Fired after FMLA leave? You may have a retaliation claim under federal and Michigan law.

What the FMLA actually does.

The Family and Medical Leave Act gives eligible employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave per year for serious health conditions — your own or a close family member’s — and for the birth or adoption of a child.

“Job-protected” is the operative phrase. When you come back, you’re entitled to your same job or one substantially equivalent. If your employer interferes with your leave, denies it improperly, or retaliates against you for taking it, the statute creates a private right of action.

Who’s covered

• Eligible employees: Worked for the same employer at least 12 months and 1,250 hours over the prior 12-month period, at a worksite with 50+ employees within 75 miles.
• Covered employers: Private employers with 50+ employees, all public agencies, and all public/private elementary and secondary schools regardless of size.
• Qualifying reasons: Your own serious health condition, care for a spouse/child/parent with a serious health condition, birth or adoption, or qualifying military exigencies.

When you can take FMLA leave

The 12-week framework and what triggers it.

The FMLA gives an eligible employee up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a 12-month period for a qualifying reason. For military caregiver leave — to care for a covered servicemember with a serious injury or illness — the entitlement extends to 26 weeks in a single 12-month period.

You don’t have to take all 12 weeks at once. Leave can be intermittent (taken in separate blocks) or on a reduced schedule (working fewer hours per day or week), when medically necessary or when both you and the employer agree. The employer is allowed to require that intermittent leave for planned medical treatment be scheduled, where practicable, to minimize disruption.

Notice rules cut both ways: if the leave is foreseeable (planned surgery, scheduled childbirth, scheduled treatment), you generally have to give 30 days’ notice. If the leave is unforeseeable (a sudden serious health condition), you have to give notice “as soon as practicable” — which in most cases means the same day or the next business day. Failure to give the required notice doesn’t automatically forfeit your rights, but it can complicate the case.

When you return from leave, your employer has to restore you to the same position or an equivalent position with the same pay, benefits, and working conditions. “Equivalent” means substantially the same job — not a downgraded version, not a different shift, not a worse commute, not the same title with different responsibilities.

What we look for in an FMLA retaliation case

The evidence that moves an FMLA retaliation case is usually:

• The FMLA leave-request paperwork — the employer’s leave form, the federal DOL Form WH-380-E if it was used, doctor’s notes, leave-of-absence approval letters.
• The employer’s written acknowledgment of the leave — any email, letter, or HR note confirming it.
• The exact dates the leave started and ended.
• Performance reviews from the 12 months before the leave.
• Any performance criticism that materialized only after the leave request or after return.
• Comparator evidence: similarly situated employees who didn’t take leave and weren’t treated this way.
• The written reason given for any adverse action — and any earlier, different reasons.
• Witnesses to relevant conversations.

The strongest FMLA retaliation cases combine a documented leave, a tight timeline between the leave and the adverse action, and either a pattern of post-leave hostility or a documented contradiction in the employer’s stated reason for the discharge.

What you can recover

FMLA remedies, under 29 U.S.C. § 2617, include:

• Back pay — lost wages from the date of termination to the date of judgment.
• Front pay — future lost wages where reinstatement isn’t workable.
• Liquidated damages — equal to back pay, available when the employer’s violation was willful. The burden is on the employer to show good faith if it wants to avoid this.
• Attorney’s fees — recoverable by a prevailing employee.
• Reinstatement or promotion — equitable relief restoring the employment relationship.

The actual recovery in any FMLA case depends on the facts: how long the employee was out of work, prior compensation, mitigation efforts, the strength of the willfulness evidence, and the economic value of equitable relief.