FMLA leave means leave, period.

FMLA leave means leave. That is, an employee exercising rights under the FMLA to take protected time-off from work must be relieved of their job functions, and an employer cannot hold such an employee responsible for job tasks uncompleted during such a leave of absence.

Maternity leave vs. “Me-ternity” Leave, and what it means for work-life balance

I read with great interest the following story in the New York Post, entitled, “I want all the perks of maternity leave — without having any kids.”

The story, written by Meghann Foye, a self-professed overworked, yet childless, woman in her mid-30s (and author of a recently published novel called “Meternity”), argues that all women deserve “me” time away from work, and that maternity leave shouldn’t be limited just to new moms.

DOL publishes new employer FMLA guide

Since I recently cut a check to the IRS for the balance due on my taxes, I thought I’d take today’s space to review how the federal government spends our tax dollars. Today’s examination? The Department of Labor’s newest publication, The Employer’s Guide to the Family and Medical Leave Act [pdf].

Does HR understand their own personal liability for FMLA violations?

If you’ve ever held supervisor and manager training on any employment-law issue, you know the glazed-over expression of a group of individuals going through the motions. “Oh goody, we have training today. Here’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back,” is what you’ll hear around the coffee machine before they enter the training room.

Want to wake them up and ensure rapt attention? Hit them with the idea of individual liability. Under Ohio law, we have it for discrimination claim. It exists for wage-and-hour claims under the FLSA. And, last week, in Graziadio v. Culinary Institute of Am. [pdf], the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals held that a manager or supervisor can be individually liable for FMLA violations.

Intermittent FMLA does not permit sleeping on the job (usually)

Let’s say you have an employee approved for intermittent FMLA for migraine headaches. Let’s also say co-workers of said employees find her asleep at work during her shift. When you fire the sleeping, migraine suffering employee, do you have potential worries under the FMLA?

According to Lasher v. Medina Hops. (N.D. Ohio 2/5/16), the answer is a resounding “no”. The issue, however, is not as cut-and-dry as this case makes it seem.

Can an employer prohibit an employee from job hunting during FMLA leave?

Earlier this week, an employee out on FMLA leave posed the following question to the Evil HR Lady:

While I am out for surgery, I was informed of a new job in another hospital. It looks like no one has applied for the position.… Can I apply for this job while I am on leave? What is the consequence of doing so? Can they take my pay back? On one of the FMLA paperwork, it states no job hunting while on FMLA. Is that true? I do not want to be in some legal battle.

DOL doubles down on joint employment under the FMLA

Yesterday, we looked at the DOL’s recent guidance on joint employment under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Simultaneously with its FLSA guidance, the DOL also published guidance on joint employment under the FMLA, and it’s definitely worth you time.

Intermittent leave for exempt employees: the survey results

Last week, I asked a simple question: should employer require salaried, exempt employees to take intermittent FMLA leave as unpaid leave, and deduct hours spent on leave from their pay.

Here are the results:

Should you deduct from an exempt employee’s salary for intermittent FMLA? [survey]

Suppose you have a salaried, exempt employee. You pay that employee a fixed weekly salary, regardless of the number of hours he or she works. Some weeks the employee works 40 hours, some weeks the employee works 30 hours, and some weeks the employee works 60 hours. In the calculus of a weekly paycheck, the number of hours worked is irrelevant. A salary covers all hours worked in a week, whether it’s one hour or 100 hours.

Let’s further suppose this salaried, exempt employee submits a request, and is approved for, intermittent leave under the FMLA. It could be for the employee’s own serious health condition, or that of a family member. As a result, this salaried exempt employee starts taking an hour or two off per week for doctor’s appointments related to the serious health condition. Is that FMLA time-off paid or unpaid, for the salaried, exempt employee?

“FMLA” is not a magic word

Does an employee have to invoke the letters “F-M-L-A” for an employer to offer it? Or, what if an employer fires an employee who misses work because of an FMLA-qualifying illness for which FMLA-leave was not offered? Has the employer violated the statute?

In Festerman v. County of Wayne (6th Cir. 5/8/15) (h/t: Eric Meyer), a police officer felt chest pains at left work for the emergency room. Five days later, he submitted an incident report, and, a day after that, a doctor’s note that stated, “Patient is advised to limit working hours to 8 hrs/day.”  At no time, however, did the employee specifically request FMLA leave, or invoke the statute for his time off from work.

