Lawsuit spotlights ADA interactive process and FMLA notice gaps during a franchise handover
McDonald's faces a federal lawsuit alleging it fired a kitchen worker after she took leave for colon cancer surgery.
A former kitchen worker at an Illinois McDonald's says the company forced her out after she disclosed a colon cancer diagnosis and took time off to have surgery. The complaint, filed May 25, 2026 in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, lays out a fact pattern that lands squarely on two pieces of HR machinery: the ADA's interactive process and the FMLA's notice rules.
Claudia Vasquez worked as kitchen staff from around 2021 until her termination on or about December 1, 2025, according to the filing. Her duties were standard back-of-house work - food prep, cleaning, inventory.
In September 2025, Vasquez told her general manager about the diagnosis and handed over a medical note flagging surgery scheduled for October 14, the complaint says. Her time off was approved. But she says she was never given leave paperwork, never walked through her FMLA rights, and never invited into a conversation about what she might need on return. By her account, she had worked at the restaurant long enough and enough hours to qualify for FMLA - at least 12 months and 1,250 hours in the preceding year.
The store then changed hands. On or about October 10, 2025 - four days before surgery - the location flipped from corporate-owned to franchise-owned, according to the...
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