Not for taking protected leave — but leave is not absolute immunity. If you qualify for FMLA or similar protection, an employer generally can’t fire you for using it. You can still be laid off for unrelated reasons that would have happened anyway, so the key question is the real motive.
Protected medical leave shields the leave, not the job in every circumstance. Under the FMLA and similar laws, an eligible employee generally cannot be fired for taking qualifying leave, and must usually be restored to the same or an equivalent position. But leave does not freeze everything: if your role is eliminated in a genuine, unrelated layoff, or you would have been let go regardless, termination can still be lawful. The decisive issue is causation — whether the leave was the real reason — which is why timing and documentation matter so much in these cases.
Generally you must be restored to the same or an equivalent position, but not if your job would have ended anyway in an unrelated layoff.
Yes, if the reason is genuine and would have happened regardless of the leave. What is prohibited is firing you because of the protected leave.
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