The 6th Circuit concluded that neither the hospital visit nor the doctor’s note were individually sufficient to place the employer notice that the employee qualified for FMLA leave. However, the court concluded that, presented with the total picture, a fact issue existed as to whether the FMLA covered this employee’s leave.

This Court is confronted with a doctor’s note that expressly discloses a requirement of limiting the employee’s work hours per day, but fails to disclose the condition that gives rise to this requirement or any additional prescribed treatment. Consequently, the doctor’s note submitted by Festerman, in isolation, may not have provided sufficient notice to Wayne County of a qualifying condition under the FMLA. The circumstances surrounding Festerman’s initial qualifying leave, however, provided additional context to the doctor’s note and are evidence that Festerman’s superiors were aware of his potential FMLA-qualifying condition….

Given Wayne County’s knowledge of a serious health-related incident that occurred in the workplace and the doctor’s note which advises that Festerman’s workday should be limited to eight hours per day, a reasonable jury could find that Festerman provided sufficient notice to Wayne County of a FMLA-qualifying serious health condition.

I’ve previously discussed how an employer should handle an employee’s potential or questionable request for leave under the FMLA.

• If the employer fails to treat the request as one for FMLA leave, the employer assumes all of the risk. If the employer is wrong, and the employee was requesting FMLA leave, an employer is severely limited it its ability to defend an FMLA interference lawsuit.

• If, however, the employer treats the request as one for FMLA leave, the employee assumes all of the risk. The FMLA provides an employer tools  to verify the legitimacy of the request. The employer can (and should) require that the employee provide a medical certification justifying the need for the FMLA leave. Moreover, if the employer doubts the initial certification, it can require a second (and, sometimes, even a third) medical opinion. If the employer ultimately concludes that the leave does not qualify under the FMLA, it can retroactively deny the leave and treat all intervening absences as unexcused, which usually results in termination.

In other words, employers, err on the side of caution. Use the FMLA’s checks and balances. When in doubt, offer conditional FMLA leave, and confirm with the statute’s medical certification process. And, just, as importantly, train your supervisors to recognize a potential FMLA issue so that they do not get in the way of this process working.

John Oliver tackles paid medical leave

Is it time for America to catch up to the rest of the world and offer paid family leave to our employees? Perhaps the best argument in favor of paid family leave is that besides Papua New Guinea, we are the only country that doesn’t offer it. Makes you think we’re a little behind the times.

Here’s John Oliver’s very funny, and poignant, take on the issue from this week’s Last Week Tonight:

BREAKING: FMLA’s “same-sex spouse” rule on hold, for now

Today, the new rule that would permit FMLA benefits for same-sex spouses was to take effect. However, late yesterday, a federal judge in Texas granted a preliminary injunction [pdf] temporarily halting the rule.

The plaintiffs—the attorney generals of four states that do not recognize same-sex marriages—successfully argued that they were likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the FMLA rule infringed on their states’ rights under section 2 of the Defense of Marriage Act to ignore same-sex marriages lawfully entered in other states.

This is only a temporary victory for the plaintiffs in this case. And, while it legally only impacts the four states that are plaintiffs in this action, practically, the DOL will hold any implementation of this rule until this case plays itself out.

As for the merits of the case itself, as Robin Shea points out, this case could become moot (clearing the way for the FMLA rule-change) if the Supreme Court legalizes same-sex marriage later this term. Fingers crossed.

Why your control employees must care about employment laws

Last week I was asked if managers and supervisors have any liability for their own acts of discrimination or other unlawful activities. Like most things in the law, the answer is, “It depends” on the law about which you are concerned.

If it’s wage and hour advice, for example, then the Fair Labor Standards Act provides for individual liability for those who exercise significant control over the company’s operations. Some courts apply the same rationale to violations of the FMLA, although individual liability under that statute is far from a settled issue. The 3rd, 5th, and 8th Circuits have all found that there can be individual liability for FMLA violations, while the 6th (which covers Ohio) and 11th Circuits have gone the other way.

There are also potential common law claims under states law (e.g., intentional infliction of emotional distress) that, while hard to establish, create yet another avenue of individual liability. 

