State Employees Deserve Same FMLA Rights as Private Sector Workers

by Karl Stark  |  January 12, 2012

His doctor put him on bed rest and his employer responded by firing him. This week the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case to decide if Daniel Coleman was unfairly denied the same rights as his private sector counterparts under the Family and Medical Leave Act.

Coleman v. Maryland Court of Appeals takes a closer look at his 2007 firing, when he was an employee of the Maryland court system. Instead of allowing him time to recover from a serious medical condition, Coleman’s employer asked him to resign and then the next day, fired him.

Congress passed the FMLA in 1993 to address inadequate employee leave polices. It guarantees workers unpaid leave for self-care and family care. But the lower court that initially heard Coleman’s case got it wrong, and as a result, Coleman’s employer—the state of Maryland—was allowed to get away with a workers’ rights violation.

The Supreme Court must now decide whether Congress intended for FMLA’s self-care provision to apply to state workers. That shouldn’t be too difficult, considering the law’s language clearly includes state workers. But just in case, Sen. Tom Harkin and Rep. George Miller—along with 45 current and former members of Congress—filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief stating that Congress specifically intended for state workers to enjoy the same protections as workers in the private sector.

AFSCME, which played a critical role in the passage of FMLA, joined a “friend-of-the-court” brief as well, supporting those arguments.