PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 20-2202

KASEY A. ROBERTS,

Plaintiff − Appellant,

v.

GESTAMP WEST VIRGINIA, LLC,

Defendant – Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, at Charleston. Irene C. Berger, District Judge. (2:19−cv−00854)

Argued: May 3, 2022 Decided: August 15, 2022

Before DIAZ, RUSHING, and HEYTENS, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded by published opinion. Judge Diaz wrote the opinion, in which Judge Rushing and Judge Heytens joined.

ARGUED: Richard William Walters, SHAFFER & SHAFFER, PLLC, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellant. Eddie Travis Ramey, BURR & FORMAN LLP, Birmingham, Alabama, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Carl W. Shaffer, SHAFFER & SHAFFER, PLLC, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellant. Wm. Grayson Lambert, BURR & FORMAN LLP, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee. USCA4 Appeal: 20-2202 Doc: 36 Filed: 08/15/2022 Pg: 2 of 23

DIAZ, Circuit Judge:

Kasey Roberts appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment to his former

employer, Gestamp West Virginia, LLC, on his Family & Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”)

and common law retaliatory-discharge claims. Gestamp fired Roberts after he missed work

due to a recurring infection from an emergency appendectomy. The district court granted

Gestamp’s summary judgment motion because Roberts, it said, didn’t comply with the

company’s “usual and customary” absentee notice procedures, as the FMLA requires. 29

C.F.R. § 825.303(c). And Roberts’s common law claims failed because he hadn’t shown

an FMLA violation.

On appeal, Roberts contends the district court erred because, through his dealings

with Gestamp, the company’s “usual and customary” notice procedures for leaves of

absence expanded beyond those in its written policy. And Roberts argues that he complied

with his FMLA obligations by notifying Gestamp of his absences over Facebook

Messenger, which the company had previously accepted. We agree with Roberts’s reading

of the FMLA regulations and find that he’s raised a jury question on whether using

Facebook Messenger satisfied the Act’s requirements.

But Gestamp counters that even if Roberts’s initial notice were adequate, he

neglected his FMLA obligation to update the company on the duration of his absence,

defeating his FMLA-interference claim. On this too, Roberts has raised a material factual

dispute to survive summary judgment. So we vacate the district court’s judgment on his

interference claim and remand.

2 USCA4 Appeal: 20-2202 Doc: 36 Filed: 08/15/2022 Pg: 3 of 23

That said, we agree with Gestamp that the district court properly granted judgment

against Roberts’s FMLA-retaliation and common law retaliatory-discharge claims.

Because Roberts hasn’t offered enough evidence that Gestamp fired him in retaliation for

exercising his FMLA rights, we affirm the district court’s judgment on those claims.

I.

A.

1.

Gestamp is a multinational auto-parts manufacturer with a South Charleston, West

Virginia facility. Before he was terminated, Roberts worked on the assembly line there.

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