fired and wants to know if i have any legal recourse

[ronin1963]

i was fired in Sept of 2010 from a municipality. I worked there for a little over 3 years. The last t wo years I was the Dept Head over horticulture, with one full time employee thast I supervised. In Oct. of 2008 I was in a serious motorcycle accident and was out of work for three months. I had numerous follow-up visits with a doctorThe accident was not my fault and the other driver was ticketed. My father was diagnosed with prostate cancer a few months prior to the accident and not long after the accident had prostate surgery and chemo then had colon cancer and chemo. During that time I missed several days from work to help with is care since my mother was not able to due to her own health issues. I had leave time that covered most of the days out, but did use approximately 4 days total more leave than I had and did not get paid for those days. In July of 2010 I twisted my ankle at work and missed about half of the same day but returned to work the following day. In September of 2010 I cut my leg with a limb saw and was taken out of work for 5 days to allow the wound to heal fully. The day I returned to work, at lunch-time I was called in and fired. The reasons given were excessive abscences, poor work performance and unsafe word practices resulting in two injuries in three months. I did not receive any warning that I was not excused for the days I missed to help my Dad. In fact I was told to take what I needed and that it was not a problem. I never received a write-up for poor work performance until a week before I was fired and it was vague. When I asked what the specific problems were and what I needed to do to correct them, no one was willing to tell me anything. What can I do?

 

[Peppermint]

Unless there was a union contract or other CBA that allowed you additional leave time over and above the 12 weeks per year that FMLA provides (and it sounds like you did), the termination was perfectly legal.