The former employee alleges she was fired for using the Family and Medical Leave Act to take care of her father who has dementia.

A former Arcadia High School employee is suing the Scottsdale Unified School District in federal court over an alleged breach of the Family and Medical Leave Act, or FMLA.

This February, Anita Underdown filed suit alleging she was fired for tardiness and several absences as she cared for her sick father. Underdown worked for the school district from 1993 until Dec. 9, 2014, when she was fired.

The case has not gone to trial and her attorney did not respond to a request for comment.

A district spokeswoman declined to comment.

Congress passed the Family and Medical Leave Act in 1993 to provide federal protections to families who need to take unpaid leave for family and medical emergencies.

In June 2014, Underdown’s father was diagnosed with dementia and needed round-the-clock care, she says in court filings. Underdown and her sister took turns looking after him while she wasn’t at work, according to court records.

Underdown often cared for her father into the night and was late for work in the morning, she says. Through the summer, she was able to use vacation time to cover her tardiness. However, she wasn’t able to use vacation time during the school year, according to court documents.

In 2014, she was a registrar at Arcadia High School. That August, she asked her principal, Nathan Slater, if she could use FMLA to care for her father and he denied it, she alleges.

Slater is now the district’s athletic director.

“Mr. Slater informed Ms. Underdown that she could not use FMLA in the way she requested — on an intermittent basis to modify her schedule or reduce her hours so that she could arrive late some mornings because of her caring for her father,” her complaint reads.

The school district denied that allegation in court.

However, both sides agree that in October 2014, she was allowed to use FMLA to care for her father.

She alleges she was reprimanded in October for her tardiness, so she went to Human Resources, rather than Slater, to request a modified schedule. Both sides agree she was granted leave.

The agreement ends there.

“Despite the request in August for FMLA leave, and despite SUSD’s granting such leave … Underdown was terminated on Dec. 9, 2014 because of Ms. Underdown’s absences and tardiness from work in August, September and the beginning part of October,” she alleges in court filings.

The district denied that allegation in court.

The most recent court filings show Underdown was deposed in late August, though the case has not yet gone to trial. The school district is scheduled to complete its expert disclosures on Sept. 29. Any motion to dismiss the case would need to be filed by Jan. 26, 2018.

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