Dive Brief:
- Amazon violated the Family and Medical Leave Act when it fired an employee who took leave to care for his wife after allegedly failing to correct errors that showed the plaintiff had a negative leave balance, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana.
- The plaintiff in Coddens v. Amazon.com Services LLC requested and was approved in February 2026 for up to two days — later increased to four days — of FMLA leave per month in addition to two hours of late or delayed time each day if needed. The approval also covered relevant absences that occurred the prior November.
- After he began marking missed time for absences, the plaintiff claimed Amazon’s records showed that he had negative hours due to the company’s failure to properly apply the leave approval. He alleged that Amazon later fired him despite his attempts to have his records corrected, which constituted FMLA interference and retaliation. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Dive Insight:
FMLA leave can be one of the most difficult areas of compliance for HR departments, particularly when miscommunication occurs between the employee and the employer regarding the purposes of absences.
The plaintiff alleged that Amazon “retroactively corrected certain dates” connected to his FMLA leave but nonetheless marked him for missed time and absences that fell within the guidelines of his leave approval. He also claimed to have repeatedly contacted Amazon HR staff to correct the issue without success.
After his termination, the plaintiff said he appealed his termination through Amazon’s ethics department. He said he spoke to an Amazon operations manager and asked the manager to review his submitted documentation, but he alleged that the manager did not review it and instead reviewed the decision based solely on a phone call with the plaintiff.
Despite receiving an email from Amazon that said he would receive further explanation about his termination, the plaintiff claimed he did not receive such a message.
The plaintiff’s complaint sought monetary relief as well as a jury trial.
Federal regulations permit employers to retroactively designate leave as FMLA leave so long that the employer provides notice to the employee and doing so would not cause harm or injury to the employee. If an employer fails to timely designate leave as FMLA leave and this causes harm or injury to the plaintiff, the employer may be held liable.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s employer FMLA guide includes several recordkeeping guidelines for organizations, one of which is documentation of any dispute between the employer and an employee regarding the FMLA designation of certain leave.