Ask Rita: Terminate Employee After One Year of Sick Leave?
Can an employer terminate an employee who exceeds the maximum medical leave?
Can an employer terminate an employee who exceeds the maximum medical leave?
Dear Ask Rita:
Our agency limits the maximum time an employee can be out on a medical leave of absence to one year. One employee who has been out with a medical condition is now approaching the one-year mark, but she hasn’t been in contact with us for the past four months.
I don’t have the time to call every employee on leave. Am I OK just sending this employee a termination letter if she does not return at the end of the year?
Signed,
Overwhelmed in HR
Dear Overwhelmed:
This common question — Can an employer terminate an employee who exceeds the maximum medical leave? — raises many complex issues. Employees are not infrequently out on extended medical leave for reasons such as stress, cancer treatments, chronic back pain, or a host of other medical conditions.
What is clear, however, is that you want to tread carefully in this area. In September 2009, the largest Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) settlement in a single lawsuit was announced when Sears Roebuck agreed to pay $6.2 million, based on Sears’ practice of firing employees who had exhausted their workers’ compensation leave.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ruled that Sears did not engage in an interactive process with these employees to determine if a reasonable accommodation could be made to allow these disabled employees to return to work, nor did Sears consider whether a brief extension of their leave would make their return possible.
The EEOC stated: “The era of employers being able to inflexibly and universally apply a ‘leave limits policy’ without seriously considering the reasonable accommodation requirements of the ADA are over.”
In other words, an employee who has been out for chronic back pain could be considered a disabled employee for whom reasonable accommodation should be considered. And now that you realize you cannot automatically terminate a potentially disabled employee who is on leave for longer than your policy allows, we need to determine which laws apply.
If your agency has fewer than 15 employees, you are not subject to federal ADA regulations, but you’ll still need to check on your state laws. For instance, in California, the Fair Employment and Housing Act applies to employers with 5 or more employees. If you are not covered by federal or state disability laws, you’re free to follow the policies in your employee handbook.
However, if your agency is large enough to be covered by these laws, next you need to determine whether your employee is disabled and thus covered by the ADA. With the 2008 Amendments to the ADA the definition of “disability” was expanded to such an extent that it is hard to imagine that an employee out for a year due to a medical condition would not meet the definition of “disabled.”
An individual is considered disabled if her condition substantially limits her ability to perform a major life activity. More information regarding reasonable accommodation under the ADA can be found at the EEOC website at www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/disability.cfm
As mentioned in the Sears case, to comply with the ADA an employer has an obligation to engage in what is called an “interactive process” with a disabled employee to determine if there are any reasonable accommodations that would enable the employee to perform her work prior to the employer taking any adverse action (like termination in response to a request for an extended leave).
The interactive process is essentially an ongoing dialogue with the employee to explore ways that would enable the disabled employee to perform her job, as long as the accommodations do not pose an undue hardship on the employer. Common examples of reasonable accommodation include changing a job to part-time, allowing for a transfer to a different job, and so forth.
While the EEOC has concluded that employers must make an individual assessment to determine how long of a leave request is reasonable, it has opined that requests for indefinite leave are not reasonable and need not be granted.
Moreover, if an employer has 50 or more employees and must comply with the FMLA, it cannot terminate employees who take leave for their own serious medical condition just because they have used up their 12-week leave entitlement. If the employee needs additional leave due to a disability you must go through the interactive process at the end of the FMLA leave to determine how to proceed lawfully.
So here are the steps I recommend you take with the employee on leave, and remember to document all steps in the interactive process.
- Even though you are very busy, you must contact the employee and ask her to provide you with updated medical information regarding her ability to return to work, and what restrictions, if any, would apply on her return. Ask the employee what accommodations she needs to retain her employment. Give her a reasonable time frame to return the information to you. If she doesn’t respond, contact the employee again to advise her of the adverse action that will occur if the information is not received by the next deadline.
- If you can’t reach her, you must try again, and try all methods — letter, voicemail, and email — and tell her the consequences if she doesn’t contact you within a certain period of time. If you do not hear from her (perhaps she has moved away), you can take termination action because she is, in effect, AWOL.
- Evaluate the information provided by the employee and her medical provider to determine if there are any reasonable accommodations which would allow the employee to return to work, (e.g. part time work, modified duties, reassignment to a vacant position). If there are no accommodations which would allow the employee to return to work, evaluate whether additional leave time is reasonable, or whether granting additional time off creates an undue hardship for your agency.
- Discuss the options with the employee and offer a reasonable accommodation to the employee if you can. If you believe no accommodation is possible, Â list all accommodations that were considered and why they are not reasonable, either because they pose an undue hardship on your agency or pose a direct threat to health and safety. Consult with an HR professional or attorney prior to taking adverse action against a disabled employee. Ultimately, if no accommodation is deemed reasonable, this should be communicated to the employee in writing and further action can then be taken.
Lastly, although we sympathize with being overworked, terminating an employee is a serious step that demands contact with that employee — and not just for legal reasons. Treating employees with respect and communicating well with them is an important part of any HR job.