If it’s discrimination liability, there is no issue for the individuals under since Title VII and the other federal employment discrimination laws, none of which provide for any individual liability. 

Here is the part, however, to which Ohio employers must pay attention. Under Ohio’s employment discrimination statute, managers and supervisors can be held individually liable for their own acts of discrimination. So, an employee can not only sue your company, but also the individual who made the termination decision, the HR manager who dropped the harassment-investigation ball, or the supervisor who failed to engage the disabled employee in the interactive process. 

I’ve long argued that Ohio needs to change its employment discrimination statute to eliminate individual liability and bring our state law in line which its federal counterpart and the laws of nearly every other state. Yet, as long as this is the law of our state, these liabilities need to be central part of your company’s EEO and anti-harassment training, so that your managers and supervisors understand their own personal risk if they don’t understand their EEO obligations.

DOL proposes expanded FMLA coverage for same-sex couples

Same-sex spousal rights in this country are a mess. There is hope that the Supreme Court will clear it all up later this year when it hears the issue. In the meantime, the Department of Labor has proposed a change to the FMLA’s definition of “spouse.” From the DOL:

We announced a rule change under the FMLA to make sure that eligible workers in legal, same-sex marriages, regardless of where they live, will have the same rights as those in opposite-sex marriages to care for a spouse. We’ve extended that promise so that no matter who you love, you will receive the same rights and protections as everyone else.

For the purposes of the FMLA, marriage will now be determined based on where the couple got married, not on where an employee lives. This is called a “place of celebration” rule.  That means that access to federal FMLA leave for an individual in a same-sex marriage is protected regardless of the marriage laws of the state in which that worker resides.

Thus, as proposed, the meaning of “spouse” under the FMLA would depend on the law of state in which the marriage was celebrated, not the law of the state where the employee lives or works. So, if your business is in Ohio and your employee lives and works in Ohio (which does not currently permit same-sex marriages), but travels to New York for a lawful and valid same-sex wedding ceremony, you would have to grant that employee the same FMLA benefits as you would to any other “spouse.”

This rule takes effect March 27, which means you have only 30 days to prepare your FMLA policies and practices for this important change. What should you be doing to prepare? Jeff Nowak offers three really good ideas:

1. Train your leave administrators and supervisors on the new rule.  If any of these employees are remotely involved in the leave management process (e.g., they pick up the phone when an employee reports an absence, they answer employee questions about absences, they determine eligibility and/or designation rights under FMLA), they need to understand their responsibilities under the new rule, since benefits available to certain employees will have changed.

2. Review and amend your FMLA policy and procedures, as well as all FMLA-related forms and notices, to the extent that they specifically define the term “spouse” in a way that does not account for the new rule.

3. Be mindful that this new regulation covers individuals who enter into a same-sex marriage. However, the FMLA does not protect civil unions or domestic partnerships, so employers are well advised to determine whether FMLA applies in any particular situation.  That said, employers are free to provide greater rights than those provided for under the FMLA.

Of course, as Robin Shea correctly points out, if the Supreme Court rules later this year that states must recognize valid same-sex marriages entered in other states (as it should), then the necessity of this DOL regulatory change is short lived.

Courtesy of the DOL, here are all of the resources you need on this important issue:

• Text of the Final Rule (effective March 27) [pdf]
• DOL Fact Sheet
• FAQs
• DOL Press Release

The FMLA has eligibility limits (unless you tell your employees otherwise)

The FMLA does not provide leave benefits to all employees of all employers. First and foremost, it only covers employers with 50 or more employees. And, only a subset of employees of a covered employer is eligible for FMLA leave.

An employee is eligible for FMLA leave from a covered employer if the employee—

1. was employed by the employer for at least 12 non-consecutive months;
2. worked 1,250 hours during the 12-month period preceding the start of the requested leave; and
3. works at a location where the employer employs 50 or more employees within a 75-mile radius.

Employees who fails to meet any one of these criteria are not eligible for FMLA leave … unless the employer tells them otherwise.

In Tilley v. Kalamazoo County Road Commission (6th Cir. 1/26/15) [pdf], the employer maintained the following FMLA policy:

Employees covered under the Family and Medical Leave Act are full-time employees who have worked for the Road Commission and accumulated 1,250 work hours in the previous 12 months.

