Alaska Employment Law

U S District Judge John Sedwick has affirmed an MSPB decision that let stand a dismissal of a federal employee who claimed she’d been unfairly denied FMLA leave and then fired as AWOL.   Sedwick agreed that the employee had failed to supply adequate medical information to support her leave request. The employee’s documentation

did not describe the nature of the treatments [she] was to receive, did not set forth the prescription drug regimen to be used, and listed only the conclusory diagnosis of “PTSD” without specifying the therapy or treatment which [the employee] purportedly required.

Sedwick refused to consider new evidence that the employee submitted to District Court.

He also held that agency requests for more information than required by FMLA did not excuse the employee’s failure to supply necessary information.

Lewis v. Donley, Case 3:06-cv-00053-JWS (D. Alaska June 15, 2010)

Nicholas Kittleson represented the employee.  Susan Lindquist, AUSA, represented the government.  Both practice in Anchorage.