Attorney James Sabatini recently filed a lawsuit in Connecticut federal court alleging FMLA violations. Our client was denied medical leave under the FMLA and was then fired from his job. As a result of a serious health condition, the client was hospitalized on an emergency basis. His employer was notified of the hospitalization, yet failed to send out the FMLA certification form to him and failed to notify him of his FMLA rights. His employer then went ahead and terminated his employment and cited the absences (the days he was in the hospital) as the basis for the termination. The client's former employer is now claiming that it never sent the FMLA certification form to him because he never mentioned the FMLA.
An employee is not required to specifically invoke the FMLA, in order to exercise his rights under the Act. If the employee provides sufficient information to his employer regarding his medical condition, it is then the employer's responsibility to advise the employee of the FMLA and to deliver the FMLA certification form to the employee for his physician to complete and return back to the employer.