The employer, however, denied Tilley’s request for FMLA leave because he did not work at a location that employed 50 or more employees within a 75-mile radius. Based on the employer’s unambiguous policy, however, the court concluded that the employer waived any ability to rely upon the 50-employee threshold.

This is an unambiguous and unqualified statement that Road Commission employees, like Tilley, who have logged 1,250 hours in the year before seeking FMLA leave are covered by the FMLA and are eligible to apply for FMLA benefits…. 

The Road Commission could have qualified its statement concerning employee eligibility by adding that its full-time employees would only be covered by the FMLA if they worked at, or within 75 miles of, a site at which the Road Commission employed at least 50 employees. That is precisely what other employers have done…. 

And we are unwilling to conclude as a matter of law that Tilley was unreasonable in relying on the Manual’s statement that employees in his position were eligible to apply for FMLA benefits. Simply put, a reasonable person in Tilley’s position could fairly have believed that he was protected by the FMLA.

Bottom line? Courts will hold you to your word if you mis-represent FMLA eligibility to an otherwise ineligible employee. If you, as an employer, do not want to go beyond the FMLA’s baseline requirements, you need to check, and then double-check, your leave policies, to make sure you are not promising your way into more coverage than intended.

Does social media hold the cure for your malingering, hooky playing employees?

In one of the better earlier episodes of The Office, the Assistant to the Regional Manager, Dwight Schrute, thinks that one of his co-workers is faking an illness to get out of work. So, he stakes out the employee’s house to investigate and uncover the truth.

 

According to a recent Harris Poll (h/t: Cleveland.com), figuring out if your employees are cheating on their sick leave is no longer as complicated as a stake out, and is only as far away as a few clicks of your mouse. According to the poll, nearly a quarter of employers have caught their employees lying on social media about being sick. Of those caught, a quarter were fired, while half were disciplined or reprimanded.

 

 

Three observations—

 

     1. If you think an employee is abusing sick leave or other time off, a little investigation on social media appears to go along way to ferreting out the truth. You no longer need to go the Dwight-Schrute route to determine if an employee is lying to you about the reason he or she isn’t at work. You should be adding social media to your quiver of investigatory tools. Otherwise, you could be missing a key (and easy) piece of the puzzle.

     2. The employment relationship is based on trust. Once that trust disintegrates, the relationship is almost certainly unsalvageable. I’m almost as shocked that only 25% of employers who have caught an employee lying about sick leave fired the offending employee, as I am that that another 25% appear to ignore the indiscretion completely. While I agree that we need better time-off policies in this country, it is still no excuse for lying.

     3. Then again, if an employee is so reckless (or senseless) as to tell an employer one thing, and then post the exact opposite on Facebook or Twitter an hour later, maybe I don’t want that employee working for me anyway. Just saying.

“Honest belief” isn’t a defense to an FMLA claim, says federal court

The honest-belief rule is one of most effective shields available to employers in discrimination cases:

As long as an employer has an honest belief in its proffered nondiscriminatory reason for discharging an employee, the employee cannot establish that the reason was pretextual simply because it is ultimately shown to be incorrect. An employer has an honest belief in its reason for discharging an employee where the employer reasonably relied on the particularized facts that were before it at the time the decision was made.

What happens in an FMLA claim, however? Can an employer use the honest-belief rule to fend off an employee’s claim that an employer interfered with FMLA rights? Yontz v. Dole Fresh Vegetables (S.D. Ohio 10/10/14) says “no.”

The case involved an employee whose newborn daughter had Down syndrome. He got stuck on vacation in Florida because of medical complications with the daughter, which delayed his post-vacation return-to-work date. The employer, based on pattern of similar prior non-medical issues with extended vacations, believed he was malingering and fired him.

The employer claimed as its defense to Yontz’s FMLA claim that it had an “honest belief” that Yontz “misused his pre-approved, intermittent FMLA leave.” The court disagreed, and rejected the application of the honest-belief defense in FMLA interference cases:

Dole may not use an honest mistaken belief that Yontz misused FMLA leave as a legitimate non-discriminatory reason for his termination. That Yontz received attendance points for using what may have been legitimate intermittent FMLA leave is the problem, not a legitimate, non-discriminatory excuse for the problem. The Sixth Circuit has not decided whether the rule applies to FMLA interference claims. To so rule would be to reward and encourage ignorance of a law our democratic process has seen fit to enshrine in law.

