Okay, this is a very weird and long story that I think I can only explain chronologically. TLDR I was on unpaid medical leave and my work hired a PI to follow me around and have been weird and shady at every step of the process.
Earlier this year I started getting weird unexplained neurological medical symptoms, and after about a month of attempting to push through and keep working I had to start taking sick days here and there. As things got worse and I started running out of sick/vacation days my supervisor suggested I apply for FMLA. I applied under the guidance of my HR rep and stopped going in. Likewise I stopped getting paychecks.
I also have a small artisan crafts business that I run on the side, selling at farmers markets. At this point I'm largely bedridden four days out of five, only able to do things with a few days of rest before hand and a few days of being basically unconscious afterwards. Frankly my doctors didn't want me doing anything, but that would drive me mad. So I kept going to markets on some weekends – my husband did all the work, all the lifting, all the setup and takedown – I just sat there and talked to customers, occasionally bagging something.
Two months of complete radio silence from my job later, I got a phone call directly from the COO – who I had never met. He says I never qualified for FMLA because I hadn't worked there long enough, and demands very rudely that I return to work the next morning. His tone was incredibly nasty and disrespectful to the point that struggle to describe it. I told him I was still sick and there was no way that was happening, so he says I need to give them a new doctor's note within 24 hours. This spins me into a massive panic attack since I have no idea what was going on.
I don't know how it is elsewhere in the US, but where I am post COVID you aren't going to get word back from a doctor within a week for almost anything. So it took me a few days to get the note, which I email to them. My husband also emails them with more questions about what would happen next (and why it took two months for them to figure this out) since I was too tired to do anything else. I hear nothing back for almost a week.
Eventually a new HR rep reaches out (apparently the original one quit). She says the board has decided to put me on a medical leave of absence – which nobody asked me about – and I should send in another doctor's note in a few weeks. Because it's not FMLA, they stop subsidizing my health insurance and I can't afford it anymore, so I end my coverage and move over to my husband's insurance.
Now it goes back to radio silence. I send the new note in a few days before when they wanted it and again hear nothing back for about a week. Then I get an email saying they need another one in four business days. The timeline seems completely arbitrary. I ask for some more time, citing how long it took to get the last one. I get told that the new date is “consistent with the two week schedule.” Well, nobody ever said anything about two weeks, and also the new date isn't two weeks from the last date. I tell them this. I show them the email chain. I get no response.
I just manage to get the note in time, by some miracle. My doctor is annoyed that they keep asking for notes so frequently even though every single note he gives them says “she shouldn't work until further notice” because of how weak my symptoms leave me. I'm not even supposed to drive long distances, so I don't know how they expect me to commute 45 minutes.
Then I get a call out of the blue. They've scheduled a meeting for Friday morning. My attendance is mandatory, and I'm entitled to union representation. Uh oh. My state union rep is out of town until that morning, and asks to push it a day or two so it's not just my local rep who's kinda inexperienced. They refuse. My state rep has to reorganize their whole schedule to attend, and they'll probably still be late.
My husband takes the day off work to drive me to the meeting (something he has to do fairly often to take me to appointments – HIS job is thankfully very understanding). My local union rep meets me outside and we walk in together. The COO and his boss are there. They reveal that they've hired a private investigator to follow me at markets, and accuse me of being an imposter. Like, the COO literally pulled the Webster definition of imposter up on his laptop. Then they started going through my business' Instagram and spy videos their PI took of me lifting my purse up at markets to show me “working.” When I tried point out that those Instagram videos were from two years ago, and that one day of sitting at a farmer's market a week while my husband lifts everything is very different from a five day work week in a very skilled and exhausting service profession, they started shouting at me. They told me they could take away my license (which I doubt). They said I had no credibility. They said they didn't care about my medical condition or the multiple doctors notes from multiple doctors.
At that point I was having a full panic attack so they told me to leave until the state union rep showed up. He went in on his own and came back about an hour later. He said they claimed to have overpaid me by a few thousand dollars (based on the number of sick days I took, apparently), but they'd forgive that if I resigned and then signed something saying I wouldn't sue the school.
We're waiting for them to draft that agreement now.
Afterwards, thinking about the spy footage they showed me, I realized that one of the markets they had hired the PI to film me at was a full month BEFORE the COO reached out to me for the first time. A full month before I heard literally anything about my FMLA application. So they were investigating me from the getout, but did this whole strange dance with a leave of absence and weeks of doctors notes before confronting me. Why? What was their goal? Why not just fire me? It's not like they were losing money, they weren't paying me. Surely unemployment would have been less expensive than a PI, and frankly if they are accusing me of fraud they could just fire me for cause and contest the unemployment application.
So I'm now paranoid when I'm at markets, dealing with the emotional repercussions of the extremely traumatic and weirdly petty-drama-filled meeting, and unsure what to do. Nobody from the workplace is replying to my texts so I think they've already started to blackball me. Even if I resign, nobody will want to hire me after this drama. Do I have grounds for any kind of labor dispute or personal injury lawsuit? I literally started getting stress induced alopecia (hair loss) because of this. My therapist can attest to the panic attacks this has been giving me. And I STILL don't know what's causing my neurological symptoms. I keep getting bounced between specialists and it takes at least a month to get an appointment with anyone these days.
I feel like they wanted to accuse me of fraud but didn't get enough evidence so are just trying to scare/exhaust me into rolling over and leaving them alone. I don't want to sign something saying so won't sue them because it feels like they're afraid of that and I want to know why.