Posted On:
July 22, 2010
Virginia Employment Law: Protection of Employees on Workers' Compensation (VA Code § 40.1-27.1)
As a courtesy to employers and employment lawyers, The Employment Law Chronicle provides the text or links to the text of key Federal, Virginia, and District of Columbia labor and employment laws published on government sites.
As set forth below, in Virginia, employers are limited in their ability to discharge employees for excessive absences due to illnesses or injuries that are compensable under Virginia's workers' compensation law.
VA Code § 40.1-27.1. Discharge of employee for absence due to work-related injury prohibited.
It shall be an unfair employment practice for an employer who has established an employment policy of discharging employees who are absent from work for a specified number of days to include in the computation of an employee's work absence record any day that such employee is absent from work due to a compensable absence under Title 65.2; provided, that such compensable absences can be calculated into an employee's work record for purposes of discharge after all steps of the excessive absenteeism policy have been exhausted. An employer shall not be held in violation of this section if the employee's absence exceeds six months or if the employer's circumstances have changed during such employee's absence so as to make it impossible or unreasonable not to discharge such employee.
