Issue
In Lonicki v. Sutter Health Central, (2004 Daily Journal D.A.R. 14,701, Cal. App. 3 Dist., Dec. 10, 2004), the California Court of Appeal addressed the issue of whether an employee was entitled to leave under California’s Moore-Brown-Roberti Family Rights Act (CalFRA) from one employer when she was successfully performing the functions of an identical job for a second employer during the term of requested leave.
Facts
Antonina Lonicki worked 32 hours per week at Sutter Health Central as a technician in the hospital’s sterile processing department. She claims that her job was stressful because the department was understaffed and extremely busy. In January 1999, she began working on weekends at the sterile processing department at Kaiser Hospital. After Sutter changed Lonicki’s shift, she complained that she was too emotionally upset to work. She submitted an application for a medical leave of absence with a note from a family nurse practitioner which stated the following: “Plan to return to work 8/27/99. Medical reasons.”
At Sutter’s request, Lonicki went to see a doctor for a determination of whether she was fit to return to work. The doctor reported that Lonicki was fit to go back to work and Sutter told her to return to work on August 9, 1999, or she could be terminated. Lonicki’s union representative negotiated an agreement with Sutter that Lonicki could have paid time off rather than medical leave because the doctor had concluded she was capable of returning to work and Sutter was aware that Lonicki was continuing to work for Kaiser during her time off. Although the agreement set Lonicki’s return date as August 23, 1999, Lonicki did not return to work until August 27, 1999. Upon her return, Sutter terminated Lonicki’s employment for failing to return to work on August 23, 1999.
Lonicki filed a lawsuit asserting that Sutter violated CalFRA. The trial court found that Lonicki was not entitled to medical leave under CalFRA because there was undisputed evidence that, at the time she was demanding leave from Sutter, she was performing the same job functions for Kaiser.
Appellate Court Decision
The Court of Appeal determined Lonicki was not entitled to medical leave. Section 12945.2 of CalFRA provides that an employer cannot refuse to grant the request of a qualified employee to take family care and medical leave for a total of twelve workweeks in a twelve-month period. “Family care and medical leave” includes leave of an employee for his or her own serious health condition “that makes the employee unable to perform the functions of the position of that employer.” The Court rejected Lonicki’s argument that the legal standard should be employer-specific — that the court should not consider her work at Kaiser when determining if she was eligible for leave from Sutter.
The Court defined “essential functions” as “the fundamental job duties of the employment position the individual with a disability holds or desires.” An employee’s inability to perform must be related to the essential functions of the job. This standard has been put in place to prevent employees from “abusing the right to medical leave by asserting some broad, amorphous, and perhaps subjective need or desire for leave.” The Court opined that “[w]hen an employee is capable of performing the essential functions of the job, an employer has the right to expect and demand that the employee come to work and do so.”
The purpose of CalFRA is to balance workplace demands with an employee’s need to take leave for medical reasons. The Court opined that CalFRA is not designed to permit an employee to take leave because he or she feels that a working environment is too stressful while at the same time allowing an employee to perform the same job functions for another employer.
Here, the undisputed evidence revealed that, although Lonicki claimed she could not perform the essential functions of her job at Sutter, she was performing the same functions for Kaiser at the same time she claimed to be eligible for leave. The Court concluded that there is a distinction between an employee who is medically unable to perform his or her job functions and an employee who is unwilling to perform his or her job functions. The Court concluded that Lonicki fell into the latter category and found that her “selective disability” did not entitle her to medical leave.
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