Do I have a legal arguement

What is the name of your state?I live in Michigan, I was injured at work and went immediately to the Emergency Department ( I work in a hospital) they put me off work until I could follow up with my family doctor. I saw him 3 days later on June 27th and he put me off work until after I had an MRI and a neurosurgeon consult. I had the MRI on July 5th and 2 Neuro surgeon consults on the 12th and 14th of July. During this time I was on workers comp, the after the neuro surgeons consults both concurrred that although my injury at work was a symptom my real injury happed over time and needed urgent surgery so I was switched to short term disability due to preexsisting condition and every thing was fine with surgery scheduled for August 10th.ve
Now I get home from surgery and I have a letter dated August 15thfrom my employer approving my FMLA (family medical leave act). It is back dated 6weeks to June27th. I do know back dating is illegal. Keep in mind I never submitted FMLA paperwork to my employer they approved it on their own stating it expires on Sept 19th. So according to FMLA my job is protected until september 19th.
Being in the healthcare business my employer knows that typical recovery from the surgery I had is 8-12 weeks I do belive that is why they back dated the FMLA. So it would expire before I was cleared to work.
Now I busted my butt in rehab and on Aug 30th I presented my employer I return to work with no restrictions slip. For September 15th.They said they would be in conact. A week later on Sept 6th I stopped in to ask when and whom I might be hearing from and they said they were having a staff meeting on the 7th and would let me know where I would be working. I got the call on the seventh and was told that they "made a mistake" and I should have not been approved for FMLA in the first place as I was about 100 hours shy of the required hours of work over the last year and that they would not be bringing me back.
In summary; I never requested FMLA and they approved 12 weeks of FMLA they never mentioned the "mistake" until after I submitted a return to work slip. They illegally back dated the FMLA.

It is back dated 6weeks to June27th. I do know back dating is illegal. Keep in mind I never submitted FMLA paperwork to my employer they approved it on their own stating it expires on Sept 19th. So according to FMLA my job is protected until september 19th. Whoa. Your employer has not done anything illegal. (a) You are not required to submit FMLA paperwork in order for your employer to attribute your absence time to your FMLA entitlement. In fact, your employer is obligated to identify when absence time falls under the FMLA and extend FMLA to that employee. (b) Notifying you in August that all your leave time is being attributed to your 12 weeks of FMLA is not illegal.

As it turns out, you weren't entitled to FMLA at all so none of this is even relevant. They do not have to return you to work.

Thanks but

My attorney and michigan court cases disagree with you. Once approved it cannot be revoked and it cannot be back dated. At least 11 incidents in michigan alone that ruled in favor of employees.

chfxd, you might want to take a look at Ragsdale v. Wolverine, a US Supreme Court case from approximately three years ago. In their decision the Supremes determined that as long as the employee received all the time they were entitled to (and since you didn't meet the hours requirement you were entitled to zero time), the employee was not entitled to additional time due to the employer's failure to notify him/her of the FMLA application. In other words, the employer is allowed to backdate as long as you do not lose any time because of it.

Since you were not entitled to any time at all, backdating is immaterial.

Thanks, cbg. That's exactly the point I was making. Additionally, this was all part of one continuous leave. The employer wasn't going back to time off taken months ago and deciding to attribute it to the OP's FMLA entitlement. In many, many cases, the employee is unable to provide certification of the need for FMLA until they are already out on leave. In fact the law gives the employee 15 days and sometimes more. The FMLA clock doesn't start "ticking" from the point in time when the employee returns the certification paperwork. FMLA begins when the employee begins leave that qualifies for FMLA.

But none of this matters anyway. chxfd, you simply didn't qualify for FMLA. That's the end of it.