Fired because of sick family member

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kgeiger

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I live in NC and my employer is in CA. I have been with the company for almost six years with a spotless record and a recent positive review and raise. I was just put under a new manager that decided he wanted me to move to CA to do my job and take on a team lead position. I orally agreed. However my Father developed a serious heart condition in the last two months which I and my family are currently dealing with. When I let my manager know of my predicament and that I was not going to be able to make the move anytime soon he fired me.

Do I have any recourse in this situation? They also are trying to only give me two weeks severance!

Thanks for any advice/help.
 
They're not required by law to give you any severance at all.

There is a reason for this question and it has a direct relationship to what, if any, legal recourse you have. You need to answer it LITERALLY.

Were you needed to provide care for your father? Were there other family members available to care for him?

It really does make a difference to the answer. And the answer is not necessarily what you might think.

Give me the answer to that, and we'll go from there.
 
Yes...I totally understand that they are not required by law to give me a severance. However I did not do anything egregious to get fired. I was with the company six years and have an excellent reputation and record. They let go 5 people about 3 months ago and they each got 11 weeks severance...medical coverage etc. Most of them had been with the company two years or less! For some reason I am being treated much differently. I have not signed and returned the severance package they sent to me and I have a computer and other equipment that I need to return. I am told that severance packages are negotiable. Is that the case?

I am not the primary care giver for my Father but I am the secondary and I provide the housing for the family when he is in the hospital as the medical facility is 20 minutes from where I live. There are a lot of issues I deal with concerning him that I won't go into on here but suffice it to say I am very involved.

Thank you.
 
Yes, severance packages can be negotiable. That doesn't mean that they are mandatory. The thing to keep in mind is that they can withdraw the offer already on the table if you push too hard. Your case is weak at best (we'll go into that in a minute) and they didn't have to offer any severance in the first place - most places don't offer it at all in your circumstances. Letting people go for RIF or downsizing reasons is one thing - firing them because they refused a transfer is quite another. There's only one place I've ever worked where in your circumstances you would have been offered anything, and in that place two weeks is pretty much exactly what you would have been offered.

IMO, you might - *might* be able to squeeze out a weak case for a FMLA violation here (assuming that FMLA applies), but it's going to be a bit of a stretch. You were not the primary caregiver, and you were not fired for asking for medical leave; you were fired because your position was being relocated and you were unwilling/unable to make the move. In my personal opinion what they should have done, just to cover themselves, was offer you 12 weeks of medical leave and delay the transfer till then. However, whether or not their failure to do so consistutes a violation of FMLA is not clear cut. It certainly can't hurt for you to discuss it with an employment attorney or the US DOL (they are the regulatory agency for FMLA) but it's not a slam dunk in either direction.
 
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