Is it not illegal to fire someone who is on medical leave???
employment attorney Indiana Jul 25, 2026
I work at a grocery store in Location: Indiana, USA. We are unfortunately not in a union. The coworker I'm talking about is an older lady, 50-60s. She was generally disliked by most people at the store because she was pushy and a know-it-all, but she was a good performer and never broke any rules. Even if people didn't like her, I don't see valid legal reasoning to fire her based on that, it's just her personality and she wasn't aggressive or confrontational. (But obviously I'm not a lawyer.) She had to go to the hospital and was out sick for a month with the documentation needed to secure her job, came back, and then had to go on medical leave and has been for the last few months. She again had all the needed documentation for her medical leave. She was fired recently and I feel like she could have a case against the company/store. Again I'm not educated in law, but she was on medical leave, had her documentations, and there wasn't any valid reason to fire her per company policy. She performed well, it's just that she was a lot to handle, pretty loud and annoying but not in an aggressive way, she did NOTHING that broke any rules. I have been reading up on the policies at my store because they have been putting a lot of pressure on me over performance, so I know for a fact that my coworker who was fired did not do anything that went against company policy. I overheard my boss tell my first assistant that, if she keeps getting bitched at by corporate over my coworker not doing her training (which she couldn't do because she's disabled at the moment), then she would just fire her. My boss told my coworker to do the training at home, which again I thought was illegal since you need to be clocked in to do those training modules. Red flags all around. I have been here 8 years and my store in particular and the management here have been getting more and more audacious and doing things that I feel are overstepping and against policy (or at least walking the line). I would love to know if there's a possibility of them seeing justice served if my coworker chooses to take action.
