Managers and the Legal Environment 7th Edition by David Madsen, Constance Bagley

Exercise 4

In May 2003, Jennifer Willis, senior account manager at Coca Cola Enterprises, called her supervisor and said she was sick and unable to come to work. She also told him she was pregnant, but did not specify that she was sick because of the pregnancy. When she called in the next day, a Tuesday, to find out where she should report to work, she was told that she needed a medical release. She told her supervisor that she had a doctor's appointment on "Wednesday," which the supervisor assumed was the next day, but the appointment was actually scheduled for the following Wednesday. Willis had no further contact with her employer until Thursday of the next week, when company officials arrived at her home to recover her company car. At that point, she contacted her employer and was eventually brought in for a meeting where she was informed that she had been terminated for violating the company's "No Call/No Show" policy. Under this policy, "an employee absent from work for three consecutive days without notifying the supervisor during that period will be considered to have voluntarily resigned." Willis filed a lawsuit in which she claimed that her termination was discriminatory. Does Willis have a valid claim? How should Coca Cola Enterprises respond? [Willis v. Coca Cola Enterprises, Inc., 445 F.3d 413 (5th Cir. 2006).]