Per this case, the FMLA requires more than an honest belief to deny an employee FMLA leave. Thankfully, the FMLA provides employers myriad tools to check and double-check the legitimacy of an employee’s claim for leave. Employers have medical certifications, re-certifications, checks for authenticity and clarification, and second and third opinions. As this case shows, an “honest belief” will not save an employer who denies an employee’s FMLA request without first exhausting all available avenues of communication and clarification with the employee.

Do not force employees to work during FMLA leave

With technology making work-from-home more and more feasible, it is easier and easier for employees to work while "out" on an FMLA or other leave. If an employee seeks FMLA leave, however, can an employer force an employee to work, even if the work is paid? According to Evans v Books-a-Million (11th Cir. 8/8/14) [pdf], the answer is no.

When Tondalaya Evans, a pregnant payroll manager for Books-a-Million, requested FMLA paperwork for her impending September 1 due date, her employer told her that she “would not go on leave but would work while on maternity leave.” She protested, but was told that she had no choice because the "go-live" date for the new payroll system on which she had been working had been delayed until November. Evans gave birth on August 30, and immediately starting working (full-time, and with full pay) upon arriving home from the hospital with her baby on September 1. When she eventually returned to the office, she was transferred to a new position. Unhappy with the transfer, Evans quit and sued, claiming, among other things, FMLA interference.

The court concluded that requiring an employee to work (even for pay) in lieu of requested FMLA leave for which the employee was entitle to take violates the FMLA. In doing so, it rejected the employer’s argument that it could not have violated the FMLA because it paid Evans for her time off.

It seems plain to us that if an employer coerces an employee to work during her intended FMLA leave period and, subsequently, reassigns her based upon her allegedly poor performance during that period, the employee may well have been harmed by the employer’s FMLA violation.

What lesson can employers learn from this case? Don’t suggest or require that an employee work during an FMLA-eligible leave (even if it’s paid). The purpose of the FMLA is to enable employees to take time off from work for certain qualifying medical and other reasons without from the encumbrance of work responsibilities and the fear of losing one’s job while away from work. Telling an employee that she cannot take an FMLA, but instead can (must?) work from home, undercuts both of these purposes. It both forbids an employee from taking time off, and puts the employee’s job at risk because of slipped performance as a result of divided attention. FMLA leave is federally guaranteed for a reason. Don’t mess with that reason by requiring work (albeit paid and at home) in lieu of bona fide leave of absence.

You might want to reconsider if you send your FMLA forms via regular mail

One of the very first things a lawyer learns in law school is the “mailbox rule.” This rule simply states that if a letter “properly directed is proved to have been either put into the post-office or delivered to the postman, it is presumed … that it reached its destination at the regular time, and was received by the person to whom it was addressed.” It gives the benefit of the doubt to the sender, based on the reliability of the U.S. Postal Service.

Well, it’s 2014, and at least one federal court of appeals is no longer enamored with the reliability of the U.S. Postal Service. In Lupyan v. Corinthian Colleges, Inc. (3d Cir. 8/5/15) [pdf], the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals (which covers Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware), rejected the mailbox rule and ruled that its presumption does not apply when an employer sends FMLA forms via regular snail mail, and the employee, without any other support, denies that he or she received the forms in the mail.

Here are the facts. Lisa Lupyan, an instructor at Corinthian Colleges, took a personal leave of absence for depression. While out, she sent the school a completed FMLA medial certification supporting her leave. As a result, the employer converted the leave from “personal” leave to “FMLA” leave, and mailed, via regular U.S. mail, the appropriate FMLA forms designating her absences as such. When Lupyan attempted to return to work after 14 weeks, the employer told her that it had already terminated her because she had failed to return after her 12 weeks of FMLA had expired. 

The court concluded that because the employer could not prove that Lupyan had received the forms, she was entitled to a jury trial on her FMLA claims.

CCI provided no corroborating evidence that Lupyan received the Letter. The Letter was not sent by registered or certified mail, nor did CCI request a return receipt or use any of the now common ways of assigning a tracking number to the Letter. Therefore, there is no direct evidence of either receipt or non-receipt….  Accordinly, we hold that evidence sufficient to nullify the presumption of receipt under the mailbox rule may consist solely of the addressee’s positive denial of receipt, creating an issue of fact for the jury

More importantly, the court opined on the type of notice an employer should expect to provide in today’s modern age.

