Chaney v. Providence Health Care (Summary)

FMLA

Chaney v. Providence Health Care, No. 87056-0 (Wash. Feb. 21, 2013)

The Supreme Court of Washington granted a motion for directed verdict by a radiologic technician and concluded that a hospital violated the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (“FMLA”) by failing to return the technician to work after receiving a statement from his treating physician that the technician was “ok to work as soon as Employer allows.”  The hospital fired the technician after he took FMLA leave due to his wife’s illness and his own back injury.  The technician argued that the hospital fired him in violation of the FMLA and that the fitness to return to work certification that his physician provided the hospital was sufficient.  The court agreed, concluding that the certification, as required by the FMLA, was made contemporaneously with the technician’s ability to return to work.  The court also dismissed the hospital’s arguments that the physician’s statement of fitness was ambiguous, instructing “[i]f the hospital found the statement of fitness ambiguous, its option was not to terminate [the technician], but rather to seek clarification from [the physician].”