You get sued by the three different plaintiffs on the same day all alleging that they were terminated after taking a medical leave.  I was checking out the report of cases filed in New Jersey, which I get on a daily basis because that’s how geeky we attorneys are.  In any case, I see three different disability discrimination lawsuits filed by the same attorney and against the same employer. 

This could simply be a case of an opportunistic attorney who found a target du jour, but it is a little unusual to get three simultaneous lawsuits alleging that employees were discriminated against after taking leave for a variety of medical conditions.  It might be more common to see, for example, a claim that all employees who took leave for a particular condition, such as AIDS, were discriminated against.  The theory in those cases is usually that there is a particular hostility to persons with AIDS due to fears of contagion.  Where there is not this common theme or illness to unite the claims, three different plaintiffs with three different medical conditions may show less about a particular bias and more about a misunderstanding management has about its obligations to accommodate disabilities.

It is, of course, entirely possible that the company in these cases fully engaged in the interactive process and either could not continue to accommodate these individuals or that the individuals had legitimate performance deficiencies that justified termination.  However, the normal rule of thumb should be where you see a rash of similar complaints, further investigation into how managers are handling matters is warranted.