She says she hit 177% of target and built the training deck — then came the layoff call
A former eBay worker is suing, saying an eight-month delay in her FMLA paperwork and disclosure of her medical information led to her firing.
Paige Williams spent more than nine years at eBay's Utah operations, working in the company's Premium Services Front Office. According to a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah (Williams v. eBay Inc., Case No. 4:26-cv-00059), her career ended on January 24, 2024 — 29 days after she returned from short-term disability leave, and on the very morning she was scheduled to train a group of new hires using a training deck she says she had built herself.
The lawsuit, filed on May 22, 2026, lays out a story that will sound uncomfortably familiar to HR leaders who have wrestled with third-party leave administrators, manager confidentiality lapses, and the optics of a post-leave reduction in force.
At the heart of the case is the FMLA. Williams says she sent a written request for FMLA paperwork to eBay's third-party leave administrator, Sedgwick, on December 23, 2022, copying eBay HR directly. She says she heard nothing for more than eight months — far beyond the five-business-day window employers are expected to hit. When eBay finally got back to her, the filing states, the company told her she was not eligible. Williams argues that the delay itself shifted the 12-month window used to calculate her eligibility, and that the...
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