White v. Beltram Edge Tool Supply, Inc.

• Decision Date: 12 June 2015
• Docket Number: No. 14–11750.,14–11750.
• Citation: 789 F.3d 1188
• Parties: Regina WHITE, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. BELTRAM EDGE TOOL SUPPLY, INC., Defendant–Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

789 F.3d 1188

Regina WHITE, Plaintiff–Appellant

v.BELTRAM EDGE TOOL SUPPLY, INC., Defendant–Appellee.

No. 14–11750.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

June 12, 2015.

Merette L. Oweis, John R. Dixon, Dixon & Associates, Tampa, FL, for Plaintiff–Appellant.

Gregory A. Hearing, Thompson Sizemore Gonzalez & Hearing, PA, Tampa, FL, for Defendant–Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

Before MARTIN and ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judges, and COOGLER,^* District Judge.

Opinion

MARTIN, Circuit Judge:

This appeal presents several questions about the proper application of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993. Regena White¹ sued her former employer, Beltram Edge Tool Supply, Inc., claiming that it interfered with her rights under the FMLA by firing her instead of giving her medical leave. The District Court granted summary judgment for Beltram, finding that Ms. White's interference claim failed as a matter of law. The Court also declined to consider two alternative causes of action because Ms. White had not stated them in her complaint. After the benefit of oral argument, we conclude that the District Court erred by dismissing Ms. White's interference claim and by declining to consider one of her two alternative causes of action. We affirm in part and reverse in part.

This opinion proceeds in four Parts: Part I outlines the general legal background; Part II discusses the facts relevant to Ms. White's appeal; Part III analyzes the legal questions relevant to Ms. White's interference claim; and Part IV considers the two alternative causes of action dismissed by the District Court.

I. Legal Background

The Family and Medical Leave Act confers several rights on employees, including two relevant here: the right to take twelve weeks of job leave “[b]ecause of a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the functions” of her job, 29 U.S.C. § 2612(a)(1), (a)(1)(D) ; and the right to be reinstated to her original job (or an equivalent) after FMLA leave, id. § 2614(a)(1).

To protect these rights, the FMLA creates a private right of action. If an employer interferes with an employee's FMLA rights, she may sue for equitable relief or money damages. Hurlbert v. St. Mary's Health Care Sys., Inc., 439 F.3d 1286, 1293 (11th Cir.2006). This archetypal FMLA claim is often called an “interference claim,” because the “employee asserts that [her] employer denied or otherwise interfered with [her] substantive rights under” the FMLA. Id. (emphasis added) (quotation omitted). An interference claim has two elements: (1) the employee was entitled to a benefit under the FMLA, and (2) her employer denied her that benefit. Krutzig v. Pulte Home Corp., 602 F.3d 1231, 1235 (11th Cir.2010).²

The first element is the crux of this appeal. There is no dispute about the second. Beltram clearly denied Ms. White two FMLA benefits when it fired her: it denied her FMLA leave, see § 2612, and it refused to reinstate her, see § 2614. But the District Court held on summary judgment that Ms. White had not shown that she was entitled to FMLA leave in the first place, so her interference claim failed. It granted summary judgment for Beltram. We conclude that summary judgment was not appropriately granted.

II. Facts & Procedural History

On summary judgment, we “view the facts and draw reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the party opposing the summary judgment motion,” here, Ms. White. See Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 378, 127 S.Ct. 1769, 1774, 167 L.Ed.2d 686 (2007) (quotations omitted) (alteration adopted).

Ms. White's need for FMLA leave was based on an injury to her knee

. She first injured her knee in April 2010, about ten months before she requested FMLA leave. At the time, an orthopedist prescribed physical therapy and told her she may need surgery if her knee remained unstable. She was able to work for nearly the rest of 2010 despite her knee injury. Ms. White stopped reporting for work on December 23, but her absences were due to other health issues. She called in to Beltram over the next few weeks and explained that she was absent because she was suffering from various maladies: bronchitis, sleep apnea, hypertension, shortness of breath, chest pain, and anxiety.

