# Diane L. Lindemann v. Mobil Oil Corporation

> Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit · March 26, 1998 · 141 F.3d 290

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9491083

## Case

- **Full name:** Diane L. LINDEMANN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MOBIL OIL CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
- **Decided:** March 26, 1998
- **Citations:** 141 F.3d 290; 21 Employee Benefits Cas. (BNA) 2825; 1998 U.S. App. LEXIS 5994; 1998 WL 138836
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Rovner
- **Judges:** Coffey, Easterbrook, Rovner
- **Cited by:** 65 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9491083

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that a “company policy which forced an employee to choose between losing his job for the exercise of his rights under ERISA-protected benefits or keeping his job and forcing him to give up his benefits would be essentially unfair or ‘a quintessential Hob-son’s choice’ ”
- holding summary judgment properly granted on Section 510 claim where defendant argued it terminated employee for excessive absenteeism and tardiness

## Opinion text

ROVNER, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in nearly every respect with the majority, but I write separately because I am concerned about the proliferation of policies like that of the defendant, which can be very confusing to workers. The majority praises Mobil’s policy as making “good business sense.” Ante at 299. To be sure, under the law of this circuit, Mobil is entitled to enforce its so-called “no-fault” attendance policy as well as its short term disability policy. Although this probably sounds like legal hairsplitting to nonlawyers, Mobil is entitled to pay workers for days when they are absent from work due to illness, and then terminate them for being excessively absent. It may do so while terming the absences “approved” under the disability policy. Mobil may have had the right to terminate Lindemann for insubordination, but that is not what occurred here. Thus, her alleged comments to her supervisor are not at issue here. I agree with the result the majority reaches, but I believe that whether Mobil’s policy makes “good business sense” is not an issue properly before the Court.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9491083. Public record. Not legal advice.