Can You Be Fired While on Disability Leave?

• Mar 07, 2023
• Blog
• Michael Burgis & Associates, P.C

Are you worried about facing termination while on disability leave in California? If your employer has given you a deadline to return to work or threatened you with job loss, it’s essential to understand your rights. In this informative video, Shant Kotchounian, the Employment Law Managing Attorney at Michael Burgis & Associates, explains why employers cannot impose arbitrary deadlines on employees on disability leave.

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Transcript:

You’ve become injured and now you’re on disability leave. But your employer has told you that you have to come back to work in a certain time period, or else. Understandably, that’s got you concerned, it’s got you riled up, it’s got you scared.

You know something? The law is not that black and white and employers cannot impose a deadline like that on you. And I’m going to explain why.

Hi, my name is Shant Kotchounian. I’m the employment law managing attorney at Michael Burgess & Associates.

Understanding Disability Leave and Employer-Imposed Deadlines

What I’d like to talk about today is the situation where an employer imposes a time restriction on an employee to return to work. Typically, we’ll get calls from clients who let us know that they were fired or they’re facing termination because the employer is only giving them 12 weeks of leave.

And how that comes to be is typically through the Family Medical Leave Act or the California Family Rights Act. You might have heard that as the FMLA or the CFRA. It does provide 12 weeks of unpaid job protected leave. What some employers seem to think is that that means it’s a maximum of 12 weeks. And guess what? They’re wrong.

What the FMLA and CFRA Say About Disability Leave

What the law requires is what we call an interactive process. What does that mean? Communication, dialogue, a discussion between you and your boss. To you and your employer  to figure out, can there be any solution to the extra time that you might need off work.

Maybe all you need is a week, maybe all you need is a month, maybe a few months, or maybe longer. There are no hard and fast rules. The employer needs to have that discussion with you to figure out a solution. I can only imagine how it feels to sit there and think that your health is on a timer. And that’s not how it should be.

Help With Your Disability Leave Case

I encourage you if there’s any situation that you’re dealing with that’s similar to this give us a call. We are here to help you. We’ll talk through it and try to steer you in the right direction. Thank you very much!