Cancer/legal question

[winneythepooh7]

One of my friends who works in a high-powered consulting job in the DC area has a history of cancer, and it seems it may have come back. She has had problems with the company she has worked for before making it "difficult" on her if she is out here and there for doctors appointments. Can a company legally fire someone for this (or realistically, find excuses to get rid of her)? She needs the health insurance obviously with everything going on. There are several employees in my agency that have cancer and some who have passed away unfortunately and the agency understood and worked with them, even when they weren't doing well or needed to be out for their cancer treatments. But then again I work in Social Work and Mental Healthcare so it is a completely different view towards employees who have personal/medical problems. Any recommendations/advice will be helpful.

[Eclipse]

If your friend has worked for the company for more than 12 months and has worked more than 1250 hours (I think that number is correct, I am doing this from memory), she is eligible for FMLA. She'll need to contact someone in her HR department regarding FMLA, which is a federal law for companies of a certain size or greater. She should also check her short term and long term disability policies.

[greeklawgirl]

She also needs to make sure that there are more than 50 employees in her company, otherwise FMLA will not apply.

[valkyrie]

I don't know anything about employment law, but I would guess that the success of a case like this (should she ever file suit) would depend on one of two things: (1) how much the employer wants it to go away, and (2) whether her attorney manages to put together a sympathetic jury.

This is the sort of thing that would be very difficult to prove (and is another reason why I think our health care/insurance system sucks big fat hairy ass).

[winneythepooh7]

Originally posted by valkyrie

This is the sort of thing that would be very difficult to prove [/B]

Yeah, I figured as much. She already has issues to begin with with some of the people she works for. She hasn't disclosed to anyone her condition. She's had people ask her if she is pregnant because she has gotten sick a few times at work (she is in her 20's). On top of that, she's had some of them almost try to sabotage her. For example, she will be getting ready to head out to a doctor appointment and she will be given a huge time consuming task that will be impossible to complete and when she needs to leave to get to her doctor's appointment on time, she'll have to delegate the task to others and then the co-workers bitch that she is slacking. It seems like one of those situations where the employer can pull "Well, if she cannot complete the tasks required for the job, then we can't justify keeping her". Oh yeah, she also had someone follow her into the women's bathroom once and grill her about her "illness". I am so glad I don't work for corporate America!!

[navane]

Ok wait. You originally said that your friend has cancer and stated, "She has had problems with the company she has worked for before making it "difficult" on her if she is out here and there for doctors appointments. Can a company legally fire someone for this (or realistically, find excuses to get rid of her)?"

Then you go on to add, "She hasn't disclosed to anyone her condition." Certainly they can't "fire her for having cancer" if they don't know that she has cancer. They probably could fire her for taking lots of "personal appointments" and "delegating her tasks". People obviously know something is up if they are stalking her in the toilet and asking her health questions (very inappropriate if you ask me). I'm not an expert, and I certainly don't know what the "right" thing to do in this situation is, but she might have to come clean to her supervisor and explain her condition. You never know, her boss may be surprisingly sympathetic. Otherwise, she just has to deal with everyone looking at her funny.

.....Kelly

[winneythepooh7]

Yeah. I don't know why she hasn't had a heart to heart yet with her superiors. I think she is one of those people that just doesn't like to share her personal stuff. But I think that in this situation, it definately warrants that. On top of this all, I don't think she likes her job/career to begin with so that makes it even that much more complicated.

[luvtoscrap]

Employment law is not my area and I really recommend that she obtain a consultation from an attorney before any formal actions or repremends are placed in her personal file. However off the top of my head I do remember the following:

Cancer does qualify under FMLA and the company does have to continue to provide her with health insuranance. However, FMLA can be taken only once in a 12 month period. It also does not have to be taken all at one time. In other words, if she needs to work part time or half days that is okay. The bad part is that she does not get paid for this leave. While Cancer does qualify for SSI-the process takes a long long tine. Cancer also falls under the umbrella of the American Disabilities Act (ADA). This means that the employer must make resemble accomidations for her to be able to do her job. Accomidations might include a flexible work schedule, telecommuting, etc....She will need to get a letter from her doctor indicating what is her illness with his recommendations for work place accomidations and hand deliver it to the HR office. She she should also disclose her condition to her direct supervisor. The company does have the right to send her to their own doctors for a fit to work evaluation and recommendations for accomidations. If she is found not fit to work due to any physical or mental reason for her position-then ADA is not a vaild. She will then mostly likely be placed on FMLE or on some type of administrative leave. This is a nasty clause of ADA for a employee and also where an attorney will need to get involved because then she will most likely want to make a settlement with the company.

The tricky part is yes they can fire her for any not completing any work assigned-no they cannot fire her for her disability. It really depends on how nasty is the company in these situations. Some companies are sympathic in these situations some have no heart. She also needs to start docummenting any type of discriminatory treatment that she is receiving in detail. This will be very helpful in her case if this goes to litagation or neogiations.

However, like I said before-she really needs have a consultation with an attorney that specializes in employment law.

[AEPhiSierra]

It sounds to me like the company may think she is bs'ing b/c she hasn't explained her illness to her co-workers. Everyone has worked with someone before who takes sick days b/c they just don't feel like coming to work or used a doctor's appointment as a cover up excuse for missing work. Of course I am not saying she is doing this but if people do not know that she has/may have a serious illness they might wrongfully be making this assumption.

[PsychTau2]

Originally posted by luvtoscrap
The company does have the right to send her to their own doctors for a fit to work evaluation and recommendations for accomidations. If she is found not fit to work due to any physical or mental reason for her position-then ADA is not a vaild.

[rant]

I worked with a girl in a psychiatric lockup for teenagers several years ago. She always claimed health issues (and yeah, she had some) and therefore would always claim that we had to accomodate her requests because of ADA. Thing is...every one had to pass a physical before being hired because the job is a physical one...we had to restrain out of control patients almost daily!!! However, for some reason we were always "accomodating" her even though she didn't fit the employment criteria. Hell, she was really good at setting off the kids, and then she couldn't restrain them so I had to. Plus, she applied for a change of shift and wanted the 7am to 11pm shift on Saturdays and Sundays...she was given that shift (which I was the shift lead for) and IMMEDIATELY presented us with a note from her doctor saying she couldn't work more than 12 hours at a time so according to ADA we had to let her leave early (which put me short handed in a house full of psych-challenged teenage girls). Damn...if you're not supposed to work a 12 hour shift...why apply for one? And why didn't the managers say "OK, since you can't fulfil the basic expectations of that shift, you should work this 8 hour shift during the week instead."

I think she had secrets on some of the higher ups.

[/rant]

PsychTau

[Optimist Prime]

wow....her bosses are assholes