California was the first state in the country to pass a paid family leave law. While federal law and the laws of many states had previously granted time off for family and medical reasons, the time off was unpaid.
To be eligible for benefits, California employees must have earned $300 or more in wages during a 12-month base period preceding the claim. These wages must have been subject to withholdings for the state’s disability insurance program. However, there is no requirement that the employee work for an employer of a certain size. Because these requirements are relatively easy to meet, most workers in California will be eligible for paid family leave.
Employees must also take leave for one of the following covered reasons:
Paid family leave is not available when an employee takes leave for his or her own illness. However, for short-term disabilities—including pregnancy and other medical conditions—the employee may be able to collect state short-term disability benefits. For more information, see California Short-Term Disability Benefits.
The California paid family leave program provides partial wage replacements to employees for a limited amount of time. Employees will receive 60-70% of their average weekly earnings, up to a maximum set by state law. As of January 1, 2023, the maximum weekly benefit is $1,620.
Benefits are paid for a maximum of eight weeks, and benefits can start on your first day off work.
Your employer may require you to use up to two weeks of paid leave (vacation or sick leave, for example) before starting to receive benefits. If your employer has a policy like this, one of the weeks of paid leave will count as your waiting period.
You can apply for California's paid family leave by completing a claim form provided by your employer or through the California Employment Development Department’s online filing system. The EDD recommends filing online for the quickest processing. To get started, check out the EDD’s step-by-step guide on how to file a claim online.
If you are taking leave to care for a sick family member, you will need to get a certification from your family member’s doctor. When you submit your claim to the EDD, you will receive a form receipt number. The doctor will need this form number in order to submit a certification in support of your claim.
For bonding leave, new mothers who have already applied for state disability insurance benefits for pregnancy and childbirth are not required to submit documentation. However, all other parents will need to provide evidence of the child’s birth, adoption, or foster care placement.
You must file your application within 49 after the date you started your leave. Otherwise, you may lose your right to collect benefits. To avoid this, it’s best to file your claim on the day you start your leave.
The paid family leave program only gives employees the right to collect benefits; it does not provide job protection. This means that you can collect benefits from the state, but your employer may not be required to give you the time off or keep your job for you while you are on leave.
However, other state and federal laws may offer the right to take leave and reinstatement after the leave is over. For example, employers with 50 or more employees must provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid family leave to employees under the Family and Medical Leave Act and the California Family Rights Act.
California’s pregnancy disability leave law also requires employers with five or more employees to provide protected time off for a pregnancy-related disability (although not for bonding leave). To learn more about these laws, see Family and Medical Leave in California.
More cities and states are considering passing paid family leave laws. Your city’s laws may provide additional rights. For example, San Francisco passed a paid family leave law that requires employers with 20 or more employees to supplement the state’s paid family leave pay so that employees receive 100% of their wages for eight weeks.
Updated August 14, 2023
]]>Colds and other minor health concerns don't typically qualify for FMLA leave; the law is intended to provide time off only for more serious ailments. As you'll see, however, the rules about what does and does not qualify as a serious health condition can get a bit complicated.
The FMLA divides serious health conditions for which FMLA leave may be taken into these six categories:
Find out everything you need to know about the FMLA with Nolo's book The Essential Guide to Family & Medical Leave.
A condition that requires inpatient care—in other words, an overnight stay—at a hospital, hospice, or residential care facility qualifies as a serious health condition covered by the FMLA.
An employee is entitled to FMLA leave for the time spent receiving inpatient care and for any period of incapacity or subsequent treatment connected to that inpatient care.
Someone who is incapacitated (unable to work, attend school, or perform other regular daily activities) for more than three days also has a serious health condition, if the person requires continuing treatment from a health care provider. The three days need not be business days, but they must be consecutive.
The "continuing treatment" part of the definition can be met in one of two ways. A person qualifies is either of these is true:
An employee who is unable to work or perform other regular, daily activities due to pregnancy has a serious health condition. An employee need not be out for more than three days nor actually visit a doctor to qualify for time off under this subcategory.
Visits to the doctor for prenatal care are also covered. The employee need not be incapacitated or suffering from medical complications to qualify; leave can be used even for routine check-ups.
