In Ontario, medical leave protects employees who are unable to work due to injury, illness, or medical emergency. Although many individuals who take a medical leave fear how their employment could be affected by their leave, employees are legally protected from being terminated in relation to their illness, medical condition, and/or disability under the Human Rights Code and the Employment Standards Act (“ESA”). Under the ESA, employers are required to reinstate an employee who has returned from medical leave back to the same or a comparable position.
For an employer to be able to terminate an employee immediately after taking a medical leave, it must be for a reason unrelated to the employee’s medical condition, illness, or disability. Examples may include business restructuring or downsizing, fraudulent claims about the medical leave, failure to communicate their return after taking a leave, or the end of a fixed-term contract.
In the case that one of these circumstances is the main basis for the termination, if discrimination is found to contribute even minimally to the termination it still constitutes a breach of the employee’s human rights. Where a termination occurs immediately after an employee returns from medical leave, courts often infer a connection between the medical leave and termination.
In the case Luckman v. Bell Canada (2022), the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled that an employee’s cancer diagnosis and subsequent medical leave played a factor in his termination. The tribunal awarded him $121,052.40 in damages, as Bell Canada considered the employee’s medical condition when they assessed his continued usefulness as a team member.
If you return to work after a medical leave and are experiencing a disability, your employer has a duty to accommodate you to the point of undue hardship. This means that unless it is highly unreasonable for your employer to alter your job duties or work environment to allow you to perform your job effectively, they cannot terminate your employment because of your disability.
If you are terminated during or immediately after medical leave, you may be entitled to compensation. Call us today, at no cost, to discuss potential next steps.