When an employee will be absent from the office for an extended period of time, it is common practice for the employer to reassign the responsibility for customer accounts to other employees. Certainly, companies do not want customers to experience an interruption in service. However, consider this scenario: An employee returns to his sales position following a leave of absence taken under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA or the Act). Although he is returned to the same job, an important customer account that was transferred to another sales representative in his absence is not returned to him. The employee claims that this results in a decrease in his annual income. Has the FMLA been violated? The answer may be yes!
