The FMLA entitles eligible employees to unpaid, job-protected leave for specified family and medical reasons, and prohibits employers from interfering with, restraining, or denying the exercise of those rights. An interference claim focuses on whether the employee was denied a substantive entitlement, such as the leave itself, reinstatement to the same or an equivalent position, or continuation of benefits during leave, rather than on the employer's motive.

Because interference claims do not require proof the employer acted with discriminatory or retaliatory intent, they are often easier to prove than a retaliation claim on the same facts, and many FMLA cases plead both theories in the alternative. A common defense is that the employee would have been terminated or not reinstated for legitimate reasons unrelated to the leave, regardless of whether leave was taken, which can defeat liability even where leave was in fact interfered with.

The near-strict-liability character of interference claims, absent an independent legitimate-reason defense, makes them behave differently in a litigation model than intent-driven claims. In Juricratic, an interference claim's dials weight the entitlement-denial facts heavily and treat employer intent as a secondary input, reflecting that the simulated exposure range tracks what was actually denied more than why it was denied.

Counsel focus discovery on the mechanics of the leave itself: eligibility notices, designation notices, the timeline of the requested and approved leave, and precisely what happened at the point of return, since a gap in the paper trail around any of these steps is often the clearest evidence of interference. Employers build a defense around a legitimate, independently documented reason for any adverse action taken during or after the leave period.