Wrongful Termination/Discrimination

[HBBear]

My Husband and I work for the same company. My husband started in 1996 and I started in 1997. About six weeks ago my husband notified his employer that he was seeking medical treatment for alcoholism. He took a two week FMLA leave. He was in the hospital for one week. For the week that he was in the hospital I took a one week leave to care for a seriously ill family member. I returned to work and was told that I would not be paid for this time. It was deemed an unpaid personal leave in spite of the fact that my husband's doctor properly completed FMLA paperwork. I was told that if I wanted to object to this decision I would need to sit in the personnel office and explain to an HR associate and my manager exactly what I had done to participate in my Husband's care. I chose not to do this in part because I felt incapable of facing this discussion or sharing this information. My husband returned to work. He started a out patient treatment program that he attended in the evening and attended work during the day. Last Tuesday he was called in the personnel office and terminated from the position he had held for 12 years. This resulted in a loss of salary and loss of accrued benefits. He had no prior disciplinary actions on his work record. The reason given for his termination was based on inaccurate information. He was accused of intentionally documenting incorrect information. He did not do this intentionally and there is no evidence to support that this was intentional. We believe that he was actually terminated due to his illness and time missed from work in relation to his illness, however, we have no proof that this is in fact the case other than the timeline and the fact that he was treated differently then other associates in that a review into his work was launched supposedly based on a comment made to a co-worker by a customer while he was on LOA. I have been told by other co-workers that the manager that he worked under would try to get rid of someone if they were perceived as having a drinking problem and that the company is looking to get rid of associates that are costing the company money by filing medical claims and missing work. I was also told about specific co-workers including a manager who are now "gossiping" about this situation and saying that my husband's termination was related to drug abuse. Do we have any legal recourse?

 

[cbg]

Just so you know, FMLA is specifically designated by statute as unpaid leave.

I would suggest that your husband contact the US DOL (which is the regulatory agency responsible for FMLA) and discuss the situation with them. This is not passing the sniff test for me. It might not even be a bad idea to discuss a potential ADA violation with the EEOC.