We have a male employee who's wife is pregnant and he is going around boasting about how he is eligible for the FMLA? We are a very small company of about 10 people. I don't think he's eligible because we have under the laws says about having 50 employees . What are our rights ? We have an employee handbook that says vacation time cannot be taken only 1 week at a time and not at all in the busy summer months ( we are heat & air co ) He is eligible for 3 weeks. He has made a comment about taking 4 months of leave in a row . How does that work for us ? We will totally be shorthanded on scheduling. Please don't give me the link to the DOL.gov It's so confusing?

P.S His wife works at the local police dept

If you have only ten employees FMLA does not apply.

For FMLA to apply ALL of the following must be true:

1.) The employer must have no less than 50 employees within a 75 mile radius.
2.) The employee must have worked for this employer for no less than 12 months.
3.) The employee must have worked no less than 1,250 hours in the 12 months immediately preceding the leave
4.) The employee or a qualified dependent must have a condition that qualifies as a serious health condition under the FMLA statute. (Admittedly, pregnancy qualifies.)

If EVEN ONE of the above criteria is not true, the employee does not quality for FMLA. Period.

And for the record, Federal FMLA is for 12 weeks, not 4 months.

Your employee is going to be eating a good many words.

Caveat: The above applies to the Federal statute. Some states do allow a FMLA-like leave to employees of fewer employees. You will need to post your state for any information on a state plan that may exist.

thanks for your reply We are in California
The reason why I said 4 months is because he thinks he's he getting the required time off from the FMLA + his vacation time lumped together ...
Can you please reply back to me about the Ca law.

Thanks for your quick replly

I'll have to check into it since I don't have employees in CA any more and there have been changes since I last did. I'll get back to you shortly.

BTW, even if FMLA applies he does not get his vacation and then 12 weeks of FMLA - the vacation time counts as part of the FMLA.

Okay, I have done some research and I have talked to some California colleagues, and I don't think you have a thing to worry about.

IF you had over 50 employees, both state and Federal law would require you to provide him with paternity leave in the form of FMLA or CFRA. However, you don't.

If HE were pregnant, he would be entitled to up to four months of medical leave since you have more than 5 employees, and CA Pregnancy Disability Leave law sets that threshold. But he is not the one who is pregnant, so he is not entitled to any medical leave.

There's a very nice side-by-side comparison chart on this site;

http://www.laborproject.org/publications/pdf/public_employees.pdf

You might want to give the CA DOL a quick call just to be on the safe side, but I'm about 99.99% certain that you do not have to offer him any leave or allow him to take time during the blackout period.