Human Resource Blog

Being fired after short term disability

>One of our customer service employees has been on short term disability since 9/29/08 and is scheduled to return to work within the next 10-14 days. Can we terminate her for misconduct when when she returns? We have a recorded phone call where she violated company policy and procedure, that would ordinarily warrant termination. But can we terminate her for something that she did 4 months ago?

Yes, you can absolutely fire this employee for something that she did 4 months ago. If you could not, many, many employees would steal from the company or commit other types of gross misconduct, before going on short term disability.

Lets look at just one example: Paul is a bank branch manager. He has been stealing money from the bank for 3 months and has stolen more than $100,000 in all. Paul goes on short term disability the day before the banks quarterly audit. Can Paul be fired for the theft when he returns from leave? Of course he can. The bank does not have to give him a free pass to steal money, simply because he was on disability afterwards.

The same principle applies to any violation of company policy.

In fact, this employee could have been terminated while she was still on disability. The company was being unusually generous to wait until she returns.

Since you have this call on tape, the employee should be permitted to hear it. But regardless, you are justified in firing her if it is a violation that would have resulted in termination, if the employee had never been on short term disability.