No Return Date, No Problem: Seventh Circuit Reverses FMLA Summary Judgment For Employer

On June 24, 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that an employee did not forfeit her right to leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act ("FMLA") to care for her seriously ill adult daughter by failing to provide her employer with an anticipated date of return. Gienapp v. Harbor Crest, Case No. 14-1053 (7^th Cir. Jun. 24, 2014). In an opinion authored by Judge Frank H. Easterbrook, the appellate court reversed an Illinois federal court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the employer regarding a former employer's claim that she was not reinstated in violation of the FMLA.

The employer, Harbor Crest, is a non-profit residential nursing care facility. In January 2011, one of Harbor Crest's employees, Suzan Gienapp, informed her management that she needed to take time off to care for her daughter, who was undergoing treatment for thyroid cancer. Harbor Crest granted her FMLA leave; however, while periodically contacting her employer in