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[Music] a former Amazon employee is suing the online retailer claiming she was wrongfully dismissed after dealing with long covet Brittany hope says she was hospitalized in February 2020 and later realized she had been dealing with lingering symptoms of long covet the 29 year old claims that when she applied for medical leave a few months later that Amazon cut her off and her access to company email and the disability portal two months later she says she was fired for quote job abandonment and billed more than twelve thousand dollars for alleged overpayments of wages now employment lawyer Alex lucifero joins us Alex this situation it's in the U.S where things it can be slightly different but what options does an employee have if they're not able to work for medical reasons what happens in that scenario yeah so this is an area of the law where actually our laws in Ontario are quite protective of employees employers have to be very very cautious when dealing with employees who have medical disabilities or take medical leaves of absence employees have the following options number one is to actually take a medical leave if your doctor is authorizing you to take a leave of absence from work for health reasons as long as you provide your doctor with a doctor's note and it could be you know very basic doctor's note you as an employee are allowed to take that medical leave of absence your employer cannot punish you for taking such a leave the other right that you have as an employee is you are allowed uh and uh as a right have the rights to be accommodated in the workplace so if you have particular restrictions as to what you can and can't do in the workplace your employer has to accommodate you in that respect again you cannot be punished or terminated for requiring accommodation for medical reasons in the work place okay let me ask you this follow-up is there a specific amount of time that you can be on a medical leave in Ontario often and I mean the reality is there's no set time limit I certainly if you're having to take a medical leave of absence that leave can be weeks or months it can even be years I mean it could be several years as long as there is a reasonable expectation that you will be able to return back to work as an employee your employer has to respect that medical leave of course the employer has to make do in the meantime perhaps replacing you as an employee uh with someone else or making other arrangements in the workplace but again that medical leave has to be respected and moreover once you are cleared to return back to work you have the rights to return to your same position the same terms of employment that you left when you went off on leave okay let me ask you this then so we know that the employer you're saying has to let you take that leave what if they say no I refuse where do you go from there who are the people that you talk to again employers have to be very very cautious in these kinds of situations you effectively can't say no again provided the employee has provided medical evidence again in the form of a doctor's note you cannot refuse a medical leave of absence as an employer if you do you are ineffectively in hot water that can be considered discrimination under the human rights quote Ontario it's effectively discrimination on the basis of disability an employee would be owed damages as a result of discrimination like that you would also owe that employee Severance it's effectively a termination if you are not authorizing an employee to take a medical uh leave of absence and so that an employee would also be owed Severance in addition to any human rights damages that they would be owed all right Alex thanks for taking the time today once again that's Alex lucifero employment lawyer thank you