[0xbadc0de5]

This is sad and tragic but ultimately I don't think Mongo bares any responsibility here. If her partner left her while she was having a prolonged mental health crisis, would her partner be to blame for her suicide? I would argue: no.

[ffsm8]

I'm not American, and neither am I a lawyer, but the elephant in the room is that the workplace is responsible for health insurance, hence terminating her effectively removes her ability to get treatment, too.

Especially in this context, where she asked for at least a minor extension to finish her treatment.

I suspect the parents have a solid chance of winning this because the health insurance is linked, otherwise I'd completely agree with your opinion. An employer shouldn't be responsible for mothering their employees. It creates perverse incentives on both sides of the contract

[jostylr]

Why shouldn't her medical providers be responsible for continuing critical health care regardless of payment? Why is it on the employer who is only tangentially related to this versus the people actually charging large sums of money for medically necessary treatment?

Also, the same health insurance can be continued after termination (with some external payment, of course) in addition to medicaid probably being available. None of that may be easy for someone with mental issues to navigate, but that is systematic.

As for the minor extension, is it clear how long she was on leave and what the conversation had been before the termination? The post said that they asked for small time extension, but did not give any indication as to what was happening before, neither length of time employed before taking the leave, what caused the leave, what was said in terms of a return, how long the absence was, etc. I feel like plugging in different answers for those questions would change how I feel about the culpability of the company in the current legal regime.

[pas]

The usual answer is that there are other people who also need things and cannot pay, so then how should the provider pick between them fairly? (And likely some have a "free clinic", and as you mentioned there are options.)

Still almost all of the responsibility is on the patient, which is a terrible situation to be in for mental health patients. And even if the courts will find that the termination was wrongful it's unlikely that matters, because employers are not responsible for keeping employees alive and happy, they are responsible for making the usual safety precautions (see OSHA) and disability accommodations.

All the great perks of our cherished individualism suck when you have no one to enjoy them with.