Family Medical Leave Act

[mother of 5]

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? Ohio

My Husband filled out the forms and was approved for medical leave under the Family Medical Leave Act and his work's short term disability in Jan. He returned to work at the end of March. The surgery he had did not work and he needed another surgery. He redid all the forms and was approved again and during the middle of April he had his surgery. The disability insurance made a new claim and he was back under short-term disability.

On Wednesday June 9, his work called and said he was terminated as of May 31. His 12 weeks of the Family Medical Leave Act was up. His health insurance will stop as of June 23rd. The disability insurance will continue since the claim has been approved. His work says they plan on rehiring him when he is able to return to work. We should be getting paperwork for COBRA insurance soon.

This does not make sense to me. How can they fire him?

 

[Beth3]

How can they fire him? Because he exhaused the 12 weeks of leave time he was entitled to under the FMLA. The fact that his employer has voluntarily chosen to provide a disablity income benefit that pays benefits for a longer period of time has no bearing. The FMLA and STD are two entirely separate things. One is a law; the other is an insurance benefit.

 

[mother of 5]

Thanks for answering.

What confuses me is people who have long term medical conditions are not fired from their jobs. Why do employers offer short and long term disability insurance if an employee who needs it will get terminated? My husband does work for a large company.

I'm upset right now. Maybe I'm not seeing the whole picture. But with what the disability insurance pays we are barely surviving. Now we are going to have to pay COBRA insurance on top of it.

 

[Beth3]

Would you feel better if the disability income benefit ended when his leave time was exhausted and he was terminated?

I'm not being flip and I understand that your family is in a very difficult situation but it's a benefit that your husband continues to be eligible for continuing disability payments, even if his employment has been terminated. While it would be nice if the company elected to provide more leave time than the amount they're obligated to provide under the FMLA, they don't have to.

What confuses me is people who have long term medical conditions are not fired from their jobs. Without knowing the partiuclars of what you're talking about, it's not possible to coment.

When your husband recovers, you and he should talk to your insurance agent about applying for a private long-term disability plan. Since an employer-sponsored disability plan and a personal plan are not "integrated," if he had both, they would each be paying a disability income benefit to your husband and your financial situation would be a lot better.

 

[mother of 5]

We do have private disability insurance for our home. The plan kicks in after 90 continious days and pays for our mortage, property tax and home insurance. The problem is that my husband was on disability for 75 days then had to return to work. The count started back at 0 when he went back on disability.

I am VERY thankful that the disability insurance is still in effect. I know our state is "employment at will". I assumed since he was under the employers disability plans he couldn't be fired, I assumed wrong. We have been in contact with his HR department the whole time. Nothing was mentioned about being terminated. They notified him by phone over a week AFTER he was terminated. This just doesn't seem right to me.

I know my brother was out of work for 18 months when he had cancer. He was recently out another 6 months when he got a staph infection. He was never terminated. He does not belong to a union. I know other people who went on work disability and they were not terminated either.

Thanks for listening to me ramble. I'm just very upset.

 

[Beth3]

I understand.

I expect the company's employee handbook explains what the limits of their leave policy is. Your brother's company has obviously opted to have a considerably more generous policy, which was their choice.

FYI - the time of private disability policy I'm referring to is an income protection benefit. In other words, it would pick up a percentage of his income starting from the time he became disabled (less any waiting period.) What you are describing is mortgage insurance.