Pregnancy Disability Leave Law (PDLL), CFRA and FMLA

The California Pregnancy Disability Leave LAW (PDLL) is part of California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). It requires employers to provide an employee up to four months of leave for disability due to an employee’s pregnancy, childbirth or related medical condition.

PDLL v. CFRA and FMLA

FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act) – a federal law allowing to take a qualifying employee up to 12 weeks of time off work due to a serious medical condition also applies to pregnancy, child birth or related condition. Interesting enough, CFRA (California Family Rights Act) expressly exclude pregnancy and child birth from its list of conditions entitling an employee to a CFRA leave.

PDLL and FMLA Run Concurrently

If an employee takes advantage of both PDLL and FMLA, then they will run concurrently. Thus, if an employee exhausts her 12 weeks of FMLA leave, she will also have exhausted the 12 weeks of her 4-month PDLL allowance, with likely remaining 4 extra weeks of unused PDLL time.

PDLL and CFRA do not Run Concurrently

Since CFRA leave rights do not apply to pregnancy and related conditions, it makes sense that PDLL an CFRA don’t overlap. Thus, after taking FMLA/PDLL leave, an employee can take up to 12 weeks of CFRA leave “for reasons of the birth of her child, if the child has been born by this date,” assuming that CFRA entitled for that year hasn’t yet been exhausted by the same employee.

Which Employers are Covered by PDLL?

PDLL is part of FEHA, which means that an employer is covered if it has five or more employees. All employers within the meaning of FEHA must provide leaves of up to four months due to pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions and reasonable accommodate employees for conditions related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical condition.

Which Employees are Eligible for PDLL?

All employees of covered employers under FEHA are eligible for a leaves and reasonable accommodations under the PDLL. Unlike CFRA and FMLA, there is no length of employment requirement or requirement that an employee have worked 1250 horus prior to the time when the leave begins.

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