Human Resource Blog

Fired after telling boss I was very sick and would require medical care

	Termination
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Hello,

I discovered that an illness that was not taken care of originally by my surgeon had returned (it is a disease). I was depressed clinically (confirmed due to the illness), nauseous, dizzy, etc…told my boss that I was sick again and needed to get medical care again. But NEVER TOOK ANY DAYS OFF. Loyal, hard worker. Shortly afterwards, within a month, I was fired with no good cause. They just said, “you should get better”…and “it just wasn’t a good fit”. There were no direct reasons offered.

Isn’t this illegal in the State of Massachusetts or on a federal level? I now have to pay my own medical insurance and have no job and no $$.

This is probably a case of TMI (Too Much Information). Employees are wise not to share too much information with the employer, including medical diagnosis.

The termination may or may not be illegal – there’s not enough information to tell.

Generally, an employer can take any action against a seriously ill or disabled worker that the employer would take anyway, if the employee was well. This includes firing the employee for no reason, or firing the employee for performance issues.

Under employment at will, any employer can fire any worker at any time, with or without reason. The only exceptions are, the employer cannot fire the worker for an illegal reason. Firing a worker because they took unpaid time off under FMLA would be an illegal reason. So would firing a worker because they had a disability, under the EEOC definition of disability.

In some cases, employees who are ill think they are doing a great job by not missing a day’s work. In fact, their performance may suffer, especially if they are both physically ill and depressed. The employee may be better off taking unpaid FMLA leave, rather than showing up to work each day.