Yes, you can be fired for medical reasons in Texas, but only within limits. Texas is an at-will state, so employers can end the working relationship for almost any reason. The exceptions are the whole story here: the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, the Texas Labor Code, and workers’ compensation retaliation rules all restrict when a health-related termination is lawful. Whether yours crossed the line depends on your employer’s size, your condition, and whether the required steps happened before you were let go.
At-Will Employment and Its Limits
Under Texas’s at-will doctrine, either side can end employment at any time, for almost any reason, with or without notice.1Texas Workforce Commission. Pay and Policies – General The word doing the work in that sentence is “almost.” Texas recognizes exceptions for firings based on race, sex, religion, national origin, age, and disability, and it separately prohibits terminating someone for filing a workers’ compensation claim, serving on a jury, or reporting illegal activity.2Texas Workforce Commission. Wrongful Discharge Several of those exceptions land squarely on medical situations.
When a Medical Firing Is Illegal
Disability Discrimination Under the ADA
The Americans with Disabilities Act applies to every Texas employer with 15 or more workers and prohibits discrimination against qualified individuals with disabilities at every stage of employment.3U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The ADA: Your Responsibilities as an Employer A disability is a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity like walking, breathing, concentrating, or working. The definition also covers people with a history of such a condition, such as cancer in remission, and people the employer merely perceives as disabled even when they aren’t.4ADA.gov. Guide to Disability Rights Laws That last category trips up more employers than you might expect. Firing someone because you assume their diabetes will cause attendance problems is disability discrimination even if the diabetes has never affected their work.
When a disability affects job performance, the employer doesn’t get to skip to termination. The ADA requires a reasonable accommodation: restructuring the position, a modified schedule, reassignment to an open position, or modified equipment.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 12111 – Definitions Getting there is supposed to be a conversation. The EEOC calls it the interactive process, an informal back-and-forth where you describe the problems your condition creates and the employer explores options.6U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Enforcement Guidance on Reasonable Accommodation and Undue Hardship Under the ADA An employer that skips this and fires you instead has a serious legal problem, because they never determined whether an accommodation existed.
The employer’s escape hatch is undue hardship, meaning significant difficulty or expense measured against the cost of the accommodation, the employer’s resources, workforce size, and the nature of the business.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 12111 – Definitions Most accommodations cost very little, and this defense fails more often than employers expect.
Pregnancy-Related Conditions
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, effective in 2023, gives employees with pregnancy-related conditions the right to workplace accommodations under a framework similar to the ADA. It covers the same 15-employee threshold and requires reasonable changes for limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions unless doing so would impose an undue hardship.7U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. What You Should Know About the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act The accommodations tend to be straightforward: more frequent breaks, a stool, temporary lighter duties, schedule flexibility, or telework. Two rules matter here. Your employer cannot force a different accommodation than the one the interactive process produced, and your employer cannot force you onto leave when a different accommodation would let you keep working. Pushing pregnant employees onto leave instead of accommodating them was a common workaround before this law existed.
Medical Leave Under the FMLA
The Family and Medical Leave Act protects your job while you handle a serious health condition, but eligibility is narrower than the ADA. Your employer must be a private company with 50 or more employees within 75 miles, or a public agency of any size, and you must have worked there at least 12 months and logged at least 1,250 hours in the year before leave starts.8U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28 – The Family and Medical Leave Act If you qualify, you’re entitled to up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave per year for a serious health condition, and when you come back your employer must give you the same job or one equivalent in pay, benefits, and working conditions. Firing you during or because of protected leave violates the statute.
Workers’ Compensation Retaliation
Under the Texas Labor Code, an employer cannot fire you for filing a workers’ compensation claim in good faith, hiring an attorney to represent you in a claim, or testifying in a workers’ compensation proceeding.2Texas Workforce Commission. Wrongful Discharge If your medical condition came from a workplace injury and you were terminated after pursuing a claim, that’s a separate violation on top of any ADA or FMLA claim.
Texas Chapter 21
Federal law isn’t the only source of protection. Chapter 21 of the Texas Labor Code, sometimes called the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act, mirrors the ADA in several respects, covering employers with 15 or more employees and prohibiting termination based on disability.9State of Texas. Texas Labor Code Chapter 21 – Employment Discrimination The practical effect is that you can file a state-level claim with the Texas Workforce Commission alongside a federal claim with the EEOC.
