Fired Two Weeks After Asking for FMLA Leave in Michigan: Do You Have a Case?

Bywarreng24

If you requested medical or family leave under the FMLA — for your own serious condition, a family member’s illness, a new child, or pregnancy-related care — and you were terminated two weeks later, the first thing you should know is that the timeline itself is often the strongest evidence in your case.

Two weeks is tight. Federal courts in Michigan routinely treat such short gaps between protected FMLA activity and an adverse employment action as powerful circumstantial evidence of retaliation. Employers almost never admit they fired an employee for taking leave. We prove it through timing, documentation, and the weakness of whatever rationale the employer offers instead.

Here’s what you need to know.

Why the two-week timeline matters so much

The FMLA prohibits two distinct employer actions: interference with the right to take leave, and retaliation for exercising that right. Both are actionable. Retaliation claims hinge on whether the employer’s adverse action — termination, demotion, discipline, reassignment, schedule cuts — was because of the FMLA activity.

Because employers rarely admit the reason, retaliation is almost always proven circumstantially. The single most important circumstantial factor is time.

  • 1 to 2 weeks between the protected FMLA activity and the termination: extremely compelling to judges and juries.
  • 3 to 8 weeks: still strong, especially with corroborating evidence.
  • 2 to 6 months: possible, but requires more supporting evidence — a shifting employer rationale, comparator evidence, pre-leave performance records, or direct statements.
  • More than 6 months: difficult without strong direct evidence.

A two-week gap sits squarely in the strongest category. That doesn’t automatically mean you win — but it does mean your timing is on your side.

What the FMLA actually protects

Before we get into what to do next, a quick refresher on what the FMLA covers.

The Family and Medical Leave Act requires covered employers to give eligible employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a 12-month period for specific reasons:

  • Birth of a child and bonding with the newborn
  • Adoption or foster placement of a child
  • Care for a family member (spouse, child, or parent) with a serious health condition
  • Your own serious health condition that prevents you from working
  • A qualifying exigency related to a family member’s active-duty military service

Not every employer or employee is covered. The employer must have 50 or more employees within a 75-mile radius of your workplace, and you must have worked there for at least 12 months and logged at least 1,250 hours over the preceding 12 months.

If any of these thresholds aren’t met, the FMLA itself may not apply — but you may still have protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, or Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act depending on the underlying reason for your leave request.

What evidence should you preserve right now

If you’ve been terminated within weeks of requesting or taking FMLA leave, start gathering the following immediately:

1. Your FMLA request itself. The email you sent, the HR portal submission, the leave-request form you filled out. Save copies in your personal email or a secure personal storage location — your work access may be cut off without warning.

2. The employer’s response. Any emails, letters, forms, or HR communications confirming the leave, granting it, or raising questions about it.

3. Medical certification. The healthcare provider’s certification (if your employer requested one) and any communications about it.

4. Performance reviews from before the leave request. These become powerful evidence if the employer’s termination rationale is a sudden “performance issue.”

5. Your termination paperwork. The separation letter, any exit paperwork, any final HR communications. Note the stated reason — we’ll compare it against the pre-leave record.

6. Comparator evidence. Think about coworkers who did not request FMLA leave. Were any of them disciplined or fired for similar conduct? If not, that’s comparator evidence of pretext.

7. Witnesses. Colleagues who observed the shift in how you were treated, or who heard supervisors complain about your leave, are potentially valuable witnesses.

What your employer will typically say

In my experience, employers facing FMLA retaliation claims usually offer one of a few stock rationales:

  • “Performance issues” that weren’t documented before the leave request
  • “Restructuring” or “reduction in force” that conveniently includes the employee who just took leave
  • “Attendance” — arguing that absences (including the FMLA leave itself!) justified termination
  • “We had decided to terminate before the FMLA request” — a defense that requires documentation we can subpoena
  • “Not a cultural fit” or similar subjective rationale

None of these are automatically defeated, but all of them have common weaknesses we can exploit — shifting explanations, missing documentation, comparator evidence showing others treated differently.

How damages work in an FMLA case

If you win an FMLA retaliation case, a court can award:

  • Back pay — lost wages and benefits from termination through trial
  • Front pay — lost wages and benefits after trial
  • Liquidated damages — an amount equal to your back pay, effectively doubling your lost-wages recovery, if the employer’s violation was “willful”
  • Attorney’s fees and costs — paid by the employer if you win

Two categories of damages are not available under the federal FMLA: emotional distress damages and punitive damages. If your case also includes claims under the ADA, Title VII, or Michigan state law, those damages may be available under those statutes. Many FMLA cases include parallel claims specifically to preserve access to the broader damages.

How long do you have to sue?

The FMLA statute of limitations is generally two years from the violation, or three years if the violation was willful. That sounds like a lot of time. It isn’t. Evidence disappears, witnesses become harder to locate, and employers start telling themselves the story they’ll tell at trial. Early engagement matters.

What to do next

If you requested or took FMLA leave and were terminated within a close time window — particularly within the last 30 days — do these things today:

  1. Preserve all of the evidence listed above. Email yourself copies from work accounts before you lose access.
  2. Don’t sign anything. If you’ve been offered severance in exchange for releasing claims, don’t sign it until you’ve had a case evaluation. Once signed, it’s generally binding.
  3. Call for a free consultation. I’ll ask the questions that matter and give you an honest assessment — whether you have a case I’d take on, and what your next steps should be.

Call 814-821-1140 or request a free case evaluation →.

For a detailed walkthrough of FMLA retaliation claims in Michigan — including the 10-point evidence checklist I use to evaluate cases — see the FMLA Retaliation practice area page →.

Warren Astbury is a Harvard Law graduate (2009) with 15 years of experience and 50+ trials to verdict. He represents Michigan employees — only employees, never employers — in wrongful termination, FMLA retaliation, discrimination, and non-compete defense cases at Astbury Law, PLLC in Detroit. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes. The information on this page is for general educational purposes and is not legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is created by reading this page.

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