Legal Alert: Ohio's New Military Family Leave Law Takes Effect on July 2, 2010

Starting Friday, July 2, 2010, Ohio Revised Code Chapter 5906 requires Ohio employers with 50 or more employees to provide leave for employees who are a spouse or parent of a member of the military who is called to active duty or is injured or hospitalized while serving on active duty.

What the law requires:
Once per calendar year, an employer must allow an employee to take leave up to 10 days or 80 hours, whichever is less, if all of the following conditions are satisfied:

• The employer has employed the employee for at least 12 consecutive months and for at least 1,250 hours in the 12 months immediately preceding commencement of the leave.
• The employee is the parent, spouse, or a person who has or had legal custody of a person who is a member of the uniformed services and who is called into active duty in the uniformed services for a period longer than 30 days or is injured, wounded, or hospitalized while serving on active duty in the uniformed services.
• The employee gives notice to the employer that the employee intends to take leave pursuant to this section at least 14 days prior to taking the leave if the leave is being taken because of a call to active duty or at least 2 days prior to taking the leave if the leave is being taken because of an injury, wound, or hospitalization. If the employee receives notice from a representative of the uniformed services that the injury, wound, or hospitalization is of a critical or life-threatening nature, the employee may take the leave without providing notice to the employer.
• The dates on which the employee takes leave occur no more than 2 weeks prior to or 1 week after the deployment date of the employee’s spouse, child, or ward.
• The employee does not have any other leave available for the employee’s use except sick leave or disability leave.

The employer must continue to provide benefits to the employee during the period of time the employee is on leave, although the employee is responsible for the same proportion of the cost of the benefits as the employee regularly pays. The employer is not required to pay salary or wages to the employee during the leave.

Upon the completion of the leave, the employer must restore the employee to the position held prior to taking that leave or a position with equivalent seniority, benefits, pay, and other terms and conditions of employment.

An employer may require an employee requesting leave to provide certification from the appropriate military authority to verify that the employee satisfies the criteria for leave.

What the law prohibits:
An employer may not interfere with, restrain, or deny the exercise or attempted exercise of the leave.

An employer may not discharge, fine, suspend, expel, discipline, or discriminate against an employee with respect to any term or condition of employment because of the employee’s actual or potential exercise, or support for another employee’s exercise of leave rights.

An employer cannot ask an employee to waive leave rights or enter into a collective bargaining agreement or employee benefit plan that limits or requires an employee to waive leave rights.

Available remedies:
Employees may bring a civil action for injunctive relief or any other relief that a court finds necessary to secure leave rights.

For more information about this Alert, please contact a KMK Labor & Employment attorney.

KMK Legal Alerts are intended to bring attention to developments in the law and are not intended as legal advice for any particular client nor any particular situation.  Please consult with counsel of your choice regarding any specific questions you may have.

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