i'm in PA. been at this company 4 years, no writeups. monday morning i emailed HR about taking FMLA for surgery in june. wednesday they fire me citing "violations of section 4.2 of the employee handbook" — which is some vague clause about "professional conduct."
they refused to give me specifics and the termination paperwork doesn't list any actual examples. obviously i think this is retaliation but PA is at-will. is there even a case here?
The McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework applies: you establish a prima facie case (you requested protected leave, you suffered an adverse action, there's a causal connection — temporal proximity of 2 days clearly satisfies this), then the employer offers a non-retaliatory reason (the handbook violation), and you respond by showing that reason is pretextual (you have no prior writeups, the cited rule is vague, no specific conduct was identified).
For PA-specific representation find a local employment lawyer. EEOC isn't strictly necessary for FMLA claims (those go to DOL or directly to court) but if there's any disability or discrimination angle, file there too. 300-day window.
Document everything now while it's fresh. Informational only.