Men can be fired for taking paternity leave | Hacker News Reader

Men can be fired for taking paternity leave

boingboing.net

65 pointsmring3362129 comments

This is a trial court decision (and I'm going to guess an unpublished one, but even if it were published it would have no binding effect on other cases). And I'd expect this to get struck down if appealed if the description here is correct. Whether or not the ruling on pregnancy discrimination is correct (which seems likely), the ruling on FMLA retaliation described could not be more obviously incorrect: being fired to taking the leave, whether or not one was allowed to take the leave, is bright-line prohibited retaliation.

EDIT: Having gone from the linked article to it's source to the actual decision text, I think the decision is fine, and it looks like there is some real incompetence on the part of plaintiff's counsel, given the factual allegations.

(1) despite describing what is plainly FMLA retaliation, plaintiff claimed interference with FMLA rights, not retaliation.

(2) On both the FMLA claims and the one state law claim the Court addresses directly, plaintiff failed to counter the defenses motion to dismiss, permitting the court to dismiss the claims without even evaluating the arguments.

I kind of wonder if the plaintiff here was a pro se litigant or if they just hired completely incompetent counsel? Because it looks like, given the alleged facts, it was a slam dunk case that was lost because the plaintiff made claims that were close to, but just off of, the right ones in some cases, and also failed to either stand up for or seek to amend them when the defense responded.

It's distressing how much your choice of a lawyer affects your life. I would have absolutely no idea how to go about choosing an FMLA lawyer.

It's true that you often make choices in life based on insufficient information, but this isn't like picking an auto mechanic who screws up your engine. The engine doesn't look at you and say, "Well, you picked the wrong guy, so I'm not going to start". There's a judge here who is watching the lawyer screw it up, then clutches their pearls and declares that they're just ruling on the lawyer's performance.

It's a deliberately antagonistic system, and the consequences are people's lives. You absolutely, positively cannot engage in it yourself because you don't know how -- but neither do you generally know how to choose somebody to do it on your behalf, either. And even if you get "close to, but just off of, the right one", you lose -- even though there are at least two other human beings involved (the judge and the opposing counsel) who could nudge you in the right direction. They've deliberately conceived the entire setup to make that impossible.

That is such a terribly written article.

From what I could piece together the court didn't rule "Men can be fired for taking paternity leave" it ruled that men are not protected under Title VII pregnancy discrimination laws.

He can still sue under FMLA discrimination which the judge didn't rule on, likely because his lawyers didn't bring up the correct technical arguments.

> Buchwald also found that Van Soeren's FMLA claim fails because he was able to take his paternity leave "without incident" and declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state law claims.

Is that insufficient?

It would seem to cover it, but when you go to the actual ruling, he sued for FMLA interference, not retaliation, which the judge expressly calls out as a claim that could have been but was not made (and failed to counter the defense motion to dismiss the FMLA claim.)

The irony isn't lost on me that a company obsessed with cultivating an image of family friendliness punished an employee trying to start a family.

to be fair. a company this large probably has pockets of "bad culture" and pockets of "good culture". I would say that this team/org has a problem in its toxicity

To be fair, companies don't get to make that excuse. Having pockets of bad is the definition of a bad company.

i’m not disagree with you, just pointing out that by that definition all companies above a certain size are bad

The direct source cited in the current link (which somewhat better coverage and directly links the decision) is this Hollywood Reporter piece, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/disney-beats-pregn...

> Could universal paid parental leave finally be the issue that unites Men's Rights Activists and Actual Normal Gender Equality Activists?

Going by how well Men's Rights Activists and Feminists have gotten along when it comes to equality for men and women, I'm going to say no.

Something doesn’t seem right about this story. Good employees don’t get fired over 2 week leave in my experience. Why would HR go along with this? Seems like there is probably more to this that isn’t being reported on.

My mom once got fired for taking contractually guaranteed unpaid 4 weeks' leave that employees were promised after 7 years as an employee. She landed a better job almost instantly, and generally is the kind of person you'd describe to be a model employee. With companies, especially when they get large and impersonal, logic isn't always at play.

the work environment sounds toxic AF.

Also, the judge ruled on title VII.

Here is what should have been considered: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fmla

It's 12 weeks unpaid under FMLA.

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/77b-fmla-protec...

The question is: did he attempt to take FMLA?

By his description, he took FMLA, was fired after he came back for taking it, which would be textbook FMLA retaliation.

But he claimed FMLA interference, not retaliation, which the judge called out in dismissing the FMLA claim.

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