fired for requesting leave of absence

[jobless2014]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? OK
I worked for approximately 86 days as anew hire. My grandchild got really sick and we were told he was dying. i requested leave of absence so i could fly to Cali to be with my daughter. i went to work that day, and i put in my request in writing. i was told i could go and that i will receive paperwork via email for the leave.20 hours later, i received a termination letter stating i no longer had a job.
I filed for unemployment immediately(first time, am 54). AM Actively seeking employment. am an LPN with 25 years experience.
My request for the benefit has been denied as i had not worked for 90 days and therefore not entitled to sick leave and also my employer says they did not approve my leave. am devastated.
Is it even worth filing an appeal?

 

[Proserpina]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? OK
I worked for approximately 86 days as anew hire. My grandchild got really sick and we were told he was dying. i requested leave of absence so i could fly to Cali to be with my daughter. i went to work that day, and i put in my request in writing. i was told i could go and that i will receive paperwork via email for the leave.20 hours later, i received a termination letter stating i no longer had a job.
I filed for unemployment immediately(first time, am 54). AM Actively seeking employment. am an LPN with 25 years experience.
My request for the benefit has been denied as i had not worked for 90 days and therefore not entitled to sick leave and also my employer says they did not approve my leave. am devastated.
Is it even worth filing an appeal?

Well, if you don't appeal you have no chance of winning.

If you appeal, there might be a small chance.

Hang on until the HR folk respond though.

 

[cbg]

If you appeal, you might prevail and you might not.

If you don't appeal, you definitely won't.

If you appeal and win, you get unemployment.

If you appeal and lose, you're not worse off than if you never appealed at all.

Sounds like a no-brainer to me.

 

[jobless2014]

If you appeal, you might prevail and you might not.

If you don't appeal, you definitely won't.
policy
If you appeal and win, you get unemployment.

If you appeal and lose, you're not worse off than if you never appealed at all.

Sounds like a no-brainer to me.

The letter says I violated employers policy. ??????
How in the world does one ever win if the policy is buried among 200 page papers that one signs on hire?
May be it was really naive of me for clocking out after I was told "your daughter needs you, we will sort everything out via email. My Charge RN called her friend to apply for the job the minute I left and she was hired a day later.
I am not mad, just emotionally exhausted from the ordeal.

 

[Eekamouse]

You're supposed to read what you are signing off on when you are hired. It's not your employer's fault if you didn't bother to do that.

 

[commentator]

Well, it's never a bad idea to appeal the decision. Request a hearing. You don't have to say anything except "I wish to appeal this decision." You don't have to make any argument related to the situation, just request the hearing in a timely manner.
In the meantime, keep filing for and certifying for weeks as they pass. If you were to win, you would not be back paid for any week you had not certified for.

Okay, you were not a permanent, full time employee. You were a probationary employee. They did not have to give you FMLA, because you had not worked there for a year or more. You were very upset, of course. However, did you stop to consider that they might say No to your request for a leave of absence?

It really sounds on first reading like they portrayed that you didn't care at the time. You just left, assuming that you'd hear something positive from them, like "Certainly, sure, take as much time as you want." You did not give them any chance to consider the request ( as perhaps is required in the handbook.) You just left. That looks as if you voluntarily abandoned the job without the permission of the employer, before any leave was approved. That's why you weren't approved. But intial unemployment approval/denial decisions that are made are frequently overturned in the appeals hearing. There's no need to be "devastated and emotionally exhausted." Just appeal it in a timely manner and take another shot at approval.

Before you go into the appeals hearing, purge your mind of the idea that you should get unemployment just because this is the first time you've ever applied for it. It has not been taken out of your paycheck, and it does not come from the taxpayers money, and it is not given subjectively because you have a sad situation or because you really need it.

What unemployment is looking at is whether or not you are out of work through no fault of your own. Did you voluntarily quit your job to go to California to see your grandson? Or did you go, assuming (based on the impression you were given by someone in the company) that your leave of absence was going to be approved, only to find out shortly thereafter that you had been fired?

You don't need to read a vast hiring document or company policy manual to know that taking off suddenly without permission probably isn't going to be acceptable work behavior, regardless of whether or not you had an excellent personal reason to do it. When you hire on with a company, and you sign that you have read the information in their hiring policies and manuals, you are agreeing that you understand the company's policies. But you didn't need to read this to understand that this wasn't really the way to do it. If this isn't what you did, that is the point you make in the appeals hearing.

You pretty much knew that they needed someone in your job position, that you were still on probation, and that jumping up and leaving without getting their agreement for you to do so and setting up some sort of agreed upon leave would probably not be a good idea. You knew someone else was eager to move into the position. If this is NOT what you did, then you have a fair chance of showing this in the appeals hearing and being approved.

Your best argument in the appeal is that you were not quitting the job and that you believed your leave would be approved. Demonstrating this has to do with EXACTLY what you were told when you "went in to work that day and I put in my request in writing, was told that I could go and I would receive paperwork later for the leave." Do you have a copy of what was said, was it said via email, or was it said in person? If so, who said it? What exactly did they say to you?

You mention something about something being said about "Go on, your daughter needs you!" Was this the same person who moved her friend into your position quickly?

It is Important to emphasize that no one told you that you were going to be fired or that the leave was not approved. Did you have the impression that it was approved? What exactly did you say in your request for leave? Do you have a copy of this document? If not, try to remember exactly what you said in it. Hopefully you did not give them any ultimatums "I'll be going, no matter what!" or "If you don't agree to this, then I am quitting!"

I am sorry that this happened. It is quite natural that you would want to be with your family under these circumstances. If the employer led you to believe it would be all right, that they were going to approve leave, and then did not, did not give you any opportunity to keep your job or any choice regarding whether you stayed and kept the job or left and lost it, then it may be that they decide you did follow company policy by requesting the leave as soon as you possibly could have, and then you acted under the assumption that they had agreed to accommodate you regarding the leave.

