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Kraft Foods2/22/2001
APPEAL from an order of the circuit court for Dane County: DAVID T. FLANAGAN, Judge.
Reversed and cause remanded with directions.
. The Department of Workforce Development and eight individual claimants appeal a circuit court order which reversed the department's determination that the claimants' employer had violated the Wisconsin Family and Medical Leave Act (WFMLA). At issue is whether the department correctly concluded that the claimants could substitute paid sick leave for family leave commencing with the first day of family leave, irrespective of a "waiting period" which applied to Oscar Mayer's contractual sick leave benefit. We conclude that we must accord the department's interpretation and application of the WFMLA great weight deference, and under that standard of review, we affirm the department's ruling. Accordingly, we reverse the order of the circuit court and direct that on remand the department's determination and order be reinstated.
BACKGROUND
. Oscar Mayer provides sick leave benefits to its employees of one year or more pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement. The benefits consist of a number of days of partial-wage payments, with the number of days dependant on an employee's length of service. Paid sick leave does not begin until the fourth or eighth day of absence due to illness. Several Oscar Mayer employees asked to substitute paid sick leave benefits for family leave from the first day of absence for family leave. Oscar Mayer denied the substitution requests for the first few days of each family leave.
. The present claimants and several other Oscar Mayer employees who were denied their full substitution requests filed claims with the department. Employee Kent Pagel, not a claimant in this case, brought the first claim that was heard and decided by the department. In Pagel's case, the department determined in April 1998 that Oscar Mayer's sick leave benefits were "accrued" for purposes of Wis. Stat. § 103.10(5)(b) (1999-2000), and that Oscar Mayer must allow the substitution commencing with the first day of family leave. Oscar Mayer petitioned for judicial review of the Pagel decision to the Dane County Circuit Court.
. The present case began as a consolidation of the claims of nine employees with different types and lengths of family leaves taken in March through August 1998. After the hearing and briefing in this case, but before a decision by the department, the circuit court affirmed the Pagel decision. The department, over Oscar Mayer's objection, placed "in abeyance" a decision in this case to await the disposition of Oscar Mayer's appeal of the Pagel decision to this court. Oscar Mayer then withdrew its appeal of Pagel, and claimants moved the department for a determination in their favor based on issue preclusion. The department decided that: (1) it need not reach the merits because Oscar Mayer's withdrawal of its appeal rendered the Pagel decision final, and thus, Oscar Mayer was precluded from relitigating the issues at hand; and (2) even if issue preclusion did not apply, the claimants should prevail on the merits. The department expressly adopted its prior decision in Pagel, and it rejected Oscar Mayer's new argument that allowing substitution of the sick leave without the waiting period would impose "unanticipated costs."
. Oscar Mayer petitioned for judicial review. The circuit court concluded that (1) the department erred in concluding that issue preclusion bars Oscar Mayer from litigating the issue of leave substitution and its "unanticipated costs"; (2) the department correctly determined that Oscar Mayer's paid sick leave benefit was "accrued" leave under Wis. Stat. § 10
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