Joan Gale Quoted in Business Insurance

Joan Gale is quoted in a December 11 Business Insurance article (“Dept. of Labor not expected to make FMLA alterations”) on whether the U.S. Department of Labor is expected to make any changes to the Family and Medical Leave Act and its regulations. Many are pessimistic that the department is likely to take action, given the DOL's failure to do anything so far, such as when it was expected to issue new regulations following the U.S. Supreme Court's 2002 decision in Ragsdale vs. Wolverine World Wide Inc., but never did. That opinion struck down a DOL regulation that if an employee takes leave and the employer does not designate the leave as FMLA, the leave cannot be counted against an employee's entitlement to 12 weeks of FMLA leave.

"I'm not really confident they're going to do that much, but who knows? I could be wrong," said Joan E. Gale, an attorney with Seyfarth Shaw LLP. in Chicago.

Some observers say that if the Department of Labor takes any action at all, it is likely to be in response to the Wolverine decision.