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Man says Plano firm fired him for staying with dying wife

PLANO, Texas (WFAA ABC 8/AP) - A man says he was fired from his job of 13 years with a Plano-based company for being at his wife’s side as she died of brain cancer.

Bernard Chippie, a Pennsylvania-based sales representative for Rug Doctor LP of Plano, said he notified his employer on Feb. 13 that he would not be able to finish his weekly route because he had just learned his wife had between two days and a week to live.

"There was never a question of where I needed to be," Chippie said. He went to Kathleen Chippie's bedside at a hospice that day.

Three days later - on Thursday- his boss at Rug Doctor LP demanded that Chippie be at work the next day, Chippie said. Chippie said he couldn't and was fired, he said.

Kathleen Chippie died that Sunday at the age of 56.

Jeffrey Rawlings, a spokesman for Plano, Texas-based Rug Doctor, said the company went out of its way to accommodate Chippie, who was off many days in the months leading up to his wife's death.

"We said, 'We've heard this for six or eight months. Each time you're gone for a week or so. We can't continue to let that route go,"' Rawlings said. "Ultimately we have a performance level to maintain."

Chippie, 56, of Paint, said he was never off more than three days straight.

"When she was scheduled for surgery, I'd run stops ahead two or three days," Chippie said. "Afterward, I'd run Saturday to make up stops."

Rawlings said Chippie used all his vacation, sick days and unpaid leave well before Feb. 13. But Chippie said he had some vacation left.

Chippie said he will start looking for another job soon.

Isn't that what FMLA is for?

Ontario has a law that allows 6 months off work for these situations.

GalvestonDuck wrote:Isn't that what FMLA is for?

that's exactly what i was thinking. sounds like an unlawful termination lawsuit to me.

Leave entitlement. Office of Personnel Management regulations clarify that an employee must invoke his or her entitlement to Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave, subject to the notification and medical certification requirements. An employee may not invoke entitlement to FMLA leave retroactively for any previous absence from work.

from this website http://www.opm.gov/oca/fmla/index.asp

if he wanted to use it he has to invoke/inform them following the rules of the act i guess and cannot invoke the act after he has already taken time off is the way i read it....anyone else have a clue?

OPM regulations just apply to government jobs, not The Rug Doctor.

Here's the Department of Labor page on FMLA:

http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/fmla/

This guy seems to have a case under FMLA. The one question is whether hsi employer employs 50 or more people full-time. "The Rug Doctor" is a big name, but if each local office is an independent franchise, then they may well have fewer than 50 employees.

rats, i thought this was going to be another American Idol thread!

he might have a case but if he never "invoked" the act prior to taking work off then he does not have a case is my understanding...

and according to the act...it is not just federal employees that fall under it

after edit: oops i think you meant that OPN applies only to federal employees

that's not what i said. what i said was that your reference was from OPM and OPM just covers federal employees. there are limitations to the FMLA too. company size and all that...

A small company would definitely have a problem with an employee who took 2-3 days of work off during the week. How would you maintain any type of schedule. If he had worked for the company for 13 years and had been a half decent employee, I'm sure they would have made some type of arrangement with him. Something about this just doesn't add up for me. You see, I think this man had a history of taking off work and giving lame excuses. When a crisis did occur in his life, the company said, "no more". Only my opinion. Geez, I sound mean.

or the boss could be just some cold callous jerk.

Pburgh wrote:A small company would definitely have a problem with an employee who took 2-3 days of work off during the week.

This is why FMLA only covers employers with 50 or more full-time employees.

yes, that's true too but I'm sure if they fired him they maintained appropriate documentation of previous incidents. They had to know he was a lawsuit waiting to happen. If they indiscriminately fired him, they were stupid, cold and callous jerks.