OCTOBER TERM, 2001
Syllabus
WORLD WIDE, INC.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the eighth circuit
No. 00-6029. Argued January 7, 2002—Decided March 19, 2002
The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA or Act) guarantees qualifying employees 12 weeks of unpaid leave each year and encourages businesses to adopt more generous policies. Respondent Wolverine World Wide, Inc., granted petitioner Ragsdale 30 weeks of medical leave under its more generous policy in 1996. It refused her request for additional leave or permission to work part time and terminated her when she did not return to work. She filed suit, alleging that 29 CFR § 825.700(a), a Labor Department regulation, required Wolverine to grant her 12 additional weeks of leave because it had not informed her that the 30-week absence would count against her FMLA entitlement. The District Court granted Wolverine summary judgment, finding that the regulation was in conflict with the statute and invalid because it required Wolverine to grant Ragsdale more than 12 weeks of FMLA-compliant leave in one year. The Eighth Circuit agreed.
Held: Section 825.700(a) is contrary to the Act and beyond the Secretary of Labor's authority. Pp. 86-96.
(a) To determine whether § 825.700(a) is a valid exercise of the Secretary's authority to issue regulations necessary to carry out the FMLA, see 29 U. S. C. § 2654, this Court must consult the Act, viewing it as a "symmetrical and coherent regulatory scheme," Gustafson v. Alloyd Co., 513 U. S. 561, 569. Among other things, the Act subjects an employer that interferes with, restrains, or denies the exercise of an employee's FMLA rights, § 2615(a)(1), to consequential damages and equitable relief, § 2617(a)(1); and requires the employer to post a notice of FMLA rights on its premises, § 2619(a). The Secretary's regulations require, in addition, that an employer give employees written notice that an absence will be considered FMLA leave. 29 CFR § 825.208. Even assuming that this regulatory requirement is valid, the Secretary's categorical penalty for its breach is contrary to the Act. Section 825.700(a) punishes an employer's failure to provide timely notice of the FMLA designation by denying the employer any credit for leave granted before the notice, and the penalty is unconnected to any prejudice the employee might have suffered from the employer's lapse. The employee will be entitled to 12 additional weeks of leave even if he or
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