Job threatened

[keninky]

Ky...I recently had a stroke while at work. I didnt know thats what it was at the time but I knew something wasnt right. When I told my boss I thought I needed to go to the hospital, she said she needed me at work too bad at the moment and that if I went to the hospital, I may not have a job to come back to. This made me stay a while longer as I now feared losing my job but as my condition worsened, I couldnt stand it any longer and had a friend take me to the hospital. Every person I have told this too has said I should sue just based on the principal of the whole thing. Do I have legal recourse?

 

[Antigone*]

Ky...I recently had a stroke while at work. I didnt know thats what it was at the time but I knew something wasnt right. When I told my boss I thought I needed to go to the hospital, she said she needed me at work too bad at the moment and that if I went to the hospital, I may not have a job to come back to. This made me stay a while longer as I now feared losing my job but as my condition worsened, I couldnt stand it any longer and had a friend take me to the hospital. Every person I have told this too has said I should sue just based on the principal of the whole thing. Do I have legal recourse?

How many employees work at your place of business?

 

[keninky]

How many employees work at your place of business?

Around 80 or so.

 

[ecmst12]

You can't sue for principal. If you are still employed, you have no damages.

IF you qualify for FMLA, then your job would be protected for up to 12 weeks of leave for a serious medical condition. To qualify, you must have been with the employer for at least a year, and you must have worked at least 1250 hours in the past 12 months.

If you do NOT qualify for FMLA, then they can fire you the first minute you are out sick if they want, legally.

 

[keninky]

I have worked there full-time for over two years. My concern is a manager telling me if I went to the hospital that I probably wouldnt have a job to come back to. So at that point, I wait considerably longer before going to the hospital for fear of losing my job. Besides the fact that I feel it should be the manager's responsibility to call an ambulance, everyone knows the most important factor when dealing with a stroke is time. I have lost a lot of my eyesight from this stroke. The time I stayed at work because of the threat may very well have caused more damage than would have been if either I had gone to the hospital with disregard to what my manager said or she had called an ambulance.

 

[commentator]

You say that at the time, you did not know you were having a stroke. Did you ask the employer to call an ambulance for you? If you had said, "I really am sick! I need to go to the hospital!" and they had refused and fired you when you came back, that would have been really bad for their side. But if you just came up and said, "Hey I feel sort of weird, don't know what's wrong, I think I need to go home," and the supervisor, thinking you were just overstating your degree of illness said something dumb like, "I need you too bad to work, you might just not have a job to come back to if you leave now!" and you felt well enough to be worried about the threat and not call his/ her bluff, I don't believe you have much of a case.

The employer is not expected to be all knowing, to know when you are having a stroke or heart attack and need immediate medical attention when you don't know yourself, are not exhibiting obvious symptoms, and were willing to keep working when they threatened you or discouraged you from leaving.

You did stay on the job and seek treatment later. You did not get fired. You did not actually have proveable damages from not seeking treatment sooner, just a general sooner-you get-treatment-the-better agreement. Was the delay their fault for threatening to fire you, or your fault for not defying them and leaving right away?

 

[keninky]

You said I wasn't exhibiting obvious symptoms. I was complaining with my eyesight becoming terribly blurry, one arm completely numb, and the worst headache of my life. Those are obvious symptoms.

 

[ecmst12]

How long between the time you wanted to leave and the time you actually left?

 

[commentator]

I always and constantly marvel at the degree of passiveness exhibited by employees, and the total surrender of control they give to an authority figure. It kind of reminds me of the **** thing, "I was just obeying orders!" At some point, we have to be responsible for our own selves and our actions.

If you were really having the worst headache of your life and your symptoms were so awful that you were convinced you had something terribly wrong with you, then why would you abandon control of your life, health and destiny to this one stupid supervisor who was not concerned about you, was totally self absorbed and involved with getting the work done, and had no way of knowing whether you were having a true health crisis except for the feedback you were giving to them?

When you decided to hang on a little bit longer, they probably thought they were practicing good management, calling your bluff. Okay, so they weren't compassionate, weren't aware of the implications of your symptoms, weren't proactive about your health issues. But after a certain point, I think it is the responsibility of the employee to say, "Sorry, man, I'm too blasted sick, and I'm leaving!" and let them do their worst. They did not refuse to call help for you, fail to get treatment for you.

I once saw an employment situation where this happened, a worker literally fell over on the floor having a stroke and the employer and other workers ignored him lying there for a couple of hours. That employer got sued.

To want to sue them because they weren't nice to you when you told them you were sick doesn't seem reasonable or based on principal to me. As I said, you weren't fired, you were just threatened, and you can't prove that it was their fault you didn't get treatment sooner. That's the real principal of the thing.

If you didn't qualify for FMLA, they could've fired you the minute you left the building and it wouldn't have been illegal. Mean, maybe, but not illegal. But they didn't. Your being eligible for FMLA, you probably began it at once when you left and sought treatment, and then they couldn't fire you, at least for the 12 weeks.

 

[davew128]

I always and constantly marvel at the degree of passiveness exhibited by employees, and the total surrender of control they give to an authority figure. It kind of reminds me of the **** thing, "I was just obeying orders!" At some point, we have to be responsible for our own selves and our actions.

-While I understand your sentiment, remember that it is VERY stressful and traumatic to lose one's job especially today when you might not be able to get another. The need for financial security is very powerful.

 

[You Are Guilty]

Unless your boss actually prevented you from calling for help or leaving the premises, (beyond merely threatening to fire you), there is no claim here. They are allowed to threaten you. In turn, you are allowed to ignore them and do as you wish. Your boss is your boss, not a doctor or your parent.

Good luck with your recovery.

 

[keninky]

I was just curious to see what the feedback would be here. A rather large law firm in Lexington has already taken the case. Maybe they're just taking a shot in the dark.

 

[commentator]

-While I understand your sentiment, remember that it is VERY stressful and traumatic to lose one's job especially today when you might not be able to get another. The need for financial security is very powerful.

You're preaching to the choir here. Yes, the threat of losing your job is traumatic. The Lord knows I have spent most of my life watching people lose jobs in hard times, be afraid of losing their jobs, be absolutely hog tied and threatened by the idea of losing their job, or having a supervisor give them an order that is unreasonable and that they should not obey.

But at a certain point, we can't be childish and pass off all responsibility for ourselves over to an authority figure, expecting to be rewarded with a pat on the head, expecting to be looked after by the big Nanny employer.

That's not the way our workforce works in this country and the employee has to see themselves as an Army of One, has to accept that the employer cares not one whit for them, and we do not live in a parental state where somebody else will step in and insist that they are treated right on the job. Business interests, employers and their lobbyists control too much of our policy making for that to ever be true.

It sounds cold, but if this person is looking at the possibility of death or long term physical impairment due to what's happening to them, they won't be able to keep this job anyway. If you are standing there in front of your supervisor with "the worst headache of your life," you should be telling them, as a courtesy that you are leaving, not begging for permission and agreeing to stay if you are denied that permission.

Good luck on your lawsuit. I'm sure they'll bring up the famous McDonald's coffee incident at some point. Perhaps you will get a sympathetic judge or jury if it goes to that, and get a settlement, but if I can react negatively to your having a case, not see where your employer was just wrong "on principal" to tell you not to leave, there'll be a few other people who can too.