Can employer legally fire employee for exceeding pregnancy leave?

Q: I work for a large company and recently took a leave of absence due to pregnancy disability. My pregnancy was high-risk and I used up all of my 4 months of leave. However, due to some health complications, after the birth of my child, my doctor says I still cannot return to work, and may need a few more weeks of recovery. Can my employer legally fire me at this point?
A: Under California’s Pregnancy Disability Leave Law (the pregnancy law), pregnancy – and all its related medical conditions such as severe morning sickness, doctor-ordered bed rest, childbirth, recovery from childbirth – is considered a temporary disability. California’s pregnancy law allows up to four months of leave for pregnant employees. But what if the employee used up all that allowable leave and still cannot return to work. Can she legally be fired?
Not quite. An employee who has taken 4 months (or 17 1/3 weeks) of leave under the pregnancy law is also entitled to another 12 weeks of leave if she is eligible under the California Family Rights Act (CFRA).
An employee is eligible for CFRA leave if:
1) her employer has at least 50 employees within a 75 mile radius of the worksite,
2) she has worked at least 1,250 hours in the 12 months before taking the leave, and
3) she has worked for the employer for at least a year.
If covered by CFRA, an employee can also take up to 12 weeks per year of unpaid job-protected leave to bond with a newborn or newly adopted or fostered child, whether or not the mother or child has a serious health condition or a disability. For bonding, the leave must be used and completed within 12 months of the birth, adoption, or fostering of the child.
But what if after availing of all 29 1/3 weeks of leave under the pregnancy law and CFRA, the employee still cannot return to work because of disability? Should the employee now be fired? Under the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), the employee is still entitled to reasonable accommodation from the employer, including additional leave, if the additional leave would allow the employee to go back to work at the end of the leave.
The case of Ana Sanchez illustrates the application of the FEHA law. Sanchez worked for Swissport, Inc. for over a year as a cleaning employee when she became pregnant. Her pregnancy was high-risk, requiring bed rest. She was granted 19 weeks of leave, consisting of her accrued vacation time plus time allotted by CFRA and the pregnancy law. She was due to give birth in three months when she ran out of pregnancy disability leave. Because she had not returned to work after her 19 weeks of leave, her employer terminated her.
Ms. Sanchez filed a wrongful termination case against her employer, claiming that Swissport discriminated against her based on her pregnancy and pregnancy-related disability and that Swissport failed to accommodate and engage her in a timely, good faith interactive process. Ms. Sanchez argued that she should have received more leave as part of FEHA (the disability law). Swissport countered that according to the pregnancy law, leave is capped at four months, which it had provided to Ms. Sanchez. She was terminated only when her leave expired and she still could not return to work.
The Court of Appeal ruled in favor of Ms. Sanchez, concluding that the pregnancy law is not the only exclusive remedy for an employee seeking reasonable accommodation of her pregnancy-related disability. Once the maximum four-month leave period specified in the pregnancy law has expired, a pregnant employee is still entitled to protections for disabled employees under the disability law. The court concluded that remedies under the pregnancy law were intended to “augment, rather than supplant” the remedies provided by the disability law. In other words, the remedies provided by the pregnancy law are “in addition to” the remedies for pregnancy-related medical conditions under the disability law.

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C. Joe Sayas, Jr., Esq. is trial attorney who has obtained several million dollar recoveries for his clients against employers and insurance companies. He has been selected as a Super Lawyer by the Los Angeles Magazine, featured in the cover of Los Angeles Daily Journal’s Verdicts and Settlements, and is a member of the Million Dollar-Advocates Forum.