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About the Author
Ellen Aldridge, J.D. is an Employment Risk Manager for Nonprofits Insurance Alliance (NIA). Ellen has practiced labor and employment law for over 30 years as a litigator, negotiator, and adviser. Now in her 12th year with NIA, Ellen brings her experience to assist nonprofits in managing employment law risks and implementing best practices to motivate and support employees. Ellen received her B.A. in Government from University of San Francisco and her J.D. from Santa Clara University. On the weekends, you can find her in her garden.
Articles on Blue Avocado do not provide legal representation or legal advice and should not be used as a substitute for advice or legal counsel. Blue Avocado provides space for the nonprofit sector to express new ideas. The opinions and views expressed in this article are solely those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect or imply the opinions or views of Blue Avocado, its publisher, or affiliated organizations. Blue Avocado, its publisher, and affiliated organizations are not liable for website visitors’ use of the content on Blue Avocado nor for visitors’ decisions about using the Blue Avocado website.
8 thoughts on “Ask Rita: Terminate Employee After One Year of Sick Leave?”
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I appreciate this advice since I’ve had to terminate an employee after we paid for her health insurance for 19 months while she was out with cancer, and our health insurance company was leaning on us about her. But as for the person who wrote in, the reason no one likes HR people is because of that kind of tone.
Seriously, the tone of the question was completely off. "I don’t have time to contact every person on leave." Well ok, maybe at least contact the ones you want to send a termination letter to? I think you need to take a step back from the HR bubble if you’re seriously considering just sending out that letter without any prior attempts to contact.
To me, the best rule of thumb in determining whether my actions toward another employee are proper is to ask myself: “Is that the way I would like – and expect – to be treated, given the circumstances? Is such treatment fair to both me and my employer?” This assumes that the actions are legal and within company guidelines.
Dear ask Rita, After reading the artical above, I started thinking about a similar situation I was in. I worked for my employer for almost 10 years & recently they terminated me because I had exhausted my protection under the FMLA and the company PLOA. You see, I am bipolar & 28weeks pregnant & have choosen not to continue with my psych meds throughout my pregnancy. Instead I have been recieving ECT treatments. Before I started the treatments again, I had asked my manager if I could switch to the weekend scheduel so that my treatments would not interfair with work. At that time she had told me that she couldn’t accomadate me because it did not fit into her budget. At that time, My condition became worse & I was hospitalized. I was terminated while I was out on my LOA. Can this legally be done? I understand that I had used up all of my medical leave including my FMLA, however I suffer from a disibility. I just didn’t know if legally according to ADA if my employer could terminate me. Please, I need some help. (address removed by editor)
Hi, long story but I’ll try my best to shorten it. June 2013 I had neck surgery which I never stopped hurting but after 8 months I tried returning to work although it was very difficult. My Dr filled out more FMLA papers for me but my employer said I wasn’t eligible cause I didn’t have enough hours accumulated yet and my FMLA had ran out, so some days I had to leave early, call off, use vacation, and Drs orders which is how I managed to last 4 months of my returning until the surgeon had to take me back off to have a emergency surgery due to my screws and plate fusion failure. During my first surgery our contract was renewed although upon returning I never received a copy before I left again although the union said the wording language didn’t change, so our contract states that unpaid leave for up to twelve months will be granted for employees with serious medical problems and cannot perform their duties/ job. My employer nor the union never contacted me about anything nor did they send me termination papers. They never offered me anything. They will not give me a termination letter although I asked for one, they claim I’m no longer in the system until I asked them why I never received the remaining of my vacation which I was entitled to so then they happened to have information saying I used my portion of vacation. Since I was on leave were they supposed to give me a termination letter and did they handle my termination properly? They never called me and when I would call them and leave messages no one never returned any of my calls. Please help, I appreciate any help you can give.
Hi, long story but I’ll try my best to shorten it. June 2013 I had neck surgery which I never stopped hurting but after 8 months I tried returning to work although it was very difficult. My Dr filled out more FMLA papers for me but my employer said I wasn’t eligible cause I didn’t have enough hours accumulated yet and my FMLA had ran out, so some days I had to leave early, call off, use vacation, and Drs orders which is how I managed to last 4 months of my returning until the surgeon had to take me back off to have a emergency surgery due to my screws and plate fusion failure. During my first surgery our contract was renewed although upon returning I never received a copy before I left again although the union said the wording language didn’t change, so our contract states that unpaid leave for up to twelve months will be granted for employees with serious medical problems and cannot perform their duties/ job. My employer nor the union never contacted me about anything nor did they send me termination papers. They never offered me anything. They will not give me a termination letter although I asked for one, they claim I’m no longer in the system until I asked them why I never received the remaining of my vacation which I was entitled to so then they happened to have information saying I used my portion of vacation. Since I was on leave were they supposed to give me a termination letter and did they handle my termination properly? They never called me and when I would call them and leave messages no one never returned any of my calls. Please help, I appreciate any help you can give.
I’m so sorry to hear about the difficulties you have had, Keena. Unfortunately, we are not able to answer specific questions like this that involve the employee/employer relationship.