I have recently been terminated from my job, and I was told the position was going to be eliminated. All the paperwork I signed said the same thing. I just found out that the job was going to be filled by a new employee. Can you do this? How long does a company have to wait to reinstate a job that has been eliminated? Is this legal?

Yes, they can do this.

There is no law that says an employer has to wait any particular length of time before deciding to re-fill an eliminated position. After all, they could hypothetically get a new account the day after they let you go which means they need the position after all. The law is not going tell them they have to wait x amount of time before they can fill the job.

The chance that your job being eliminated was a pretext for an illegal termination increases inversely with the length of time it takes to fill the position, by which I mean that if your position was replaced a month after you left there is more of a chance that it was illegal than if it was replaced six months later, and if it was replaced six months later there is more of a chance that it was illegal than if it were replaced a year later. I am ABSOLUTELY NOT saying that your job elimination was illegal - we don't have any evidence to believe that it was or any reason to think so based on your post. But IF your position was eliminated for an illegal reason, their refilling the position after only a short period of time COULD be an indication to that effect.

Do you have any reason to believe that you were termed BECAUSE OF your race, religion, national origin etc.? Did you at any time before your termination apply for FMLA or workers comp? Did you report anything illegal to the appropriate regulatory agency?