When Leave Laws Collide: Navigating FMLA, ADA, And PWFA Without Making Costly Mistakes - 2026 Edition (SSNI10)

One employee. One medical condition. Three federal laws. Which one applies?

When FMLA, ADA, and PWFA overlap, knowing the law isn't enough—you have to know how the laws interact.

Webinar Overview

FMLA, ADA, and PWFA don’t operate in silos—and neither do employee leave and accommodation requests.

When an employee needs time away from work because of a serious health condition, pregnancy, childbirth, or a medical limitation, HR professionals may have to navigate multiple federal laws at the same time. The challenge is knowing which law applies, where the requirements overlap, and what employers must do to avoid inadvertently violating an employee’s rights.

In this practical, compliance-focused webinar, you’ll learn how to recognize when FMLA, ADA, and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) intersect and how to manage those situations without creating unnecessary legal or operational risk.

We’ll move beyond simply reviewing what each law says and focus on how HR should think through real-world scenarios, including requests for leave, intermittent leave, modified schedules, light duty, pregnancy-related limitations, return-to-work issues, and situations where an employee may be protected under more than one law.

You’ll leave with a clearer framework for determining what questions to ask, what documentation may be appropriate, when the interactive process is triggered, and where employers commonly make costly mistakes.

If you’re responsible for managing employee leave, accommodations, or workplace compliance, this webinar will give you a practical roadmap for navigating the collision of these three laws.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this webinar, participants will be able to:

 1.  Explain the fundamental differences between FMLA, ADA, and PWFA and identify the distinct protections and employer obligations created by each law.
 2.  Recognize when multiple leave and accommodation laws may apply to the same employee and understand why compliance with one law does not necessarily satisfy the requirements of another.
 3.  Analyze common leave and accommodation scenarios involving serious health conditions, pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum limitations, and other medical restrictions to determine which laws may be triggered.
 4.  Identify when an employee's request or statement may constitute a request for accommodation, even when the employee does not use the words "accommodation" or "ADA."
 5.  Understand how FMLA leave and ADA accommodations can interact, including situations involving intermittent leave, reduced schedules, extensions of leave, and return-to-work restrictions.
 6.  Understand the PWFA's accommodation requirements and how they differ from—and overlap with—the ADA and FMLA.
 7.  Identify common HR mistakes that create unnecessary legal risk, including treating FMLA, ADA, and PWFA as completely separate processes, relying on rigid leave policies, and failing to recognize when an interactive process may be required.
 8.  Apply a practical decision-making framework for evaluating leave and accommodation requests while maintaining appropriate documentation and consistent HR practices.
 9.  Identify when a situation should be escalated to legal counsel or other appropriate resources rather than handled solely through an organization's standard leave process.

Who Should Attend:

Human Resources professionals, leaders, managers, supervisors, and organizational development.