Office consisting of one full time employee who after only nine months of employment sustained an injury outside of the workplace and went on disability. Termination had been contemplated before injury due to unreliability and tardiness. Can termination be proceeded with now or does the disability prohibit it? If termination is possible at this point, what is the best course of action? Thank you in advance for your time and assistance.

The employee receiving a disability income benefit has no bearing on your ability to terminate him. The federal Family and Medical Leave Act doesn't apply so he's not entitled to any statutory leave unless NJ has a more generous leave law of it's own (which it doesn't as far as I am aware.) That being the case, you are free to terminate his employment.

P.S. Next time, don't wait so long before you terminate an employee who has demonstrated his performance is unsatisfactory. :)

P.S. You can just send him a letter stating his employment has been terminated due to his continuing unavailability for work. There's no need to say anything more than that.

With so few employees the time he takes off isn't protected by law. I'd just send him a letter stating that you are terminating him for being unavailable to work. No sense getting into the rest of it. He may qualify for UC but that is a small price to pay.