August 31, 2026
When a Company’s Rightsizing Goes Wrong
An employer engaged a consultant to assess its plant (in)efficiencies. The consultant’s report found two employees’ jobs were redundant: a plant manager and an operations manager. During this assessment, the plant manager went out on FMLA leave. Fifteen days after returning from FMLA leave, and while working a modified schedule during his recovery, he was fired based on the consultant’s advice that the employer did not need “two people doing the same job.”
The employee subsequently filed a claim for FMLA retaliation. The question was, if the two jobs were redundant, how or why did the employer choose to RIF the FMLA-using plant manager instead of the operations manager? The employer’s cited defenses include:
- It fired at least 12 other people as part of its RIF. The court writes, “a jury could question whether there was a RIF at all. For one, there are no documents substantiating a RIF…For another, at least one higher up at the company did not know there was a RIF and thought [the plant manager] left “voluntarily”…Nor does [the employer] explain why it waited ten months after [the plant manager] left to terminate other employees through a RIF.”
- The person who made the decision to fire the plant manager did not know about his FMLA leave. The court notes that the employer cannot cite who made that decision.
- They engaged the efficiency consultant before the plant manager went out on leave. The court notes that still fails to explain why they chose to fire the plant manager instead of the operations manager.
The judge ruled the case will go to trial and denied the employer’s motion for summary judgement because, “in a RIF situation, the employer must specify why this particular employee, as opposed to any other employee, was terminated.”
Side Note 1: The court also points out that during this process, the employer hired the efficiency consultant and then while the plant manager was out on FMLA leave, they promoted the efficiency consultant to a VP role. Hmmm. Was that efficient? (my question, not the judge’s).
Side Note 2: I’m surprised the Plant Manager did not add claims under FMLA interference (could firing him two weeks after his return constitute failure to reinstate?) and/or the Americans with Disabilities Act claim based on perceived disability, if not actual, and failure to provide reasonable accommodation.
Remember. (1) Have bona fide business reasons for making an adverse employment decision. (2) Be sure to consider similarly situated employees. Rarely are two situations the same. But when your paid consultant writes, “you have two people doing the same job….you don’t need both positions” have bona fide reasons for why you chose one of those employees doing “the same job” over the other.
