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Guest Article

(From the April 28, 2008 issue of Deloitte's Washington Bulletin, a periodic update of legal and regulatory developments relating to Employee Benefits.)

DOL Issues New “Military Leave” FMLA Notice

A new “Military Family Leave Notice” was issued by the U.S. Department of Labor to describe the expanded Family and Medical Leave Act rights related to military service. Designed to supplement the existing FMLA poster, all employers covered by the FMLA are required to post notice of the new provisions. The new Notice can be found at: www.dol.gov/esa/whd/fmla/NDAAAmndmnts.pdf.

FMLA Was Amended by the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act

The National Defense Authorization Act, effective on January 28, 2008, expanded the FMLA in two critical ways:

New Leave Entitlement: Effective immediately, eligible employees who are spouses, children, parents or next of kin, are entitled to take up to 26 weeks of leave in a 12-month period to care for a service member recovering from an illness or injury sustained in active duty. Although the entitlement is in addition to leave otherwise permitted under FMLA, an employee’s combined total annual FMLA leave entitlement does not exceed 26 weeks. New Qualifying Reason for Leave: Effective with the issuance of final regulations by the DOL, eligible employees whose spouse, children or parents have been called to active duty are entitled to a maximum of 12 weeks of leave because of “any qualifying exigency” arising out of that circumstance. A “qualifying exigency” is essentially added to the four events that currently entitle an employee to 12 weeks of FMLA leave (i.e., birth of a child, placement of a child, to care for a family member with serious health condition, and the employee’s serious health condition). Although “qualifying exigency” has not yet been defined, the following examples in the proposed regulations illustrate what may qualify: where the spouse of a deployed service member is managing childcare issues caused by the deployment, a family member is escorting the service member being deployed to the place of departure, the spouse is attending deployment briefings, etc. Employers are encouraged to provide this type of leave to qualifying employees during the period before the effective date.

The information in this Washington Bulletin is general in nature only and not intended to provide advice or guidance for specific situations. If you have any questions or need additional information about articles appearing in this or previous versions of Washington Bulletin, please contact: Robert Davis 202.879.3094, Elizabeth Drigotas 202.879.4985, Mary Jones 202.378.5067, Stephen LaGarde 202.879-5608, Erinn Madden 202.572.7677, Bart Massey 202.220.2104, Mark Neilio 202.378.5046, Martha Priddy Patterson 202.879.5634, Tom Pevarnik 202.879.5314, Sandra Rolitsky 202.220.2025, Tom Veal 312.946.2595, Deborah Walker 202.879.4955. Copyright 2008, Deloitte.

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