QUESTION
Daughter has Lupus. Fired from Sofidel Corp, Green Bay while on short term disability after Dr. requested more time off due to serious medical issue.
Asked on Feb 17th, 2014 on Labor and Employment - Wisconsin
More details to this question:
Jean Wescott, daughter has Lupus which has resulted in inflammation of abdominal wall, stomach, heart, kidneys & bile ducts (which alone could lead to instant death). She also has the normal lupus issues of swollen joints & severe pain. She has been handling it well over the past few years, but suddenly it has careened out of control and she requested short term disability in order to get medical attention after 2 short hospital stays. Sofidel Corp terminated her after 3 weeks when her Dr requested she be off work an additional 4 weeks for study and treatment. It would not be a unreasonable accomodationsor Sofidel to replace her position as Quality Control technician as there are 3 other techs who could split her time plus 4 supervisors trained in her position. There are also at least 7 other workers trained in the basic duties of that position. Also by the time they had trained and hired someone her 4 weeks would have been up and she could have been back at work.
1 ANSWER
4 Awards
The employer is required to consider and provide a reasonable accommodation for your daughter's disability, if there is a reasonable accommodation to provide. A 7-8 week absence (the 3 she was off, and the additional 4 the doctor asked for) would seem to be a reasonable accommodation request. The company would have to justify why it was not if it claims otherwise.
Moreover, if the company has over 50 employees at this work location and your daughter was full time for the last 12 months, she would also be entitled to FMLA leave up to 12 weeks (minus whatever time she had already used).
The doctor's request for an additional 4 weeks would need to indicate that he expected her to be able to return to work then, or reasonably expected her to be able to do so. He need not guarantee that, but simply saying he had no idea and would have to evaluate if and when she could return would not help since the employer would need some reasonable estimate of a date when she could return to work.
Even with some uncertainly, the employer may not be required to have kept her position open, but terminating her without giving her the chance to check back when she was able to return may be deemed a violation of the ADA. You should deffinitely meet with an attorney over this.
Answered on Feb 18th, 2014 at 4:25 PM