He used approved FMLA leave. Weeks later, he says, Delta built a case to fire him
A Delta flight attendant says the airline fired him over a disputed parking receipt after he used approved migraine leave — a retaliation case worth watching.
The lawsuit, filed on April 22, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York, lands squarely in territory that should sound familiar to any HR leader who has ever signed off on intermittent leave. Jeremiah Harris, a former flight attendant, says Delta Air Lines suspended and then terminated him shortly after he called in sick under the Family and Medical Leave Act for a migraine episode, and that the airline used a questionable travel audit to justify the decision.
According to Harris v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., No. 1:26-cv-00811, Harris started with Delta in July 2023 and had been approved for intermittent FMLA leave for a migraine condition that, he says, can leave him unable to read, drive, focus, or work. He says he drove his mother's car to New York City to report to his home base, began feeling ill after arriving, and called in for FMLA time two days later, following the usual procedure. He returned to work afterward.
The trouble, according to the filing, started about a month later. Harris says Delta placed him on unpaid suspension on June 26, 2025, and opened an investigation into whether he had actually been at his home base when he called out. The airline, he alleges, questioned a parking garage receipt he submitted to prove he was there. Harris says he had not initially thought to save one and had to go back to the garage for it after the fact, at Delta's request. If anything about the receipt was off, he says, it came from the garage — not from him. He also says he later handed over an E-ZPass toll bill consistent with the trip, along with statements from his mother and a colleague who placed him at the apartment.
Then come the details that will catch the eye of anyone who has ever run an internal investigation. Harris says he was told he could pick the manager who would sit in on the process but was instead assigned someone he had never met. He says he requested his personnel file on July 12, 2025, and did not receive it until August 11 — weeks after he was let go. Delta, he alleges, made the decision to fire him on July 3, 2025, before he had even submitted much of his evidence, though the formal termination did not issue until July 31.
The appeal, Harris says, did not go any better. An Open Door response he received on October 27, 2025, listed the wrong termination date, referred to him as "Jay," and described a meeting that he says never happened with a manager he had never met. At an earlier appeal hearing on August 28, 2025, he says a panel member remarked they had never seen a travel audit handled this way before.
Harris is seeking reinstatement, lost wages and benefits, and additional damages under the FMLA, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the New York Human Rights Law.
The allegations have not been tested in court. Delta has not yet filed a response, and no court has ruled on the claims.
