Ballard v. Chicago Park District

741 F.3d 838, 21 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 1484, 2014 WL 294550, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 1747
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedJanuary 28, 2014
Docket13-1445
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 741 F.3d 838 (Ballard v. Chicago Park District) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ballard v. Chicago Park District, 741 F.3d 838, 21 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 1484, 2014 WL 294550, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 1747 (7th Cir. 2014).

Opinion

FLAUM, Circuit Judge.

The Family and Medical Leave Act gives eligible employees a right to twelve workweeks of leave “[i]n order to care for the spouse, or a son, daughter, or parent, of the employee, if such spouse, son, daughter, or parent has a serious health condition.” 29 U.S.C. § 2612(a)(1)(C). This case is about what qualifies as “caring for” a family member under the Act. In particular, it is about whether the FMLA applies when an employee requests leave so that she can provide physical and psychological care to a terminally ill parent while that parent is traveling away from home. For the reasons set forth below, we conclude that such an employee is seeking leave “to care for” a family member within the meaning of the FMLA.

I. Background

Beverly Ballard is a former Chicago Park District employee. In April 2006, Beverly’s mother, Sarah, was diagnosed with end-stage congestive heart failure and began receiving hospice support through Horizon Hospice & Palliative Care. Beverly lived with Sarah and acted as her primary caregiver; among other things, she cooked her mother’s meals, administered insulin and other medication, drained fluids from her heart, bathed and dressed her, and prepared her for bed. In 2007, Sarah and a Horizon Hospice social worker met to discuss Sarah’s end-of-life goals. Sarah said that she had always wanted to take a family trip to Las Vegas. The social worker was able to secure funding from the Fairygodmother Foundation, a nonprofit that facilitated these sorts of opportunities for terminally ill adults. The six-day trip was scheduled for January 2008.

Ballard requested unpaid leave from the Chicago Park District so that she could accompany her mother to Las Vegas. (The parties dispute many particulars of Ballard’s request, including whether Ballard gave the Park District sufficient no[840]*840tice, but these issues are not germane to this appeal and we will ignore them.) The Park District ultimately denied the request, although Ballard maintains that she was not informed of the denial prior to her trip.

Ballard and her mother traveled to Las Vegas as planned, where they spent time together and participated in typical tourist activities. Beverly continued to serve as her mother’s caretaker during the trip. In addition to performing her usual responsibilities, Beverly drove her mother to a hospital when a fire unexpectedly prevented them from reaching their hotel room, where Sarah’s medicine was stored.

Several months later, the Chicago Park District terminated Ballard for unauthorized absences accumulated during her trip. Ballard filed suit under the FMLA. The Park District moved for summary judgment, arguing in part that Ballard did not “care for” her mother in Las Vegas because she was already providing Sarah with care at home and because the trip was not related to a continuing course of medical treatment. The district court denied the motion, explaining that “[s]o long as the employee provides ‘care’ to the family member, where the care takes place has no bearing on whether the employee receives FMLA protections.” 900 F.Supp.2d 804, 812 (N.D.Ill.2012). The Park District moved for an interlocutory appeal.

II. Discussion

We begin with the text of the statute: an eligible employee is entitled to leave “[i]n order to care for” a family member with a “serious health condition.” 29 U.S.C. § 2612(a)(1)(C). The Park District does not dispute that Sarah Ballard suffered from a serious health condition. Instead, it claims that Beverly did not “care for” Sarah in Las Vegas. It would have us read the FMLA as limiting “care,” at least in the context of an away-from-home trip, only to services provided in connection with ongoing medical treatment.

One problem with the Park District’s argument is that § 2612(a)(1)(C) speaks in terms of “care,” not “treatment.” The latter term does appear in other subsections of § 2612, but Ballard does not rely on those provisions for her leave, and the Park District does not argue that they are implicated in this case. See 29 U.S.C. § 2612(b)(2) (permitting an employer to temporarily transfer an employee seeking intermittent leave “that is foreseeable based on planned medical treatment”); id. § 2612(e)(2) (requiring an employee who requests leave to care for a family member “based on planned medical treatment” to provide the employer with notice and attempt to schedule the treatment so as not to disrupt the employer’s operations). Furthermore, the Park District does not explain why participation in ongoing treatment is required when the employee provides away-from-home care, but not when she provides at-home care. Certainly we see no textual basis for that distinction in the statute.

Another problem is that the FMLA’s text does not restrict care to a particular place or geographic location. For instance, it does not say that an employee is entitled to time off “to care at home for” a family member. The only limitation it places on care is that the -family member must have a serious health condition. We are reluctant, without good reason, to read in another limitation that Congress has not provided.

Still, the FMLA does not define “care,” so perhaps there is room to disagree about whether Ballard can be said to have cared for her mother in Las Vegas. We therefore turn to the Department of Labor’s regulations to clear away any lurking am[841]*841biguity. See Price v. City of Fort Wayne, 117 F.3d 1022, 1023-24 (7th Cir.1997). There are no regulations specifically interpreting 29 U.S.C. § 2612(a)(1)(C). There are, however, regulations interpreting a closely related provision concerning health-care provider certification. See 29 U.S.C. § 2613(b)(4)(A) (describing what is required for a medical provider to certify that “the eligible employee is needed to care for” a family member “for purposes of leave under section 2612(a)(1)(C) of this title”); cf. White v. Scibana, 390 F.3d 997, 1002 (7th Cir.2004) (noting the “general rule ... that identical words used in different parts of the same statute are presumed to have the same meaning”). Those regulations state:

What does it mean that an employee is “needed to care for” a family member?
(a) The medical certification provision that an employee is “needed to care for” a family member encompasses both physical and psychological care. It includes situations where, for example, because of a serious health condition, the family member is unable to care for his or her own basic medical, hygienic, or nutritional needs or safety, or is unable to transport himself or herself to the doctor, etc. The term also includes providing psychological comfort and reassurance which would be beneficial to a child, spouse or parent with a serious health condition who is receiving inpatient or home care.

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741 F.3d 838, 21 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 1484, 2014 WL 294550, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 1747, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ballard-v-chicago-park-district-ca7-2014.