I was terminated in retaliation for having a disability and being injured on the job due to my employer’s negligence. I took leave for surgery due to that injury and was terminated the day I returned. The reason? Allegedly poor performance, despite my review, completed just three weeks before the beginning of my leave, stating I was doing fantastic. My manager pinned a number of her failures on me in the process, all of which I could prove were entirely due to her own incompetence, but HR had already fired me. No one cared.

I filed a complaint with my state’s labor department, and in response my employer fabricated a host of lies to justify my termination. The department initially sided with them until I created a multi-page document explaining my evidence to them like they were a child. Within days, I had a new investigator and they had a team working on my case.

I just received a letter from the investigator. I won. Not only did they side with me for every accusation made by or against me, they found additional concerning details in my employer’s story, entirely due to the evidence they fabricated. Poorly. So soooo poorly.

It was noticed that there was a significant uptick in terminations at the time, and more of them were of injured or disabled employees than could be accounted for by employee population composition. The state is now prosecuting them for their violations in my case and investigating the entire company for further violations.

Feels good.