On January 27, 2011, still absent from work, Ms. White visited her primary care physician and reported that she had fallen twice the previous weekend, reinjuring the same knee. This reinjury and the necessary treatment formed the basis of her need for FMLA leave.³

The day after reinjuring her knee, January 28, Ms. White spoke with two Beltram supervisors. She told Jim Reeverts, her direct supervisor, that her “knee gave out and it was painful and [she] could put [sic] any weight on it and received a referral from [her primary care physician] to go to an orthopedic physician.”⁴ She also spoke with Xiomara Polewaski, Beltram's Executive Vice President of Operations, and asked for FMLA paperwork. Ms. Polewaski sent Ms. White a physician's certification form and told her that it was due fifteen days later, on February 12. See 29 C.F.R. § 825.305(b) (requiring an employee seeking FMLA leave to give certification of her medical condition “to the employer within 15 calendar days after the employer's request, unless it is not practicable ... to do so” or “the employer provides more than 15 calendar days”).

On February 8, Ms. White saw her orthopedist and signed a consent form for a knee operation. But she was not able to complete the FMLA paperwork on that day because her orthopedist was himself taking a leave of absence, and she was transferred to another doctor. On February 11, one day before the stated deadline for returning the FMLA paperwork to Beltram, Ms. White contacted Ms. Polewaski, explained the situation involving the orthopedists, and asked for an extension of the fifteen-day deadline. Ms. Polewaski testified that Ms. White said the FMLA certification would be a couple of days late, so she “grant[ed] [Ms. White] a couple of extra days ... and ... told her to get the form [in] as soon as possible.” Ms. Polewaski did not give a specific due date.

At the same time, Ms. Polewaski told Ms. White to send doctor's notes explaining her absences since December 27. Ms. White responded by sending two doctors' notes. On one, completed on January 18, Ms. White's doctor wrote that she was “under [the doctor's] care from 12–28–10 to 1–24–11.” The second note, completed on January 24, indicated that Ms. White would “be able to return to [work] on 1–31–11.”

On February 17, shortly after receiving the two doctor's notes, Beltram fired Ms. White.⁵ Ms. Polewaski, who, along with her supervisor, decided to fire Ms. White, said she was “shocked” because the doctor's notes appeared to show Ms. White was cleared to return to work on January 31, but Ms. White had not returned nearly two weeks later and gave no explanation for her continued absence. Ms. Polewaski testified that when the decision was made to fire Ms. White, she still had not received Ms. White's FMLA paperwork, which she had expected by February 15. But according to Ms. White, she faxed the FMLA form to Beltram on February 16. The form indicated that Ms. White's knee injury

, the planned surgery, and post-operative rehabilitation would make her unable to perform her job from January 28 to April 28—a period of almost thirteen weeks.

A letter sent to Ms. White explained why she was fired. It said her doctor's notes indicated she was “able to return to work, without restrictions, on January 31, 2011[,] but ... never did return to work.” It went on: “Additionally, you have failed to return, within the 15 calendar days granted by law, the FMLA form that was e-mailed to you on January 28, 2011.” Ms. Polewaski explained to Ms. White by phone that she was fired because Beltram “made a business decision ... because [it] did not receive [her] paperwork.”

Ms. White underwent knee surgery on March 7. About a year later, on March 30, 2012, her surgeon signed a letter stating that Ms. White recovered “extremely well” from her surgery and could have returned to work on March 28, 2011—nearly a month earlier than the original estimate, and well within the twelve weeks guaranteed by the FMLA.

Ms. White filed suit against Beltram in state court in January 2013. Beltram removed the case to the District Court for the Middle District of Florida, and moved for summary judgment. The District Court granted summary judgment for Beltram. In its order, the District Court held that Ms. White had failed to create a genuine dispute of fact showing that she was entitled to leave, so her claim that Beltram interfered with her FMLA rights failed as a matter of law.

The District Court ruled that Ms. White was not entitled to FMLA leave—and thus could not show the first element of an interference claim—for three reasons: she did not suffer from a serious health condition; she did not give proper notice of her need for FMLA leave; and she requested more than twelve weeks of leave. In addition to dismissing her interference claim, the District Court also declined to consider two alternative causes of action advanced by Ms. White for the first time on summary judgment: that Beltram failed to comply with FMLA's employer-notice requirements, and that Beltram retaliated against her for exercising her rights under the FMLA. The District Court explained that Ms. White had not pleaded these two claims in her complaint and could not raise them for the first time at summary judgment. Ms. White appeals each of these rulings.

We review de novo the District Court's grant of summary judgment. Jurich v. Compass Marine, Inc., 764 F.3d 1302, 1304 (11th Cir.2014) (per curiam). Summary judgment is appropriate if “the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a).

III. Interference Claim

Viewing the evidence in the light most...