ST. LOUIS—An appellate court upheld a Family and Medical Leave Act retaliation award Tuesday, where the employer had terminated the worker shortly after she asked for the leave.

According to the decision in Kathleen Marez vs. Saint-Gobain Containers Inc. by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis, Ms. Marez took medical leave under the FMLA in July 2007 from the Muncie, Ind.-based firm.

In January 2008, she told her supervisor she would require FMLA leave again for her husband's upcoming surgery. She was terminated two days later, with managers telling her it was because she had failed to follow company procedures.

Ms. Marez sued, claiming retaliation in violation of the FMLA and gender discrimination. A jury returned a verdict in Ms. Marez' favor on the FMLA claim, but in Saint-Gobain's favor on the gender discrimination claim.

On the FMLA claim, the jury awarded her $206,500 in damages and an another $206,500 in liquidated damages. The court also awarded her part of her requested attorneys' fees. Saint-Gobain appealed.

Pointing out Ms. Marez's termination occurred less than 48 hours after the protected activity, the court said, “In considering whether temporal proximity alone can support an inference of causation, we have rarely been faced with two events so close in time.”

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The unanimous three-judge panel's ruling said, “Marez did not rely solely on the proximity of her termination to her notification to (her supervisor) that she would require FMLA leave. She presented evidence that one other production supervisor had committed the same error that she had, and other production supervisors had committed similar infractions, without being terminated or suffering other significant adverse consequences,” said the appellate court, in upholding the lower court.

Commenting on the case, Jason Rossiter, an attorney with Zashin & Rich Co. L.P.A. in Cleveland, who was not involved in the case, said, “It's always a bit of danger to take some kind of an action against an employee who has done something that's protected.”

In a situation like that, “you really need to get advice” from an attorney, who “can walk you through the process” to make sure you are not creating a wrong impression about what you are doing, Mr. Rossiter said.