I am on medical leave, can my boss legally cut off all insurance benefits and fire me?
Get Legal Help Today
Compare Quotes From Top Companies and Save
Secured with SHA-256 Encryption
I am on medical leave, can my boss legally cut off all insurance benefits and fire me?
As I stated above, I am on medical leave. I had colon cancer nearly 3 years ago, went through chemo and surgery, and was cancer free until 2 months ago when the doctors found a mass in my liver. I had to go on medical leave the first time I had cancer and my boss held my job for me, as well as benefits, but this time he called and told me that he “will not hold my job” and my insurance “will be terminated after Christmas.” Do I have any legal rights? Is there anything at all that I can do? Without insurance, I cannot afford my cancer treatments.
Asked on November 28, 2011 under Employment Labor Law, Alabama
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 13 years ago | Contributor
You do not indicate what state you are writing from; that could be critical, since some states have laws supplementing the federal law and common law principals described below. You may wish to repost your question with state-specific detail.
Under the common law, an employer is NOT obligated to provide medical leave. While an employer is certainly free to do so, they were also free to fire employees who did not show up to work for medical reasons (assuming the employee did not validly use vacation, sick, etc. days he or she had acrued).
There is a federal law, the Family and Medical Leave Act, which may help you. Under FMLA, IF you are working for a covered employer--that is, one which has at least 50 employees within a 75-mile radius--and you worked enough to qualify (at least one year), you would have the right to take up to 3 months per year of unpaid leave and have a job held for you.
However, if your employer has less than 50 employees, they are not subject to FMLA and do not have to provide medical leave. Or if you have taken more than 3 months leave in the last year, they do not need to provide more leave. In these circumstances, unless your state happens to have a more generous leave law, it would seem that your empoyer could terminate you and therefore terminate your benefits.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: The Answer(s) provided above are for general information only. The attorney providing the answer was not serving as the attorney for the person submitting the question or in any attorney-client relationship with such person. Laws may vary from state to state, and sometimes change. Tiny variations in the facts, or a fact not set forth in a question, often can change a legal outcome or an attorney's conclusion. Although AttorneyPages.com has verified the attorney was admitted to practice law in at least one jurisdiction, he or she may not be authorized to practice law in the jurisdiction referred to in the question, nor is he or she necessarily experienced in the area of the law involved. Unlike the information in the Answer(s) above, upon which you should NOT rely, for personal advice you can rely upon we suggest you retain an attorney to represent you.