it to his employer.

Let me just add one thought. Leave time under the FMLA is unpaid. Perhaps his employer has some sort of benefit that allows him to use paid sick or personal time if the baby is ill and a medical certificate is provided. Your husband is absolutely entitled to take unpaid FMLA leave time however.

 

[Thomas234]

I can tell you Albertsons will happily give you an argument and hard time about anything that does not benefit them. I know from experience that you will be required to point out the errors of their ways when it comes to not only FMLA, but ADA and their own STD policy as well.

I had thought that California had recently passed a law making FMLA a “partially” paid benefit at 50%? Perhaps this is not effective yet?

 

[cbg]

It does not go into effect until sometime in 2004. I want to say June of 2004, but I'm not certain of the month. Definitely not in effect yet, however.

After initially posting this message, I received the newest edition of an on-line employment law newsletter I subscribe to, which identified the date that the CA paid leave law becomes effective as January 1, 2004.