From our friends at the California Chamber of Commerce.
Scenario: An employee of five years gave birth and would like to use California Family Rights Act (CFRA) child bonding time immediately following her pregnancy disability leave (PDL).
PDL/Child Bonding Interaction
California provides a right to 12 weeks of job-protected leave for an eligible employee who is the parent of a newborn child, or who has adopted or is fostering a child. This is known as child bonding leave under the California Family Rights Act (CFRA).
As with PDL (Pregnancy Disability Leave), an employer is covered by the CFRA if it has five or more employees. Also like PDL, an employer must provide this time only to California employees — although there is a federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) that also provides this time to eligible employees across the country subject to different eligibility requirements.
An employee is eligible for CFRA child bonding leave if they have worked for their current employer for at least 12 months and have worked 1,250 hours in the 12 months preceding the need for leave.
This is where PDL and CFRA interactions become confusing, because in most cases an employee will take time on PDL before and after the birth. Time off, whether paid or unpaid, is not considered hours worked for the purposes of the 1,250 hours worked requirements under the CFRA.
CFRA regulations, however, contemplated this scenario and have a special rule for establishing eligibility in this circumstance. If an employee who takes PDL then wants to take CFRA leave for child bonding immediately after PDL, the 12-month period during which the employee must have worked 1,250 hours is that period immediately preceding the employee’s first day of PDL, not the first day of the subsequent CFRA leave for child bonding.
So, if an employee worked five years for the employer and if they had worked 1,250 hours preceding the date they first went on PDL leave, then they would be eligible for CFRA child bonding leave and the employer could not deny the request.
