Employment lawyers and other legal professionals want to make sure you know the basics of CA maternity leave. Navigating the laws surrounding maternity leave can be a daunting process for any new parent. Even with so many resources available online, it can be hard to sift through vague explanations and get to the root of the issue. That’s why the team of employment lawyers at ABC Law Firm has put together an easy-to-follow guide that explains the key aspects of California’s maternity leave laws. Before diving into the specifics, let’s start by dispelling the myth that maternity leave is a workplace ‘right’.
Contrary to popular belief, it is not automatically given to all expectant mothers. The law actually provides certain protections to workers in certain circumstances. It is critical to understand and follow these principles correctly in order to get the greatest potential results. When it comes to CA maternity leave, there are a few whistle-at-work rules that must be followed. This blog article will go through the intricacies of the subject as well as offer useful hints for navigating the procedure. Our objective at ABC Law Firm is to provide employees with the knowledge they need to ensure their rights are properly protected. Whether you are expecting a bundle of joy or already have a sweet little one at home, this guide will help you understand the basics of CA maternity leave.
- Paid Family Leave
- Family Medical Leave Act
- Pregnancy Discrimination
maternity leave
Maternity leave is complicated. This article will make it simple. Stick around because I’m going to explain all the basic laws that pregnant employees in California need to know.
Generally, yes, employers must let women take maternity leave, but the law is not that simple, so let’s take a look.
Family Medical Leave Act California
The Family Medical Leave Act, or FMLA, is first on our list.
FMLA is a federal law that allows women to take 12 weeks of maternity leave in any 12-month period and you don’t have to take it all at once you can take it intermittently which means you can take the lead as you need to take a week here a week there depending on your needs now fmy isn’t just for the ladies men if you have a child and you want to take a couple of weeks off weeks after the baby is born to bond with that child under FMLA you are allowed to very important thing to know about FMLA is that when you’re taking maternity leave it is unpaid but in the state of California we have this cool thing called paid family leave so stick around you’re going to want to learn a little bit more about this because what exactly does FMLA allow you to take? Maternity leave is unpaid, but in California we have this cool thing called paid family leave, so stick around you’re going to want to learn a little bit more about that so what exactly does FMLA allow you to take leave for what is maternity leave mean well you can take leave for prenatal care obviously you can take leave for childbirth bonding with that child after the baby is born and most importantly you can take a leave of action for pregnancy disability but Finally, You can take a leave of absence under FMLA to care for a foster kid who is put in your home, or you can take a leave of absence if you adopt a child.
Now, what’s really important to know is that FMLA doesn’t apply to all employers in the United States; it only applies to employers that have 50 or more employees within a 75-mile radius of your place of work. So if you work at an office within 75 miles that’s got 50 or more employees, FMLA applies to that employer.
They have to let you take your leave of absence, and they have to hold your job open for when you come back. Also equally important is that you have to have worked for that company for at least 12 months, and during those 12 months, you must have put in at least 1,250 hours, which is a little bit more than basic part-time Finally, there’s another law out there that a lot of people hear about, which is the California Family Rights Act (CFRA), which is the California State equivalent to FMLA and largely mirrors that statute. The only deviations that are there aren’t that important for a basic
pregnancy disability leave California 2023
This is all about when a woman becomes disabled as a result of her pregnancy. This wonderful California law lets women take a leave of absence up to four months long to deal with any disability stemming from the pregnancy. The great thing about this law is that it is unlike FMLA, which requires 50 employees. This law applies to all employers in California that have five or more employees, so if you were denied maternity leave under FMLA, you still might be able to get a leave of absence under the pregnancy disability leave law because you apply, but what’s necessary is that you’re disabled. Let’s talk about that in a minute. Just like FMLA, you can take this leave of absence intermittently. Just like FMLA, it’s unpaid, but again, we’re going to talk about paid maternity leave in a minute.
Your employer can ask you for proof. Well, what the heck does proof mean? Generally, a doctor’s never right, but your doctor doesn’t need to tell the employer what your disability is.
Your doctor just needs to certify that you’re unable to perform the essential functions of the job, so what exactly is a disability under this law? Well, if you’re unable to perform the essential functions of the job due to a disability stemming from your pregnancy, that can be a disability, or if your doctor certifies that working as you’re working, doing those job duties, or in that environment would pose an undue risk to the successful completion of your pregnancy, you might be considered disabled. Here are some examples of practical examples that people can catch onto: let’s say you have severe morning sickness, your doctor orders bed rest for two months due to a complication, or you have preeclampsia or severe postpartum depression. All of those could be considered a disability under this law.
Now, what’s really important to know is that if you have a disability but you could perform the essential functions of your job if your employer would change your job just a little bit, that’s called a reasonable accommodation. pregnancy disability leave lets you ask for reasonable accommodations to let you continue working, and if your employer denies that they break the law, what do I mean by this? Let’s say you asked for modified duties or modified hours to deal with your disability, or you asked for a temporary transfer out of an unsafe work environment, which could be a reasonable accommodation.
Let’s say you ask for a longer break or a chair to rest on during your breaks. Now, as long as any of those requests are reasonable under the reasonable person standard, What a jury would think if the employer refuses to give you that accommodation is that they break the law, which is actually pregnancy discrimination, which we’re going to talk about in a minute because California is the greatest state in the Union and we have paid family leave.
Paid Family Leave 2023
Generally, every single person who receives a paycheck pays into state disability insurance; it gets deducted from their paycheck; it’s generally on your pay stub; and in the state of California, the EDD will pay women fifty-five percent of their wages for six weeks. While I’m attorney Lee, as of 2017, the upper limit as to what the EDD will pay people per week is one thousand, one hundred and seventy-three dollars. There’s a wonderful law that lets women sometimes take a longer maternity leave so that they can spend more time bonding with their child. Every pregnant woman in the state of California needs to know about pregnancy discrimination.
Pregnancy Discrimination California
discrimination the California Fair Employment and Housing Act or feeha can be found in the governmental Code section one two nine four zero at subsection a says that it is an unlawful Employment Practice for any employer to discriminate or terminate or in any way treat poorly a woman because of her pregnancy actually says because of her sex but sex is later defined as including pregnancy childbirth breastfeeding and related medical conditions now what’s also cool is that there’s a reasonable accommodation provision under PDL is under the same statutory scheme so if you request a reasonable accommodation and it’s denied laws broken pregnancy discrimination if you request a reasonable accommodation and they fire you for making that request laws broken pregnancy discrimination has happened so what happens if you are fired because of your pregnancy well you’re going to want to call a lawyer and file a lawsuit well what would you get A lot of people want to know how much my case is worth.
Well, every case is different, but the types of remedies that you can get can probably give you an idea. First and foremost, you can get your economic damages. These are your lost wages. So, say you are making eighty-five thousand dollars a year and you get fired because of your pregnancy.
Well, I’m not making $85,000 a year anymore. It’s a very tangible economic loss that the jury can measure. Emotional distress. These are often the largest component of damages in these pregnancy cases. They are very real, and especially in severe cases, they can be absolutely enormous punitive damages. Everybody has heard about punitive damages. These are the damages meant to punish the employer for the unlawful behavior. They’re very difficult to prove because you have to show that the termination was done with malice, oppression, or fraud. And finally, in pregnancy discrimination cases, you can also recover your attorney fees. This is a wonderful thing because one can be larger than the other three combined, but two often pushes cases into early settlement because defendants don’t want to incur too much attorney fee liability.