In this age of computerized communications and handheld devices, it is certainly not expecting too much to  require businesses that wish to avoid a material dispute about the receipt of a letter to use some form of mailing that includes verifiable receipt when mailing something as  important as a legally mandated notice. The negligible cost and inconvenience of doing so is dwarfed by the practical consequences and potential unfairness of simply relying on business practices in the sender’s mailroom.

What does this mean to your business? Stop sending FMLA notices by regular U.S. mail. Instead, use a method that enables you to prove delivery.

1. If you hand-deliver the notices to an employee, have the employee sign and date a receipt for the documents.
2. If you mail, send via a method that permit you to track delivery — whether it’s certified mail with a green card to return, or an express delivery service with a tracking number.
3. If you email, click the box on Outlook that will send a delivery notice upon receipt.

I was also planning to write a long dissertation on what this employer did wrong, how it failed to effectively communicate with the employee during and after her leave, and how a few simple phone calls could have avoided this entire mess. Then I read Jeff Nowak’s thoughts on his FMLA Insights blog, and decided I couldn’t say it any better:

I see such a lost opportunity here. Couldn’t this mess have been avoided had the College simply kept in regular contact with the employee while she was on leave? … If Lisa had any doubt whether or not she was on FMLA leave, that ambiguity would have been resolved in one quick phone call from the College a few weeks into her leave. Am I correct? Maintaining regular contact with your employees serves many good purposes: a) it helps you best administer the employee’s FMLA leave and the timing of their return; b) it is the ADA interactive process. Think about it — no sweat if this condition later is considered an ADA disability, since you have been communicating regularly with your employee. As such, you cannot be accused of any break down in the interactive process!; and c) it’s just good business practice to show that you care about your employee and that you want to do what you can to help them get back to work.  Don’t forget we’re in the human relations business!

This decision also is a reminder of what not to do when FMLA leave ends. What else did the College do wrong?  First, it insisted that the employee return without restrictions…. Second, the College did nothing to engage the employee as FMLA leave was expiring as to whether any accommodations were necessary to help the employee return to work.  Come on, employer friends!  This is ADA 101.  Talk to your employee well before expiration of FMLA leave to begin determining whether they might need some assistance to return to work.

You cannot fire an employee who asks for time off for his pregnant wife's medical appointment

One of the very first posts I ever wrote on this blog, all the back in May of 2007, detailed the EEOC’s then-recent publication of enforcement guidance on what it called caregiver discrimination. It seems that more than seven years later, some employers still haven’t gotten the message. Consider, for example, Rice v. Kellermeyer Company (N.D. Ohio 7/15/14).

In early 2012, Ronald Rice, the VP of Sales at Kellermeyer, announced to his co-workers that his wife was pregnant with their first child. On June 6, Rice requested permission to use vacation time from June 11 through June 15, in part because of “an unexpected appointment” for his pregnant wife. Rice’s supervisor declined to permit Rice to use paid leave for June 14 and June 15, and told him that if he “chose to take those days off, they will be unpaid.” Rice then requested FMLA paperwork from the director of human resources, to enable him to attend the appointment. Three days later, he was fired.

With these facts, the district court showed no hesitation in denying the employer’s motion for summary judgment and sending this case to a jury to decide.

In writing about this case on his FMLA Insights blog, Jeff Nowak said, “We have to stop sticking it to pregnant moms and expectant dads.” He’s 100 percent correct. We have a parental crisis in this country. No one should have to choose between a job and “an unexpected appointment” for one’s expectant wife. More broadly, no one should have to choose between a job and a family responsibility or event. 

Employers, we are facing a crisis over the issue of parental leave. The more stories we hear like Ronald Rice’s, the louder the cry will become for Congress to step in and fix this problem legislatively. Do you want new laws passed that will mandate expanded parental leave for more employers, or do you want the FMLA to remain as it is? As long as there exists employers like the employer in this case, the cry for expanded parental leave rights will continue. Eventually, it will become too loud for Congress to ignore. Be proactive with these issues in your own workplace, or Congress will become reactive. The choice is yours.