Tl;Dr: My spouse is being illegally screwed over by employer and can't find legal help. I hate this country.
What follows in the first paragraph is a brief summary of what happened up to now. Paragraph 2 are the avenues we have tried to no avail. I'm hoping someone can help on this, we are extremely frustrated.
1: My spouse has a seizure at work February 14th (spouse has MS, this is a regular occurrence unfortunately). Spouse regained composure and wanted to go home. Had others willing to drive spouse home but company would not let spouse leave unless in an ambulance. Ambulance ride and ER visit. Tests are done and comes back ok but they prescribe spouse seizure medicine. Medicine has restrictions on driving and operating heavy machinery. Spouse shows back up to work, work sends spouse home saying spouse cannot return to work until cleared of ALL RESTRICTIONS (yes this is illegal by the ADA laws) and must be cleared by a neurologist. As someone with MS spouse has to be seizure free for 6 months in order to have all restrictions removed, which has never happened in a decade so it's impossible. Spouse showed up to work 3 times and was turned away each time by the employer, saying same thing spouse cannot return to work unless cleared of ALL RESTRICTIONS. They also told spouse if they show up to work again they will have call police to remove them. Over the phone HR keeps telling spouse the same all restrictions impossibility and keep referring spouse to the insurance company to apply for FMLA and short term disability. Spouse does not qualify for either, and has been told so by both the insurance company at work and by the neurologist, as spouse is cleared for work just with restrictions. Neurologist also says this is illegal and discrimination by ADA law. So we are trying to find a lawyer…
2: we attempted to file a claim with the EEOC (equal employment opportunity commission). They only set appointments online, and checking 3 times a day since the 14th, there are never any available appointments. There is a time limit on filing a claim so very afraid this isn't going to work because Nashville office simply has no scheduled appointments to take.
Tried finding a pro Bono lawyer as our income has been cut in half with spouse not allowed to return to work. Three separate pro bono places told us we don't qualify, you pretty much can't be making more than 10 an hour to qualify.
We really don't want to lose our home over this but it's looking grim when you pretty much have to be homeless or have 10 grand for a lawyer lying around to get legal help.
Any advice out there that we haven't tried?