Cite as: 535 U. S. 81 (2002)
O'Connor, J., dissenting
The Act, however, provides no indication that its notice provisions are intended to be exclusive. Nor does it make sense for them to be so. Different notice requirements serve different functions. The requirement that employees notify their employers of their reasons for leave, for instance, informs employers that their obligations have been triggered and allows them to use the certification mechanisms provided in the Act. § 2613. The requirement that employees give advance notice when leave is foreseeable, § 2612(e)(1), facilitates employer planning. That the Act provides for notice to further these objectives indicates nothing about whether the Secretary may permissibly use the same tool to further different ends.
Even the provision that may seem most similar, the general notice requirement, § 2619(a), serves a significantly different purpose than the Secretary's requirement. Although both inform employees of their rights under the Act, the general notice requirement is particularly useful to employees who might otherwise never approach their employer with a leave request, while the individualized notice requirement is targeted at employees after they have informed the employer of their request for leave. Moreover, even if the purposes of both sorts of notice were identical, it is not at all clear that, by providing for one sort of notice to further these objectives, Congress intended to preclude the Secretary from bolstering this purpose with an additional notice requirement. I therefore conclude that nothing in the Act precludes the Secretary from accomplishing her goals through a requirement of individualized notice.
II
Also at issue before the Court is whether the Secretary may secure compliance with the individualized notice requirement by providing that leave will not count against the employer's 12-week obligation unless the employer fulfills this requirement. The Court concludes that this means
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