Legal Question in Employment Law in Pennsylvania
Is request for medical/mechanical written excuse legal?
A restaurant owner has a young female employee who called off ill 2.5 hrs prior to her shift. She has no health insurance through them and is not paid for sick time off.She
does not currently have any health insurance and is having severe financial problems. She legitimately had the flu.She had never called off during her entire employment history with them.
The owner demands she is seen by an MD and provides written documentation or she is not permitted to return to work.When she contacted him re her financial issues, he simply hung up on her. She called back and was told by the assistant manager that she would have an excuse or lose her job.She, being financially devistated already, is forced to go to an emergency room, pay for a visit to have an MD tell her she simply has the flu.She is also forced to return to work, sick.
Is it legal for him to threaten loss of job and demand that someone pay for a physician when they are financially unable to do this?? This man is also extremely verbally abusive to his female employees..he has fired numerous women for any failure to obey him for any reason.They are all very young,unexperienced women. I am wondering what recourse these people have against him,if any.
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Is request for medical/mechanical written excuse legal?
A pattern of abusive behavior toward women may violate federal equal employment opportunity laws or Pennsylvania Human Relations laws. As to the medical excuse, although onerous, he does have a right to demand it. I offer free consultations.
Re: Is request for medical/mechanical written excuse legal?
It seems to me that the ongoing pattern of abusive behavior to female employees is the problem here. He has a right to demand a medical excuse. However, if he only demands such excuses of females, or treats female employees differently than male employees, then this behavior could violate anti-discrimination laws. Please feel free to contact me to discuss.
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