When a Medical Firing Is Legal
None of these laws promise permanent job security. There are situations where firing an employee with a medical condition is lawful, and the line matters as much as the protections do.
The most common lawful scenario: you can’t perform the essential functions of the job even after reasonable accommodations have been explored. If your employer went through the interactive process, considered every feasible accommodation, and none would let you do the core work, termination doesn’t violate the ADA. The key word is “essential.” An employer cannot pad a job description with marginal tasks and then claim you can’t do the job.
Exhausting FMLA leave is another turning point. Once you’ve used all 12 weeks and still can’t return, your employer no longer has to hold your position.8U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28 – The Family and Medical Leave Act The ADA doesn’t switch off when the FMLA runs out, though. If your condition qualifies as a disability, the employer still has to consider whether additional leave or another accommodation would be reasonable before terminating you. That overlap catches a lot of employers off guard.
An employer can also terminate someone whose condition poses a direct threat to health or safety in the workplace that can’t be eliminated by a reasonable accommodation.10GovInfo. 42 USC 12113 – Defenses The employer has to base this on an individualized assessment of the specific risk, not on stereotypes or generalizations about a condition.
Retaliation Signs After Leave or an Accommodation Request
Even when an employer has a legitimate reason to make changes, the law draws a hard line at retaliation. Under the FMLA, your employer cannot punish you for requesting or using medical leave, filing a complaint, or cooperating with an investigation.11U.S. Department of Labor. Protection for Individuals Under the FMLA The same principle covers ADA accommodation requests and discrimination charges.
Retaliation doesn’t always look like a termination letter. The Department of Labor identifies these as prohibited conduct:
- Denying FMLA leave to an eligible employee who qualifies for it.
- Pressuring an employee not to use FMLA leave they’re entitled to.
- Adjusting an employee’s schedule to push them below the eligibility threshold.
- Treating a request for or use of FMLA leave as a negative factor in promotion, hiring, or discipline.
- Counting FMLA leave as an absence under a no-fault attendance policy.11U.S. Department of Labor. Protection for Individuals Under the FMLA
That last one is common. Many Texas employers use point-based attendance systems, and some have been caught adding points for FMLA absences that should have been protected. If you returned from medical leave and suddenly started getting written up for performance issues that never came up before, that pattern is exactly what discrimination investigators look for.
Health Insurance After You’re Fired
Losing your job during a health crisis means losing employer-sponsored insurance at the worst possible time. COBRA requires employers with 20 or more employees to offer you the option to continue your group health plan coverage after termination.12U.S. Department of Labor. An Employers Guide to Group Health Continuation Coverage Under COBRA You have 60 days from the date your benefits end to elect coverage.13Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. COBRA Continuation Coverage Questions and Answers Coverage lasts up to 18 months after a termination, extending to 29 months if you have a qualifying disability. The plan itself is identical to what you had, but you’ll pay the full premium (both your share and what the employer used to cover) plus a 2% administrative fee.14U.S. Department of Labor. COBRA Continuation Coverage For many people, that means premiums three to four times what they paid as an employee. Expensive, yes. But mid-treatment, a coverage gap can cost far more.
How to File a Complaint and the Deadlines That Matter
If you believe you were fired because of your medical condition, preserve everything: medical records, accommodation requests, emails about your condition or leave, performance reviews, and the termination notice itself. The strength of a discrimination claim almost always comes down to the paper trail.
You have two filing options in Texas, and thanks to a worksharing agreement, filing with one agency automatically cross-files with the other.15U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. How to File a Charge of Employment Discrimination The deadlines differ, and the shorter one controls if you want both claims alive:
- Texas Workforce Commission Civil Rights Division: 180 days from the termination.
- Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: 300 days, because Texas has a state agency enforcing its own anti-discrimination law.16U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Time Limits for Filing a Charge
The 180-day TWC deadline is the one that sneaks up on people. Six months feels like plenty of time when you’re recovering, but between medical appointments and the aftermath of losing a job, it passes fast. Missing it doesn’t necessarily kill a federal claim, but it forfeits your state-law remedies. An employment attorney working on contingency can handle the filing and evaluate whether your facts support a viable claim before either deadline runs out.