Wegelin v. Reading Hospital & Medical Center

909 F. Supp. 2d 421, 2012 WL 5962444, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 169343, 96 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 44,687
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedNovember 29, 2012
DocketCivil Action No. 12-0386
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 909 F. Supp. 2d 421 (Wegelin v. Reading Hospital & Medical Center) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wegelin v. Reading Hospital & Medical Center, 909 F. Supp. 2d 421, 2012 WL 5962444, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 169343, 96 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 44,687 (E.D. Pa. 2012).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION

SAVAGE, District Judge.

This action brought under the Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”)1 presents the question whether a parent of a special needs child is entitled to FMLA leave to make suitable arrangements for the care of her child. We conclude that she is.

Plaintiff, Rachel Wegelin, contends that defendant, the Reading Hospital and Medical Center (“Reading Hospital”), violated the FMLA by refusing to grant her leave to find alternative daycare arrangements for her daughter, who suffers from pervasive developmental disorder (“PDD”) and congenital blindness in one eye. Wegelin argues that due to a change in her job conditions, she needed time off work to arrange for a transfer of her daughter, who cannot be left unsupervised, to a different daycare that could accommodate the change in her work schedule.

Reading Hospital moved for summary judgment. It contends that Wegelin was not entitled to FMLA leave because her daughter did not suffer from a “serious health condition” and Wegelin was not “needed to care for” her daughter.

We denied summary judgment because there are genuine issues of fact regarding whether Wegelin’s daughter, Carolyn, had a “serious health condition,” as defined in the FMLA and regulations promulgated under it, and whether Wegelin “needed to care for” her daughter when she had to make arrangements to transfer her to another daycare. We now explain our rationale.

Facts and Procedural Background

Wegelin was employed at the Reading Hospital as a technician assistant since 1997. She was terminated on January 25, 2010, after she failed to report for duty.

In 2003, Wegelin gave birth to Carolyn, who suffers from PDD and congenital blindness in one eye. PDD is an autism spectrum disorder, “characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, repetitive stereotyped patterns of behavior, and uneven intellectual development often with mental retardation.”2 After Carolyn’s birth, Wegelin returned to work full-time, Monday through Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. She enrolled Carolyn in the Bowmansville Mennonite Church Before and After School Program. The daycare’s hours are 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Reading Hospital provides each employee a parking space in one of its garages or parking lots based on various criteria, including seniority, department location, and shift.3 Wegelin was assigned to the Spruce Street parking garage, which was within walking distance to her job location. After she used a purloined parking pass to park at a parking garage that was closer to her department location, Wegelin was disciplined, resulting in the reassignment of her parking space to a remote parking lot, which required her to take a shuttle. .Due to the additional,time needed to get to [424]*424her car, she contends that she was unable to get to Bowmansville to pick up her daughter before the daycare closed. Thus, Wegelin needed to change Carolyn’s daycare center to one that would be open until 6:00 p.m.

On January 18, 2010, Wegelin had a scheduled day off. She did not report to work the rest of the week because she was looking for a daycare center that could take care of Carolyn with her special needs. It is undisputed that she notified her supervisor that she needed time off to find a new daycare. On January 21, 2010, Wegelin was told that she would be allowed to utilize her paid time off for the week of January 18 through 22, 2010, but she was expected to return to work on January 25, 2010. When Wegelin did not report to work on January 25, Reading Hospital terminated her employment.

Summary Judgment

Summary judgment is appropriate if the movant shows “that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a). Judgment will be entered against a party who fails to sufficiently establish any element essential to that party’s case and who bears the ultimate burden of proof at trial. See Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). In examining the motion, we must draw all reasonable inferences in the nonmovant’s favor. InterVest, Inc. v. Bloomberg, L.P., 340 F.3d 144, 159-60 (3d Cir.2003).

The initial burden of demonstrating there are no genuine issues of material fact falls on the moving party. Fed. R.Civ.P. 56(a). Once the moving party has met its burden, the nonmoving party must counter with “ ‘specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial.’ ” Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986) (citation and emphasis omitted). Thus, “[wjhere the record taken as a whole could not lead a rational trier of fact to find for the nonmoving party, there is no ‘genuine issue for trial.’ ” Id. (citation omitted).

Discussion

The FMLA is intended to balance the demands of the workplace with the needs of employees to take reasonable leave for eligible medical conditions and compelling family reasons. 29 U.S.C. § 2601(b)(1) and (2); Conoshenti v. Pub. Serv. Elec. & Gas Co., 364 F.3d 135, 146 (3d Cir.2004). Congress enacted the FMLA in recognition of the growth of “single-parent households and two-parent households in which the single parent or both parents work,” the importance of parental participation “in early childrearing” and “care of family members who have serious health conditions,” the lack of “employment policies to accommodate working parents,” and the inadequacy of “job security for employees who have serious health conditions.” 29 U.S.C. § 2601; Churchill v. Star Enters., 183 F.3d 184, 192 (3d Cir.1999).

Under the FMLA, an eligible employee is entitled to a total of twelve workweeks of leave during any twelve month period “[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). After returning from an FMLA leave, the employee must be reinstated to his or her former position, or an equivalent one. 29 U.S.C. § 2614(a)(1).

An employer may not interfere with an employee’s exercise of an FMLA right, nor may an employer discriminate against an employee for exercising or attempting to exercise this right. 29 U.S.C.

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909 F. Supp. 2d 421, 2012 WL 5962444, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 169343, 96 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 44,687, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wegelin-v-reading-hospital-medical-center-paed-2012.