The most common FMLA violations by employers are denying leave to eligible workers, discouraging or interfering with requests, counting FMLA absences against attendance policies, contacting employees to work during leave, refusing to restore the same or an equivalent job, cutting benefits during leave, and retaliating after leave ends. Each one can support a claim for back pay, doubled damages, and reinstatement. Here’s how to spot them.

1. Denying Leave to an Eligible Employee

If you’ve worked 12 months and 1,250 hours for an employer with 50+ employees within 75 miles, and you have a qualifying reason, leave isn’t a favor — it’s your right. Employers violate the FMLA by miscounting hours, misclassifying the medical condition, or simply saying no. See our Mississippi FMLA guide for the full eligibility rules.

2. Discouraging or Interfering With a Request

Interference doesn’t require an outright denial. Telling you “this is a really bad time,” hinting your job won’t be waiting, burying you in repeated paperwork demands, or requiring excessive recertification can all be unlawful interference — the law prohibits chilling the request, not just refusing it.

3. Counting FMLA Absences Against Attendance Points

No-fault attendance policies are a recurring FMLA trap: the system assigns points for absences, and FMLA-protected days quietly land in the tally that leads to discipline or termination. FMLA-protected absences cannot be counted as occurrences under an attendance policy.

4. Making You Work While on Leave

Occasional, brief questions may be tolerated, but requiring you to take calls, answer emails, cover tasks, or “just finish this one project” during protected leave undermines the leave itself and can constitute interference.

5. Not Restoring the Same or an Equivalent Job

When you return, you’re entitled to your job or one truly equivalent in pay, benefits, shift, location, and responsibility. A “comparable” role with worse hours, less authority, or a different site often isn’t equivalent at all.

6. Cutting Benefits During Leave

Your employer must maintain your group health coverage during FMLA leave on the same terms as if you were working. Dropping coverage or changing your premium arrangement mid-leave violates the statute.

7. Retaliation After Leave

The most damaging violation: firing, demoting, or writing up an employee shortly after FMLA leave. Suspicious timing plus a clean record before leave is the classic pattern. Read more on being fired while on FMLA and FMLA harassment.

What You Can Recover

A successful FMLA claim can recover lost wages and benefits, an equal amount as liquidated (doubled) damages unless the employer proves good faith, reinstatement or front pay, and attorney’s fees. You generally have two years to sue — three if the violation was willful. Mississippi has no state family-leave law, so these federal protections are what stand between you and losing your job over a medical crisis.

If any of these seven patterns looks familiar, Nick Norris, P.A. can evaluate your FMLA claim at no cost — call 601-641-4897.