Fired for depression or anxiety in California?
Depression and anxiety are among the most common conditions that lead terminated California employees to us and often we end up representing those employees in wrongful termination cases resulting from their unlawful terminations.
It sometimes surprises people when we talk about how often employees end up losing their jobs over mental health conditions that should have been accommodated by the employers. Depression and anxiety disorders affect tens of millions of working Americans. Most employees push through mental health conditions for as long as they can — showing up, performing, hiding what they’re going through — until they simply can no longer push.
Too often, when they do seek an accommodation for their symptoms/treatment, they end up terminated instead of accommodated.
If this happened to you, as you will see below, California law most likely considers your termination an “unlawful employment practice,” and your employer likely owes you a remedy.
Call us to discuss and explore your options.
Depressive Disorders (Depression) and Anxiety Disorders Generally Qualify for California's Laws Protecting Employees with Health Conditions
The broad definition of disability under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act includes depression by name, and includes any mental health condition that limits a major life activity, such as by causing the need for a reasonable accommodation in employment (i.e., limits the major life activity of working).
An employee does not need to be hospitalized. And does not need a formal psychiatric diagnosis with years of treatment history. If the employee’s healthcare provider advises their employer (i.e., through a doctor’s note) that the employee has a condition that requires time off work for treatment, the employee will generally be protected.
What Employers are Required to Do
When an employer becomes aware that an employee has a health condition impacting the ability of the employee to perform her job, the employer has certain legal obligations.
The interactive process. Once they become aware, employers are required to engage in a good-faith conversation with the impacted employee about what accommodations might help the employee continue working or return to work. This is not a one-time event. It is an ongoing obligation. Many employers skip it entirely. Many others go through the motions with no intention of actually accommodating impacted employees. The result is that many employers violate the law.
Reasonable Accommodation
An employer aware of a mental health condition impacting an employee’s ability to perform her job triggered the employer’s obligation to interact/communicate, and, likely, required the employer to provide a reasonable accommodation such as medical leave (including leave beyond what FMLA or CFRA provides) or an adjustment to workplace conditions or policies if doing so may have been effective in allowing the employee to perform her job.
Termination is not a reasonable accommodation. If an employer’s response to an employee’s mental health condition is to end the employee’s employment, the employee has rights and the employer has a problem.
Employers Motivated by Mental Health Discrimination Generally Provide a False Reason for Termination
Employers rarely say, “We’re firing you because of your depression.” They know better than that. Instead, they find a pretext — a reason that sounds legitimate on the surface but falls apart under scrutiny. We see the same patterns over and over:
“Performance issues.” You had good performance reviews for years. Then you disclosed your condition or took leave, and suddenly there were problems. This pattern is powerful evidence of pretext.
“Job abandonment.” You were on medical leave. Your employer sent a letter saying you “abandoned” your position, often without any prior conversation.
“Your position was eliminated.” The timing matters. If your position was “eliminated” while you were on mental health leave, or shortly after you returned, your employer will need to explain why — and most cannot.
“You exhausted your leave.” Your FMLA or CFRA leave ran out, so your employer treated that as a termination event. But under FEHA, additional leave beyond FMLA/CFRA was likely required as a reasonable accommodation for a disability.
“We had to replace you.” Needing to fill your role while you were gone does not excuse terminating you under the circumstances. Employers have an obligation to explore alternatives and to make every effort to accommodate.
What to Do If You Were Fired
We understand that there is a stigma associated with mental health conditions that does not exist for physical injuries. You may have been afraid to tell your employer what you were dealing with (because some employers continue to be dismissive of mental health conditions). We find that many employees push through symptoms of significant mental health conditions for months or years before asking for help, feeling like they “should be able to handle it.”
That stigma around mental health issues is one of the reasons for the law that may have made your termination illegal. California law recognizes that mental health conditions are not only as serious as many physical health impairments, they are often more serious. Your employer may have thought you should just “get over it,” but California law required your employer to get over it–not push you out over it.
Talk to us. Every case review is free and confidential. There is no fee unless we recover for you. We handle these cases on a contingency basis because wrongfully terminated employees would not be able to enforce their rights if they had to come up with attorneys’ fees after losing their income. We also handle cases on a contingency basis because we believe in them.
This is what we do. Mental health termination cases are not a side practice for us. We represent California employees who were fired for health-related reasons — and depression and anxiety are among the most common reasons our clients come through the door.
We understand the law. We understand employer tactics. And we understand what you’re going through and what it takes to move you from overwhelmed to empowered.
If you were fired because of the need for a reasonable accommodation related to depression or anxiety or any other mental health condition , we want to hear from you. If you needed time off because of symptoms, or to determine an effective medication, or to pursue cognitive therapy, or needed other accommodation, there are very few reasons that you could be denied accommodation. Call us to tell us what happened and to explore your options.