Tip Tuesday! FMLA violation? Worker said he was sick, walked off the job and was fired

by Christian Schappel

Here’s a scenario any manager could learn a valuable FMLA lesson from. 

An employee gets into an argument with his supervisor. A while later, still a little shaken up from the argument, the man begins to experience chest pains. He then tells a co-worker he thinks he may be having a heart attack.

The employee then tells the co-worker to tell their supervisor that he’s leaving for the day as a result of his symptoms, which the co-worker does.

But it was a well-known company practice that employees had to inform a supervisor directly before leaving work.

So the company fired the man that afternoon. The employee then sued, claiming FMLA interference (shortly after his termination had been processed, he submitted paperwork that he was suffering from a serious health condition).

Was this interference?

That’s how it happened … for real

This is the story of Randy Greene, a truck driver, and his employer YRC Inc., a freight company.

Greene thought he might have been having a heart attack, so he left work without completing his route for the day.

YRC essentially took this as a “voluntary quit” and processed his termination.

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