That is the question the Minnesota Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on November 1, 2011. At issue in the case is whether the plaintiff, Ms. Hansen, sufficiently put her employer on notice that she was requesting leave under Minnesota's Parental Leave Act (MPLA), which provides for a minimum of six weeks of unpaid leave to certain employees in Minnesota for pregnancy and childbirth. It also requires that those employees be returned to their former position upon completion of their leave. It is undisputed that Ms. Hansen's leave request forms identified "maternity" as the reason for her leave. I assume that she also discussed the fact she was pregnant with her supervisors and that her physical appearance may have provided a hint as to the type of leave she was requesting. The Defendant, Robert Half International, Inc. (RHI), claims that Ms. Hansen did not do enough to put it on notice that she was requesting leave under the MPLA. At issue is what is necessary to put an employer on notice that an employee is requesting leave under the MPLA.
I suspect that the court took this case because many other cases involving requests for leave and accommodations in the workplace do not require the type of formality the lower courts in this case required of the employee to invoke the MPLA. For example, an employee is only required to give the employer enough information to put them on notice that an employee is requesting leave under the Family Medical Leave Act or seeking a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Moreover, the United States Supreme Court recently held that a verbal report under the Fair Labor Standards Act was sufficient to invoke the anti-retaliation provisions of that statute.
Stay tuned and we will find out how this one comes out.
