FMLA or the Family Medical Leave Act uh is a federal law and in California we have a similar law called the California
Family Rights Act or CFRA. And what both of these laws are is that they provide the employee uh with protected leave of
up to 12 weeks in any 12-month period for certain medical and family reasons.
And there’s two types of claims that we see. There’s interference claims and retaliation claims. And basically
interference claims are when the employee is entitled to a leave but the employer does not provide it or the
employer fails to keep the employees job available when he or she’s ready to come back from a leave. So they may say okay
sure you can have a leave but whether when the employee is ready to come back they say well your job is no longer available. that could give rise to an interference claim under FMLA or CFRA.
The other type of claim we see are retaliation claims. So, the employer asks for a leave. They’re entitled to
the leave and in response the employer fires them or demotes them or changes
their work assignments in retaliation for requesting that leave. Both of those things are illegal and we have quite a
bit of experience handling those types of cases.