Some lawsuits are based on just a few careless comments from a supervisor. That’s especially true in cases involving employees who take time off under the FMLA. Managers who refer to these problems as “distractions” and comment on their impact on the workplace are inviting employees to sue ...

Q. We are a small shop with 15 employees. One of our full-time employees who has been with us for more than five years recently announced that his wife is pregnant. He requested eight weeks’ leave after the baby is born. Are we required to give him this leave? ...

Employees who claim they qualify for FMLA leave because of a short illness have to show that they went to a doctor and were incapacitated for three days. But the three days don’t have to be workdays—they can include days off ...

Q. We lease some of our workers from an agency. The agency handles all personnel needs of its employees, but our supervisors provide day-to-day direction to the workers. One of our agency employees, Jane, informed the agency that she was taking FMLA leave for her pregnancy. While Jane was out on leave, the agency supplied us with a replacement, Mary. Jane’s FMLA leave is over, and the agency wants to send her back. We would prefer to keep Mary. Does the FMLA oblige us to let Mary go and bring Jane back? ...

For determining reinstatement rights under the FMLA, it’s the job the employee was in at the time she began her FMLA leave that counts. As long as the job she returns to is substantially equivalent, it does not matter that the job may be below her capacities and educational background ...

What if you want to challenge an employee’s FMLA certification later—after you find out he’s been working elsewhere while on FMLA leave, for example? Are you stuck because you didn’t ask for a second or third medical opinion?...

But does the FMLA cover leave taken by an employee who thinks he has a serious condition and needs some tests to check it out? Yes, it does. That’s why employers should never discipline or fire employees while they’re in this “limbo” medical stage ...

When employees take leave to deal with serious health conditions, inform them that you plan to charge that time against their allotment of unpaid FMLA leave. If you fail to do so, it will be relatively easy for her to sue and show she was harmed by the lack of notice ...

To manage the workload, employers have to know who will be at work and who will not. After all, when an employee isn’t at work, someone else has to step in and get the work done. Of course, employees sometimes do get sick or have emergencies. A well-crafted call-in policy can help employers cope with unexpected absences ...

Q. I’ve required employees seeking FMLA leave to have their doctors fill out the DOL's medical certification form. Too often, though, the information I get from doctors is too vague to be much help. Is there any way I can get more detail in these forms? ...

There’s a common misconception out there that says that employers can’t fire employees who have recently taken or need to take FMLA leave. Nothing is further from the truth—if you go through the trouble of carefully documenting workplace deficiencies ...

Do you routinely accept employees’ claims they need FMLA time off to care for an elderly parent? If so, consider a new policy. While it may be easier to approve leave than to challenge it, blanket approvals may prove costly in the long run as more and more “sandwich generation” employees find themselves having to care for both their children and their elderly parents ...

Q. Does the new FMLA law for injured soldiers also apply to service members who were injured during past wars? And does the person have to be 100% disabled for their family members to be eligible for leave? — C.T., Missouri ...

Words are easy to misconstrue. Depending on who’s listening, the same sentence could mean at least two different things. This is one of the things that keeps lawyers employed. It’s also the reason it’s crucial to prepare accurate notes about any meeting in which managers are discussing whether to terminate ...

 Q. We have a question regarding FMLA leave following the birth of a child. One of our employees is pregnant. She has recently immigrated to the United States. She has informed us that she expects to take eight weeks of FMLA leave immediately after the child is born. Then after a few months, she would like to return to her home country to visit with family for a month. In other words, she wants to split up FMLA leave into an eight-week period and a four-week period. Can FMLA leave for a new child be split up in this fashion? ...