Legal Question in Medical Leave in California
Holding employment position beyond the 12 weeks
My mom has been on medical leave from her job. Prior to the 12-week fmla period expiring, she consulted her HR dept to determine what would happen with her leave when the 12-weeks expired, as she had learned from her doctor that she would be on leave beyond that. Her HR dept told her not to worry, that she had 26 weeks of available medical leave. She has now been off 16 weeks, and received a letter from her employer stating that because the 12-week FMLA expired, they were no longer holding her position for her. They are going to hire someone and what they said was, when it was time for her to return back to work, they would ''try'' to place her in a comparable position, based on what was available at that time. My question is: if they told her ''don't worry, you have 26 weeks of medical leave'', shouldn't they be holding her position for that amount of time?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Holding employment position beyond the 12 weeks
By law an employer is only required to hold the job open for 12 weeks. If it is the policy of the company to permit employees longer medical leave, your mother may have a breach of contract claim. There is also a legal concept called "equittable estoppel" that might apply, assuming it can be proven that your mother detrimentally relied on the promises of the HR person who had the authority to make the promise.
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