Terminated when STD exhausted

[Chicagoadi]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? IL

I have been diagnosed and treated for a depression and anxiety for about 6 months. I have been placed on Short Term Disability.
Last week received a termination email from HR that since my STD has been exhausted per company policy they have to terminate me.
No previous communication was initiated regarding upcoming termination or my return in general.
I feel, and HR letter confirmed, that I was terminated due to my illness.
Do I have any legal rights? Per their email I was terminated on 3/17/2017, they emailed me on 3/23, and it has already been 10 days since my last day with that company but I have not received any mail, COBRA, 401K, etc..
Thank you for your help!

 

[Chyvan]

Do I have any legal rights?

You have the right to file for unemployment, and you probably should if you anticipate being "cured" within the next 6 months. As time ticks by, the useable wages in your base period age away, and the quarter is changing on 4/2, and you'll lose another three months of wages.

 

[Chicagoadi]

Thank you so much for your reply
In order to apply for UI i would have to be able and ready to work, which i am not..still being treated and per my doc am not able to return to work..i do have a LTD started ..my question is if I have any legal rights against my employer?

 

[cbg]

Under Federal law, maximum length of time your employer is required to hold your job for you is 12 weeks. If you have been off work for more than 12 weeks, your employer may legally terminate your employment and hire someone who is able to come to work. While there are a few states that provide for a longer period of time, IL is not one of them. Nowhere in the US are you guaranteed unlimited time off as long as the reason is medical.

10 days is well within any requirements to submit benefit information. They/their administrator have a combined total of 44 days to send you any COBRA notification. COBRA is guaranteed retroactive to the date of cancellation so once you receive it and your application is processed, any claim you may incur will be able to be re-submitted, if necessary. Notification about 401(k) is plan specific rather than statutory, but I can guarantee that your plan allows more than 10 days to send any notice out. We're still in the same month - depending on your payroll procedures they may not even have processed all contributions yet. There's no reason you can't call and ask.

Your employer does not appear to have done anything illegal.

 

[Chicagoadi]

CBG thank you!
I am certain they did discriminate and fired me just because of my illness. I know about mandatory 12 weeks of FMLA but I am finding some additional ADA info that would definitely make my company in noncompliance.
"If an employer simply terminates employment because the employee is not on approved leave or by policy has no leave available, the employer has failed to engage in the interactive process to determine if extended leave is a reasonable accommodation, thus violating the employee’s ADA rights."

 

[cbg]

Okay, let's address that. Please answer a couple of questions for me.

How long have you been on STD leave?

How much longer do you anticipate needing to remain on leave before you would be able to return to work and fulfill ALL the essential functions of your position?

 

[Chicagoadi]

My STD was exhausted after 6 months (3/17/2017 when termination occurred)
Bunch if medication has been tried during this time, and I believe my current situation is much better than when i first started to seek help. My doctor prescribed additional medication last time so we were helpful it would make some difference and help me. We have talked about possibly going back next month with time restrictions at the beginning.

I loved my job. Started working as a lab tech and thank to my hard work and ethics in 5 years of employment I've grown to be a QA/QC manager.

 

[cbg]

I'm going to tell you quite frankly, and I used to teach this, that you are misreading what you are reading. You not only received leave, you received twice as much as the law requires, you are not ready to return to work for several weeks yet and even then may not be able to return to full duty. The paragraph you are looking at does not say, as you seem to believe, that you can't be terminated for a qualifying condition as long as you are on medical leave. It is referring to situations when you are immediately fired as soon as the need for leave arises, without looking to see if a short leave of absence would resolve the situation.

Under no law, anywhere in the US, are you entitled to unlimited medical leave. Nowhere in the US is the employer prohibited from terming an employee because of an extended medical leave, as long as they receive all the leave to which they are entitled. You did.

Additionally, unlike FMLA, the responsibility is on you, not the employer, to self-identify as disabled and request an accommodation. It is NOT enough that the employer knows you have a medical condition - they are not required to assume that you need an accommodation.

Did you, at any time, request one?

 

[Chicagoadi]

Cbg I respect your knowledge and appreciate your help here.
My accommodation was additional time needed. I have not specifically communicated it yo my employer other than my doctors paperwork.
Isn't an employer responsible to conduct some type of communication before my STD exhausted prior to making a termination decision?
Apologize for being a trouble with my questions..I just do not know the law and am seeking for help in this very disturbing and difficult time for me and my family..
I am accepting your answers as knowledgeable, backed up by the law regulations...yet I have a very hard time accepting that my employer has no wrongdoing in terminating me without any warnings..

 

[cbg]

Isn't an employer responsible to conduct some type of communication before my STD exhausted prior to making a termination decision?

There is no law that says so. There is no legal requirement that your employer send you prior notification that termination is pending. However, I am quite sure that if you read through your STD paperwork and/or your company Summary Plan Description, you will find language that indicates the possibility.

It is your responsibility to communicate the need for an accommodation to your employer. Your doctor's paperwork by itself is not sufficient to communicate your request for accommodation. What's more, your employer is not required by the ADA or any other law to provide you with the accommodation you request or even the one the doctor recommends. Additional leave time is not always considered reasonable.

So what we are left with, summing up, is that you received more leave time that is required by law, are not yet able to return to work and never requested an accommodation from your employer. FMLA is exhausted and you never invoked the ADA. I'm sorry for your situation, but I'm still not seeing any violation on the part of your employer.

 

[Chyvan]

In order to apply for UI i would have to be able and ready to work,

You misinterpret. You MAY apply for UI. You were fired after all. You will not collect right now because it sounds like you're too sick to go to work. However, it might be permissible to still collect. It could be that you're too sick to do that job, but not some other job. That's a week by week disqualification. If you are cured in the next 6 months, you have a claim established with wages from 10/1/15 to 9/30/16. A claim filed today will be good until about 3/25/17. If you are cured in 6 months or less, you'll still have time to exhaust the claim before it expires.

Yes, you need a crystal ball to predict the future, but if you wait until you are better to apply, you just might find that you get nothing from UI because your wages aged away.

 

[Chicagoadi]

Chyvan thank you for your answer! I really did not talk to anyone regarding an UI..it was my understanding..glad to hear I was wrong! Will go to the unemployment local office and ask. Best regards

 

[Chicagoadi]

Can my employer now ask for the health premiums to be repaid? Received an enail from HR stating that I would have to pay $1,600 for the premiums while I was on STD.
Thank you!!

 

[cbg]

That depends on what you have been doing with regards to payments up to now.

If you have been paying, all along, that portion of the premium that you would have been paying if you had been at work, then now they cannot require you to pay anything.

If you have NOT been paying your portions of the health insurance premiums, they CAN require that you repay them that portion that you would have been responsible for if you were actively at work.

What they cannot require, in these circumstances, is that you pay the portion of the premium that they would be responsible for if you were actively at work. There are some circumstances where they CAN require this of an employee, but this is not one of those times. You ONLY owe them what you would have been paying if you were actively at work. If you've not been paying it as you go, then you owe it now. If you've been paying it all along, then there's nothing left for you to pay.

 

[Chicagoadi]

Cbg thank you!! The only thing is that it was never mentioned before, and now once fired with no income, insurance, the premium amiunt seems even bigger...were they suppose to inform me about the premiums and arrange the payment biweekly as if I was working? I know i know you would probably say I should have asked