If you are injured off the job and take a leave of absence can your employer refuse to take you back?
My employer refuses to let me go back to work after a medical leave for knee surgery because I have a temporary weight restriction of >40lbs. This restriction wil last for two months. I am a electronics department manager at wal-mart and can perform all other duities except lift large tv’s. There are 3 other employees with weight restrictions in the department allready. I live in Maine so if you know any laws relating to this please let me know.
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If you have a restriction that hinders your work, then they need to find you another job to do until that restriction is lifted. If there is not another position that you can do, then they do not have to keep you.
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BTW, I’m sure Wal Mart has an employee handbook–look and see what their policy is on this.
You better get lawyer to find out. This is the most bizarre story witch I heard. Must be some way to make this right.
Yes, they can. You were not injured on the job and you took a leave of absence…there is no obligation for them to return you or return you to your old position.
I don’t think he can because you had surgery. also you took a leave of absence,you didn’t just take off.
I hope you get your job back
if you have restrictions then you are not ready to return to work. The reason you have restrictions is because your doctor doesn’t want to take responsible of your health. so if your doctor isn’t sure about you why do you think wal-mart should be!!
If you were injured other than on the job, and were not on Workman’s Comp disability, then when you finish the time period for your leave of absence, you must either be TOTALLY able to return to work, without limitations, or expect to not be allowed to return. You did not state whether the other employees with weight restrictions were hurt on the job or not, but it sounds like they were and are covered by an entirely different set of rules.
It depends on how long you’ve been employed there and how long you need to be away from work. This is the Family medical leave act (FMLA) for Maine:
Maine’s Family Medical Leave act allows an employee who has been employed for 12 consecutive months by the same employer to receive up to10 weeks of family medical leave. The leave can be either paid or unpaid; there are other conditions that must be met to qualify for the leave and the employer must employ at least 15 employees. The full text of the Family Medical Leave Act is in Title 26, sections 843-849.
Several sites detailing Maine’s FMLA and the Federal FMLA are below.
I broke my ankle a couple of weeks ago. Have a temp wheel chair and walker for getting around. Working with home health, Not in pain, not taking meds, other than the anti infection kind. Today, HR said that I could absolutely not work from home, I was to exhaust all of my PTO then be LWOP. I’m confused, other’s have worked from home. I do data entry only and there is no one else in the office qualified to work within the software. We’re in Nevada