Some ongoing impairments require occasional time off, but the employee isn't always incapacitated or being seen by a doctor. These chronic conditions are covered by the FMLA if:
Conditions that may qualify in this category include diabetes, epilepsy, or asthma.
An employee who is incapacitated permanently or for the long term by a condition that is not necessarily amenable to treatment has a serious health condition, as long as the employee is under the supervision of a health care provider. Terminal cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and advanced ALS would likely fall into this category.
An employee who must miss work for multiple treatments has a serious health condition if the treatments are for:
Surgery to reset a broken limb or repair a torn ligament might fit the first definition. Dialysis or cancer treatment would likely fit the second.
Mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, and bipolar disorder can qualify an employee for FMLA leave. But as with physical illnesses and injuries, the employee's (or family member's) mental health condition must require any of the following:
Your employer can require you to provide certification of your condition from your health care provider, although a formal diagnosis is not necessarily required.
For more information, check out the Department of Labor's fact sheet on the FMLA and mental health conditions.
The FMLA doesn't definitively state that particular illness or diseases are always, or never, serious health condition. Instead, the facts of each situation must be considered on their own.
After all, one person's bout with bronchitis might result in a missed day of work and some coughing; another person's might result in an extended hospital stay for pneumonia. In this case, the first person would not have a serious health condition, but the second would.
Nonetheless, there are certain ailments that don't typically qualify as serious health conditions, including:
Even these conditions aren't automatically excluded from coverage. After all, a headache might be caused by minor eye strain -- or by a cancerous brain tumor. The facts always dictate whether a particular employee's situation constitutes a serious health condition or not.
An employee must meet the following three conditions to be eligible for FMLA leave:
Most requests for FMLA leave are approved without incident. But you might want to contact an employment attorney if any of the following happen to you:
A knowledgeable employment attorney can negotiate with your employer on your behalf and, if necessary, file a lawsuit or a claim with your state's labor department.
]]>My employer offers annual bonuses to employees who meet certain work goals. At the beginning of the year, each employee meets with the manager and sets goals to accomplish for the year. Any employee who meets his or her work goals is given a $5,000 bonus at the end of the year. I’ve been working for most of the year, but I went on FMLA leave in November. Bonuses are usually handed out in December. Can I still receive a bonus even though I’m on leave? What about if I eventually go on maternity leave?
Under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), an employee who takes leave is entitled to be reinstated to the same job or an equivalent one, with the same pay and benefits, upon returning to work. This means that you're entitled to any automatic raises or bonuses that are awarded while you're on FMLA leave. However, when a bonus is performance-based, the rules are a bit different.
When a bonus is conditional upon meeting some type of goal, such as attendance or achieving a certain number in sales, and the employee doesn't meet the goal because he or she was on FMLA leave, the employer doesn't have to award the bonus.
There is one exception to this rule: If the employer awards bonuses to employees who don't meet the goal because they were on a different type of leave that is not FMLA-protected, the employer must award the bonus to employees on FMLA leave as well. In other words, employers must treat employees on FMLA leave the same as employees on other types of leave.
In your case, whether or not you're entitled to the bonus depends on whether you met your goals before you went on FMLA leave in November. For example, if your goal was to increase your sales by 10% and you achieved that goal before going on leave, you will qualify for the bonus. On the other hand, if you were able to achieve an increase of only 9% by the time you went on leave, you may not be entitled to the bonus. You'll be entitled to the bonus only if your employer is handing out bonuses to employees who are on other types of leave and didn't quite meet their goals.
If your employer offers maternity leave, ask your human resources department how taking leave affects raises and bonuses, both discretionary and automatic. In general, employers are free to structure benefits such as maternity leave as they see fit, as long as their policies are not discriminatory.
Example. If your employer offers annual bonuses for high performers, it shouldn't deny you your entire bonus just because you took advantage of its six-week maternity leave policy. Instead, it should prorate the bonus based on how much time you took off—or simply award your entire bonus.
A few states offer paid parental leave. In those states, the paid leave laws generally don't address whether a person who takes parental leave must receive an automatic raise or bonus. However, employers must apply their policies in a way that avoids unlawful sex-based or pregnancy-based discrimination. And employees might be protected by other laws, such as the federal FMLA or a state equivalent.
If your employer has denied you an automatic raise or bonus while you've been on FMLA leave, consider contacting an employment attorney to discuss your legal options.
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