No. If you are eligible for protection under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), your employer generally cannot punish you for requesting or taking protected leave. Federal law prohibits covered employers in Texas from interfering with FMLA rights or retaliating against employees who exercise those rights. Termination, demotion, reduced hours, disciplinary action, and attendance penalties may violate the law when they are connected to protected leave.
If you work in El Paso, Texas, and your employment changed after a family or medical leave request, the reason for the change matters. Chavez Law Firm helps employees evaluate potential FMLA retaliation and other employment law claims.
What Does the FMLA Protect in Texas?
The FMLA generally provides eligible employees of covered employers with up to 12 workweeks of unpaid, job-protected leave during a designated 12-month period for qualifying family and medical reasons. Common qualifying reasons include:
- Your own serious health condition that prevents you from performing essential job functions.
- Care for a spouse, child, or parent with a serious health condition.
- The birth of a child and bonding with a newborn.
- The placement of a child for adoption or foster care and related bonding.
- Certain qualifying circumstances associated with a family member’s covered military service.
Separate military caregiver provisions permit up to 26 workweeks during a single 12-month period for qualifying care of a covered servicemember. During FMLA leave, qualifying group health coverage generally continues under the same terms as if you were working. At the end of protected leave, eligible employees generally have a right to return to the same position or an equivalent one, subject to lawful exceptions.
Learn more through the firm’s Family and Medical Leave resource: https://chavezlawfirm.law/family-and-medical-leave/
Can Your Employer Retaliate Against You for Taking FMLA Leave?
No. The FMLA prohibits employers from using protected leave as a negative factor in decisions concerning hiring, discipline, promotions, scheduling, or termination. The protection can apply to employees who attempt to exercise FMLA rights, even when a dispute arises during the request process.
Potential examples of FMLA retaliation include:
- Counting approved FMLA absences toward attendance points or disciplinary warnings.
- Reducing your regular hours because you requested medical leave.
- Removing supervisory duties or denying a promotion because you used protected leave.
- Terminating your employment because of an FMLA absence.
- Pressuring you to give up legally protected leave.
For example, an employee with positive evaluations before leave may return to unexpected discipline for approved absences. Those circumstances merit closer review. Timing may support a claim, but timing alone does not establish that an employer violated the FMLA.
Key point: Protected FMLA leave cannot lawfully be treated as misconduct merely because your absence inconvenienced an employer.
Who Qualifies for FMLA Protection in El Paso?
Most employees must meet three federal eligibility conditions before their leave begins:
- Work for a covered employer for at least 12 months, which generally need not be consecutive.
- Have at least 1,250 hours of actual service during the preceding 12 months, subject to special rules.
- Work at a location where the employer has at least 50 employees within 75 miles.
Private-sector employers are generally covered when they employ at least 50 employees for 20 or more workweeks in the current or preceding calendar year. Public agencies and eligible elementary and secondary schools are covered regardless of employee count, although individual employee eligibility rules still matter. Airline flight crew members and certain other employees may be subject to special rules.
Employees who do not qualify under the FMLA may still have protections under disability laws, other applicable statutes, or an employer’s leave policies. An attorney can examine the facts of your employment situation.
What Are the Warning Signs of FMLA Retaliation?
An employer may retaliate through a single employment decision or a pattern of changes after your leave. Watch for:
- Unexpected negative evaluations without supporting performance records.
- A significant loss of job duties, compensation, or regular hours.
- Comments criticizing your use of approved family or medical leave.
- Discipline for dates covered by approved FMLA leave.
- Sudden exclusion from advancement opportunities after an FMLA request.
The decisive question is whether the employer acted because you exercised protected rights. A neutral business decision supported by credible evidence may be lawful, even when it occurs shortly after leave.
Related resource: https://chavezlawfirm.law/el-paso-workplace-retaliation-lawyer/
Can Your Employer Fire You While You Are on FMLA Leave?
An employer can sometimes lawfully terminate an employee during FMLA leave for a reason unrelated to the leave. Protected leave does not shield an employee from a legitimate reduction in force, established misconduct, or another decision that would have occurred regardless of the leave.
