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The state Division of Civil Rights found “reasonable suspicion” to suggest the Hoboken-based company intended to “discourage and impede” the driver from taking his legally-entitled time to care for his ailing father in North Carolina, Acting New Jersey Attorney General Andrew J. Bruck said.
Academy Lines, which advertises itself as the nation’s largest private transportation company, fired the worker in December 2017 after he began a four-week “intermittent leave” period, the attorney general said.
New Jersey law defines intermittent leave as “taken in separate periods of time,” with each leave period spanning at least one work week, Bruck noted. In some instances, the employer may require advance notice and a certification from a health care provider, he added.
The December 2017 intermittent leave period was the fourth that the driver had taken to care for his dad, who was diagnosed terminal with leukemia, the attorney general said.
The driver supported his request for the first two periods with a medical certificate provided by his father’s treating physician but didn’t update it for a third, at Academy’s request, he said.
Upon his request for a fourth intermittent leave – from December 6, 2017 through January 4, 2018 – the company “demanded he provide an updated medical certificate” first, Bruck said.
The employee said he couldn’t “because the gravity of his father’s deteriorating condition was still being assessed,” he said.
He “intended to provide an updated medical certificate once a treatment plan was determined,” Bruck noted.
The driver was headed to North Carolina when he got word that he’d been fired, the attorney general said.
New Jersey’s Division of Civil Rights found that the original medical certification met the necessary requirements under the state Family Leave Act (FLA), Bruck said.
The division also ruled that the driver’s request for a fourth intermittent leave to care for his father met the “emergent circumstances” provision of the FLA, “and was therefore not subject to the law’s normal advance-notice requirement,” Bruck said.
Academy “failed to articulate a legitimate reason for why it required [the driver] to immediately produce a new (medical) certification or face termination,” the attorney general noted.
Rather than face trial, the company took a deal from the state civil rights division.
As part of the settlement, Academy must arrange anti-discrimination training for “all company human resources personnel, as well as all terminal managers working in and/or supervising employees in New Jersey,” Bruck said.
The agreed-upon training must “address overall compliance with the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD) and the FLA, and also focus on such specific issues as required medical certifications under the FLA, and the need to ensure that decisions made in response to requests for FLA leave are consistent with the law,” the attorney general said.
It also must “emphasize the obligation of company managers to report any acts of discrimination they may witness.,” he said
DCR Legal Specialist Carlos Bellido, Investigator Justin Hoffer and Division of Law Deputy Attorney General Geoffrey Gerstein handled investigation on behalf of the state, Bruck said.
“New Jersey law protects workers’ ability to take time off to care for a seriously ill family member,” the attorney general said.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored just how important (FLA) protections are,” he added. “We are committed to ensuring that workers don’t lose their jobs in violation of the law just because a family member gets sick.”
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