Consider a loan officer, who must close a certain amount of loans every quarter. When he is going on FMLA or some other type of protected medical leave or disability leave after being diagnosed with some type of chronic condition, his absence will obviously affect his sales and the overall sales of his department. His manager will be worried about his own numbers and how his department will look to his superiors. This type of situation is fertile grounds for retaliation. Moreover, if the employer suspects, based on the diagnosis, that the employee will need leave again in the future or that his health issues will be ongoing and will require some type of disability accommodation, the incentive to get rid of that employee will be even greater.
In this type of situation, the employer-bank will try to come up with all kinds of bogus reasons for terminating an employee -from making it look like a lay-off / restructuring to issues a PIP to that employee that will eventually culminate and firing for questionable performance issues.
In this type of cases, one e-mail showing some type of animosity toward an employee's medical leave or his absence or one witness who overheard this type of conversation can make a difference between having a strong case or a weak case/ no case. Your attorney should talk to as many witnesses possible, and supboena e-mails from every decision maker during the relevant period of time that might shed light on whether your medical leave played part in being fired.