Brown v. Auto. Components Holdings Llc.
| Decision Date | 08 September 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. 09-1641.,09-1641. |
| Citation | 622 F.3d 685 |
| Parties | Letecia D. BROWN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. AUTOMOTIVE COMPONENTS HOLDINGS, LLC, and Ford Motor Company, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
622 F.3d 685
Letecia D. BROWN, Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
AUTOMOTIVE COMPONENTS HOLDINGS, LLC, and Ford Motor Company, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 09-1641.
United States Court of Appeals,Seventh Circuit.
Argued Nov. 9, 2009.
Decided Sept. 8, 2010.
Denise K. Larue (argued), Haskin & Larue, LLP, Indianapolis, IN, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Ericka D. McCaskill, Timothy S. Millman (argued), Berkowitz, Oliver, Williams, Shaw & Eisenbrandt, LLP, Kansas City, MO, for Defendants-Appellees.
Before EVANS and SYKES, Circuit Judges, and DER-YEGHIAYAN, District Judge. *
SYKES, Circuit Judge.
Letecia Brown, an assembly-line worker at a Ford Motor Company plant in Indianapolis, was terminated for being absent from work without properly following Ford's leave policies and procedures. She filed suit for sex discrimination and retaliatory termination under Title VII and interference with her rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”), 29 U.S.C. § 2601 et seq. The district court dismissed her sex-discrimination claim, and Brown voluntarily dismissed her retaliation claim, leaving only the FMLA claim before the district court. The court initially denied Ford's motion for summary judgment on this remaining claim, but Ford moved for reconsideration, noting a factual misunderstanding in the court's summary-judgment decision. The court agreed and reversed itself, entering summary judgment dismissing Brown's FMLA claim. Brown appealed.
We affirm. Brown's appeal addresses only the FMLA claim, and summary judgment in favor of Ford on that claim was entirely appropriate. The undisputed facts establish that Brown was absent without leave after failing to give proper FMLA notice for an extension of a previously requested leave period. Specifically, under the FMLA rules then in effect, Brown had two working days in which to give Ford notice that she intended to extend her leave, see 29 C.F.R. § 825.303(a) (2007), and she failed to do so. Further, an employer is entitled to adhere to its own leave policies and procedures when doing so does not otherwise violate the FMLA. Ford's termination of Brown's employment based on her noncompliance with its internal leave procedures did not violate the FMLA.
In December 1998 Brown started working for Ford at the Indianapolis Visteon Plant, where she held several different assembly-line positions. As an hourly employee, Brown was subject to the leave policies of the plant as modified by the Collective Bargaining Agreement (“CBA”). Under the terms of the CBA, an employee seeking medical leave must have a doctor fill out a form-called “Form 5166”-and return it to the plant's Medical Clinic by the date the leave is to expire. 1 If the employee fails to return the form on time, she will be “coded as AWOL.” 2 An employee seeking an extension of medical leave will also be deemed AWOL if she does not return the form by the ending date of her initial period of leave. 3 In accordance with the CBA, once an employee has gone AWOL, she is sent a five-day quit notice by registered mail. The quit notice states that the employee will be terminated unless within five working days she reports to work or explains in writing or by phone the reason for the absence. If the employee chooses to explain the absence over the phone, she must request a “call-in code number.” Disputes regarding the procedural requirements of the quit notice are subject to the United Auto Workers' (“UAW”) grievance procedures.
Brown went to the Clinic on August 11, 2006, to request medical leave and was given the Form 5166 leave form. Her primary-care physician, Dr. Joyce Bilby, faxed the completed form to the Clinic on August 21, stating that the reason for the leave was “stress.” The form indicated that her “return to work date” was August 29; therefore, her leave was to expire on August 28. While Brown was on leave, Dr. Bilby referred her to Dr. James Shoot, a psychiatrist. However, the earliest appointment Brown could get with Dr. Shoot was August 29-the same day she was to return to work. To cover the one-day
extension of her leave, Brown sent a fax to Dr. Bilby's office on August 21, asking that additional paperwork be sent to the Clinic. She did not follow up, however, and the Clinic never received a leave form extending Brown's leave request through August 29.
Brown saw Dr. Shoot as scheduled on August 29, at which time she was diagnosed with depression. Dr. Shoot recommended that she rest and not return to work until September 16 and scheduled a follow-up appointment on September 11. Brown says that she called the Clinic on August 30 and spoke with Nurse Angela Diguilio. Ford has no record of this call. On Brown's version of events, she told Diguilio that her doctor had extended her leave to September 16, and the nurse said she would place a leave form at the Clinic for Brown to pick up.
Brown did not immediately do so, and because she had not submitted a Form 5166 extending her leave through August 29, her leave expired as scheduled on August 28. On August 31 Ford sent a quit notice to Brown via certified mail, informing her that she would be terminated unless she reported to work within five business days or provided proper verification of her illness. Brown's union representative also sent her a copy of the quit notice by certified mail on August 31. Brown did not pick up either of these letters until after she was terminated, though she admits she knew there was certified mail waiting for her at the post office.
On September 6 Brown went to the Clinic and spoke with Nurse Irene Rice. Brown showed Rice a hand-written note from Dr. Shoot stating, “This person will require a medically excused absence from work until 9/16/06.” Rice then gave her a leave form to fill out, and Brown left with the form and Dr. Shoot's note in hand. Brown also claims that she called the Clinic sometime after September 6 and spoke with a nurse. According to Brown, she informed the nurse that she could not return a completed leave form until September 11 because she was not going to see her doctor until then. She says the nurse told her to “[j]ust get the paperwork in as soon as possible.”
Brown had her follow-up appointment with Dr. Shoot on September 11, and that same day she learned she had been terminated. On September 12 Brown faxed a completed leave form to the Clinic. The following day, September 13, the UAW filed a grievance on her behalf, but later withdrew it because Brown had not followed the plant's leave procedures. Brown then filed this suit against Ford, Automotive Components Holdings, LLC, and Visteon Corporation for sex discrimination and retaliatory discharge under Title VII and interference with her FMLA rights. The district court dismissed the sex-discrimination claim and also dismissed Visteon Corporation as a defendant. 3 Responding to Ford's motion for summary judgment, Brown voluntarily dismissed her retaliation claim, leaving only the FMLA claim before the district court.
The court initially denied Ford's summary-judgment motion on this claim, finding material facts in dispute. The court assumed that Brown's leave was FMLA-qualifying, but held there were material facts in dispute regarding whether Brown
had a serious medical condition and whether she had provided Ford with sufficient notice of her intent to take FMLA leave. The court also held, however, that Brown's August 30 phone call to Diguilio provided sufficient notice of her intent to extend her FMLA leave because it occurred within two working days of the expiration of her initial leave on August 28, as required by FMLA regulations.
Ford filed a motion for reconsideration, arguing that the court had committed a manifest error in calculating the two-day notice period for an extension of Brown's leave from August 28, the day Brown's initial leave was scheduled to expire. Ford pointed out to the court that the FMLA regulations in effect at that time provided that employees must give notice “within no more than one or two working days of learning of the need for leave ”-not within two...
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