Family & Medical Leave Act Protections

Both state and federal laws protect eligible employees when health or family health demands pull them out of work. The protections ensure that, once you can return to work, you get to go back to your job or an equivalent position.

Unfortunately, state and federal law does not require that this leave be paid. However, many employers maintain short- and long-term disability insurance policies as an added benefit to employees in these scenarios.  

We help employees who face unlawful treatment in the area of protected leaves of absence in two typical ways:

• Interference.  When an employer interferes with your right to take leave, return to your old job after leave, or fires you for absences that should have been protected by leave laws. 
• Retaliation.  When an employer fires an employee or otherwise treats the employee adversely for exercising his or her rights under leave laws—perhaps, for example, the employee returns to work and gets treated like the weakest link. There may be overlap with disability discrimination in these cases where the employee has taken leave to address his or her own serious health condition. 

State and federal leave laws are complex and they don’t apply to everybody.

If you think you’ve experienced interference with your leave rights or if you’re being or have been retaliated against for exercising leave rights, don’t hesitate to contact us to see whether you have legal recourse.