It’s official: Altering a Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) certification form is grounds for denying an employee’s request for leave.
That’s the message in a recent federal appeals court ruling in Illinois.
An instructional aide at a residential treatment facility for children was injured in two altercations with students.
She told the school she was stressed out by concerns of future injuries and needed to take leave. The school requested medical certification.
The woman brought in a physician’s certification form, stating she suffered from headaches and neck and arm pain. She also wrote in “plus previous depression” on the certificate and backdated her signature. The employer, suspecting the woman had altered the paperwork, contacted her physician.
The doctor confirmed the form had been changed, and the woman was fired for excessive absences.
The woman sued, claiming her FMLA rights had been violated. But the court ruled the employer had a right to deny the leave request because she’d added a bogus diagnosis to the certification form.
One caveat: The court pointed out that minor alterations to a certificate, like correcting a typo, might not disqualify an employee for leave.
Cite: Smith v. The Hope School
