Mercer Select US - Court says requiring doctor's note in three days violates FMLA

The content you are trying to access is available only to members of certain Select membership offerings.

For an overview of Mercer Select and all of its membership offerings, click here. If you're interested in additional Select membership offerings, contact your Mercer consultant or Customer Service.

Using "Acting as"

The "Acting as" feature on Mercer Select allows Mercer employees to see Select in the same way as Mercer clients and contacts who are members of one or more of the Select offerings. Simply use the pulldown menu on the top of every Mercer Select page, choose which of the common membership roles you want to play, and view the content in the same way as a member of that offering (or group of offerings).

Like some Mercer Select members, you may encounter content that is available only to certain membership offerings. In this case, you will be directed to a screen with a message explaining what steps you can take to view the content. As a Mercer employee, all you'll have to do is switch your role back to the Acting as Consultant role to see the content.

If your clients and contacts encounter Select content they can't access, you may be able to give them access by making them members of additional Select membership offerings. Please contact Select customer service for help.

You can gain access to all Mercer Select content - including internal-only content - by setting your "Acting as" role to "Consultant."

For an overview of Mercer Select and its membership offerings, go to our Overview.

Court says requiring doctor's note in three days violates FMLA

Employees certified for leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) must have a reasonable amount of time to provide verification that an absence is related to the FMLA leave, a federal district court has determined (Smith v. CallTech Communications). Where a terminated employee had only three days to produce a doctor's note, the court found the deadline unreasonable under the circumstances. The issue is important for employers because FMLA regulations address recertifications, but not requests for less formal confirmations of the reason for an absence. (Select News, 21 Aug 2009)

Full text of decision in Smith v. CallTech Communications LLC (SD Ohio, 10 Jun 2009) (PDF)

Global

Home

About Mercer Select

Overview

Mercer Offerings

To learn about other Mercer offerings, check out these Mercer sites:
Mercer.com: Mercer's flagship site
iMercer.com: Survey data and analysis