I'm actually posting this on behalf of my girlfriend. She's on maternity leave after giving birth to our daughter 3 weeks ago. Earlier this week, she received notice that she was being laid off from her job. The reason given was existing headcount was not needed based on existing workload.

My problem with this is that after she went on leave and 3 weeks prior to the lay off, another full time employee was transfered into her group. Now all of a sudden there isn't enough work to go around and she's the odd man out. It sounds fishy to me. Is this legal? If so, are her benefits terminated immediately?

The company is a large company (more than 1,000 employees) based in California and she has been a full time employee there for over 10 years.

It sounds fishy to me, too, though it's not cut and dried.

It certainly couldn't do her any harm to talk to the EEOC or the state human rights commission.

As to when her benefits stop, that's determined by the benefit policies themselves, not by law.

I don't know anything about CA maternity leave laws, but if she worked there for 10 years prior, the company sure picked a suspicious time to let her go.