An employer cannot use a supposed restructuring or performance concern as a cover for unlawful retaliation. Performance records, the timeline of the decision, and how similarly situated employees were treated may help clarify the true reason.
What If Your Employer Refuses to Restore Your Position?
After qualifying FMLA leave, you generally must be restored to your former job or an equivalent position with substantially equivalent pay, benefits, duties, and working conditions. Keeping the same salary does not automatically make a job equivalent when responsibilities or status are materially reduced.
Restoration rights have exceptions. For example, an employee may not be entitled to a position that would have been eliminated regardless of the leave. Special rules also apply to certain highly compensated key employees. Each situation requires review of the actual work and employment records.
How Can You Prove FMLA Retaliation?
Begin with a dated timeline of your leave request, employer responses, the leave period, and any later adverse employment decisions. Evidence may include:
- Leave requests, approval notices, and lawful copies of medical certifications.
- Emails, messages, and statements about your leave.
- Performance evaluations and disciplinary records before and after leave.
- Schedules, pay statements, job descriptions, and termination notices.
- Witness names and notes describing relevant conversations.
Preserve only materials you are authorized to access. Do not remove private records about other employees or confidential company information without permission. A lawyer can assess whether your evidence points to FMLA retaliation, interference, or another type of employment claim.
What Should You Do If Your Employer Punishes You?
If you believe you were punished after taking protected FMLA leave, consider the following steps:
- Write down the dates, decision-makers, conversations, and changes to your employment.
- Preserve approved leave documentation, relevant communications, and pay records.
- Consider a written report through human resources or an established complaint process when appropriate.
- Obtain legal advice before resigning, signing a release, or accepting severance terms.
- Discuss available filing options and deadlines with an employment attorney.
You may contact the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division about an alleged FMLA violation. Depending on the facts, a private civil lawsuit may also be available. An internal workplace complaint should not be assumed to suspend the deadline for a civil claim.
How Long Do You Have to File an FMLA Retaliation Claim?
Under 29 U.S.C. § 2617(c), an FMLA civil action generally must be filed within two years after the last event constituting the alleged violation. A willful violation may carry a three-year limitations period. The relevant event and applicable period depend on the claim.
Because employment claims can involve different federal or state statutes with different deadlines, prompt legal review is useful. Do not assume that discussions with human resources automatically extend the time available.
What Compensation May Be Available for FMLA Retaliation?
When an employee proves an FMLA violation, federal law may authorize:
- Lost wages, salary, employment benefits, and other compensation.
- Certain direct monetary losses when wages or benefits were not lost, subject to statutory limits.
- Interest and possible liquidated damages, depending on the employer’s defenses.
- Appropriate equitable relief, including reinstatement or promotion.
- Reasonable attorney fees, expert witness fees, and litigation costs when authorized.
Punitive damages and emotional distress damages generally are not available under the FMLA itself. Available relief depends on the circumstances, documented losses, and applicable law.
Can You Take Intermittent FMLA Leave Without Being Punished?
Yes, when the FMLA permits intermittent leave. Medically necessary leave may be taken in separate periods or through a reduced schedule for qualifying medical reasons. Protected intermittent leave generally cannot be counted as an unexcused absence.
Employees must ordinarily follow applicable notice and certification procedures. Intermittent or reduced-schedule leave solely for bonding with a newborn or newly placed child generally requires the employer’s agreement. Other qualifying types of leave have different rules.
You can review the U.S. Department of Labor’s guidance at https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/28-fmla
Speak With an El Paso Employment Attorney About FMLA Retaliation
If you were demoted, disciplined, denied reinstatement, or fired after requesting or taking protected leave, Chavez Law Firm can review your employment records and explain your potential options. Attorney Enrique Chavez, Jr., and the firm represent people facing employment law disputes in El Paso, Texas, and nearby areas.
contact the firm online to request an initial case evaluation, or visit https://chavezlawfirm.law/el-paso-employment-law-attorneys/ to learn more about the firm’s employment law services.
This article provides general information, not legal advice. Reading it does not establish an attorney-client relationship.