File the appeal paperwork. Get a hearing set up, and then we can work more on exactly how you deal with this presentation. Keep making those weekly certifications. Keep making those job searches.

By the way, what happened with the family crisis?

 

[Chyvan]

i requested leave of absence so i could fly to Cali to be with my daughter. i went to work that day, and i put in my request in writing. i was told i could go and that i will receive paperwork via email for the leave.

my employer says they did not approve my leave. am devastated.

This is what it boils down to. If you had permission, then you had it. Just because it's company policy not to grant leave, doesn't mean that someone at your employer that you believed had the authority to grant you leave, didn't depart from the policy either because 86 days was close enough to 90 or they just felt sorry for you. You might be believed, you might not. I hope you have a print out of the email and a copy of your request. By carefully looking at it, they might have used words like "after looking into things further," or "we changed our mind." That would make it sound like for a brief moment you did have permission, acted on it, and then were blind sided.

While the family illness won't get you benefits, it wouldn't hurt to throw it in, but sparingly. It is a good reason to ask an employer for a leave, and let them decide what they will let you do to accommodate your request.

Watch what you ask for. I get the idea from your post that you applied for UI "after" being fired, but "before" you returned from the family illness in CA. I have trouble with that. While you may have been looking for work in CA (most likely OK jobs), you weren't really available for work. I wouldn't be convinced that the need to be in CA was so great that you asked for a leave, but then out of the next breath, would try to convince me that you would immediately come back to OK to attend an interview or accept a job if offered.. To boost your credibility, you should only seek benefits from the time the family emergency was over, you were back home in OK, and not a day sooner.

 

[commentator]

[
Quote Watch what you ask for. I get the idea from your post that you applied for UI "after" being fired, but "before" you returned from the family illness in CA. I have trouble with that. While you may have been looking for work in CA (most likely OK jobs), you weren't really available for work. I wouldn't be convinced that the need to be in CA was so great that you asked for a leave, but then out of the next breath, would try to convince me that you would immediately come back to OK to attend an interview or accept a job if offered.. To boost your credibility, you should only seek benefits from the time the family emergency was over, you were back home in OK, and not a day sooner.[/QUOTE]

The unemployment system does not ever care about your "credibility" and you do not need to try to boost it.

They do not look at anything related to you personally while doing this adjudication, or try very hard not to. The issues will be covered by unemployment law, which you are not required to know, present or argue, and your "credibility" about whether or not you have been making job searches is never even going to come up in a hearing about this separation issue.

That your reason for requesting this leave of absence was to rush to the bedside of your very ill grandchild instead of to accompany your husband on a vacation trip to the Caymans is going to have some significance and should be brought into the discussion. Ideally, it would not make a large difference in the decision, but in the real world, it will tend to make you more sympathetic and credible.

But the hearing appeals referee/judge/officer doesn't give a thought to whether you are in CA or OK, or whether you're looking for work when they deal with the termination issue. Job searches or work availablity is something that doesn't need to be brought up in this hearing, and if you do, they'll probably tell you it is irrelevant.

While I agree with the first two paragraphs of this post, the last part isn't correct. If the person applied for unemployment after the termination and before she returned to town and was or was not able and available for work, that would have absolutely nothing to do with the decision that was made.

And in actuality, she could file, in CA, for a claim the day she got there. Every state has a unit that deals with interstate claims. No matter what state she applied in, it would be an OK claim, based upon OK law, and her reason for separation issue would be adjudicated by the interstate unit from OK, even if she was NOT making job searches, was not able and available for work in either place.

The termination issue for which she left the most recent employer is completely separated and is apart from the decision to pay benefits weekly based on the claimant's availability for work. This decision to approve or deny benefits based on the separation issues will be made independently.

The weekly certifications must be made before ANY unemployment weeks are ever paid. If you make the weekly certifications, based on job searches you are doing in CA while you are there, that would be acceptable to OK unemployment. Each time you certify for a week, you are stating that you are able and available for work and have been actively seeking it.

If you are going to be out of work for more than a couple of weeks, even if you are not going to be seeking employment immediately, you need to go on and file the claim, due to the base quarters situation. If you dally too long, wait until you are actually standing ready to go straight back to work, the quarters may have gone by so that your claim will be reduced. Wait long enough, and you may not have a claim at all, regardless of the reason you left the last employer, that means no unemployment benefits.

If you have this hearing, and you are approved for benefits, it doesn't matter if you are in CA, as long as you are making the appropriate job searches, and submitting them as directed, you are qualifying for your OK benefits.

When a claim is filed, if there is monetary eligibility to set up the claim, it stays in the system for one full year from the filing date, whether it was approved or not. At any time during that year that things have changed, for example, you have now become able and available to work, or you have worked somewhere else and been laid off, terminated, or the job has ended for some reason, you will be filing again to re open that same claim.

So immediately, as soon as you can, you need to file for benefits after receiving notice you have been terminated in this manner. This will set up your claim immediately and begin the process of dealing with the actual termination issues. When you have the appeals hearing, they will not deal with any of your personal issues such as whether you are available to work in OK or CA or whether you are actually able and available and seeking work at this time. That is a completely different issue, known as an "availability issue," and it requires a different decision and is totally unrelated to the employer, so they will not be privy to any discussion of this aspect of the claim.

Wherever you are, I get the impression that you have just received the decision denying benefits. No matter where you are or what you are doing at present, get that request to appeal this decision back in within the 15 day window. Set up to have the hearing, either in person or on the telephone, then we can tackle how to present yourself in the hearing.