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Is it legal to lay someone off for asking for medical leave?
I just read this article about a man being fired after disclosing he'd need to take some time off to deal with his wife's cancer.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/15/man-fired-wife-cancer_n_877729.html
Sounds like the Family and Medical Leave Act only applies to companies with 50 or more employees. Can an employer do this? Do employees working for small companies have other options? Or are they just unfortunate circumstances?
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3 Answers
Unfortunately, the Family and Medical Leave Act does only apply to companies with 50 or more employees (although there is much talk about changing that to 25), therefore, smaller companies are not obligated to provide time off for medical reasons under the federal law. Dependent upon the state, there could be state laws that require companies to offer leave and many of these apply to smaller companies. In Mass, where this gentleman lives, I could not find any state law that covered employees in smaller companies.
So the bottom line is, they are not required to give this many any type of leave. Most small companies I work with do not follow this mindset and are trying to find ways to work with their employees even though it does create a great hardship to the company. This is certainly unfortunate that they could not accommodate his time off.
Lay off or fire, there is a big difference. If they were going to lay him off due to lack of work and had planned to do so, I think they would have been well within their rights. If I were doing that I would want to make sure I had plenty of supporting documentation.
If they want to straight up fire him because he is going to miss work to take care of his wife, I think they could do so in my home state. I do not know if there are any specifics from MA. employment law that would bar them from doing so.
And to dovetail on Sabrina's comment FMLA would not be in play either.
In closing though I would say that it is s terrible thing to do to someone and they will undoubtedly suffer some public relations issues in light of their actions.
Yes Lori I am always amazed at some of the decisions that people make.
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