A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the summary judgment dismissal of a former worker’s FMLA retaliation and interference case in favor of Baltimore Gas & Electric Co., parent company Exelon Corp., and several individual employees. The Court ruled that the gas company’s suspicions of dishonesty concerning the former mechanic’s request for medical leave based on hypoglycemia was a credible reason for his termination, thus justifying the dismissal of his unlawful termination suit. The case is Michael Shipton v. Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., No. 23-1360, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Michael Shipton worked as an underground gas mechanic for Baltimore Gas & Electric when he received approval to use intermittent FMLA leave for his diabetes in August 2017. The employer renewed his FMLA approval in January 2018. However, after Shipton took off several days in April 2018, the employer launched an investigation and, finding that he had abused his time off, terminated his employment.
Shipton filed suit in June 2020, claiming that his employer never informed him of his FMLA rights and his medical absences were held against him in performance reviews and promotion opportunities. However, both the district court and the appellate Court found that Shipton submitted conflicting medical evidence showing that the employer has the right to question his honesty about his medical conditions and the need to take FMLA leave. In August 2017, Shipton requested FMLA leave based on hypoglycemia. However, a medical note dated May 2018 requesting FMLA leave based on neuropathy asserted that Shipton had not experienced a hypoglycemic episode in over two years.
Based on its precedent, the Fourth Circuit panel emphasized that the fact that an employer’s reason for termination is related to an employee’s FMLA leave does not necessarily indicate evidence of discriminatory intent. The undisputed evidence showed that the employer could not resolve the discrepancies between Shipton’s medical paperwork after investigating the situation. As a result, the employer had grounds to terminate him for misusing his FMLA leave. Furthermore, Shipton’s later attempts to explain the discrepancies in his medical paperwork on appeal did not create a genuine issue of material fact as to the employer’s reasoning in terminating him sufficient to overcome a grant of summary judgment in this case.
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