What to do if my employer denied my leave after I submitted all the documents from the doctor and then terminated me?
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What to do if my employer denied my leave after I submitted all the documents from the doctor and then terminated me?
I was terminated from an employer because of the amount of occurrences I received within the 90 day period. I received those occurrences because of an illness and I was in the hospital. The company denied my leave after I submitted all the documents from the doctor and then terminated me. They are now appealing my unemployment because they said I was aware of the attendance policy, which I was but my illness was a life or death situation. What can I do about this? Can they do this?
Asked on May 1, 2012 under Employment Labor Law, Arkansas
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 11 years ago | Contributor
The law does not actually require employers to allow employees to miss work for illness, as a general matter; for example, employers are not required to provide sick days, and are allowed to terminate employees for missing work, even for illness.
If you took Family and Medical Leave Act leave, then the employer could not terminate you for using it. However, to be eligible for FMLA leave, your employer must have at least 50 employees within a 75 mile radius; if it has fewer, FMLA does not apply. Also, you must have worked at least 1,250 hours during the prior year, and you must have worked at least 12 months for this employer. Finally, the medical condition must be sufficinetly seriously, which basically means at least 3 days of incapacity or disability, plus ongoing or periodic medical treatment--if the condition was not sufficiently serious, then you cannot take FMLA leave for it.
Your state, Arkansas, does not have its own medical leave act; if FMLA does not apply, your employer may terminate you for illness-related absences, even if it was a "life or death situation" (that is, it may be that taking time off from work was the right decision for you--but you could still be terminated).
So if you could and did use FMLA, you should not have been terminated; otherwise, it could seem that you could be terminated.
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