Can Employer Terminate Employee Due to a Temporary Medical Issue

My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: An at-will state

Can an employee that had unplanned surgery (5 days prior), be immediately terminated by their boss for temporarily kneeling on the floor? (the stitches made it painful to sit in their chair) When asked why they were being terminated, no reason was given.

Sorry there's no such state as "AT WILL."

The answer is obviously YES if it happened.

Whether there is recourse depends on details that you obviously won't bother to disclose.

Sorry, I just signed up an hour ago and this website mentions to not give too many details.

But here is more info: The employee had unplanned surgery in the middle of the week and had to take the next 2 days vacation/sick days off due to the location of the stitches and had the weekend to recover. The boss was aware of the surgery. The employee attempted to work on Monday, 5 days after surgery, but had a difficult time sitting in the chair and decided to temporarily kneel on the floor. Less than a minute later, the boss told the employee to get off the floor and the employee reminded them that they had stitches in their buttock and it hurt to sit in the chair. The boss told the employee to go to her boss's office, where the employee was immediately terminated and was given no reason as to why when asked.

*The employee was a good worker that was regularly praised for their work. *Two months prior to their termination, the employees boss hired their close friend as a contractor to assist with the employee's job duties (which that person is now performing part or possibly all of the employees job).

Would anyone suggest discussing this situation with an Employment Lawyer?

Why not? It won't cost anything, and they'll have the benefit of the relevant facts and the identity of the state.

Apply for unemployment.

49 out of 50 states are at-will states, and the 50th state recognizes the at-will doctrine in some situations. So telling us that it's an at-will state is meaningless.

From what you've said, FMLA was not applicable in this situation so in order to provide any kind of meaningful comment, it will be necessary for you to tell us exactly what state you're in since it will be state law that applies. If you don't care to do that, well, you'll have to find another source for your info.

Actually the ADA might apply, but I'm not going to participate further here until we find out what state we're talking about.
He's been asked twice now.

Based on what he has posted so far, the ADA is a stretch.

I only said "might."

Based on past experience, there is probably no purpose in fighting an employer since they end up doing whatever they want the majority of the time and get away with just about everything. If you hire a decent lawyer, the employer will just hire an even better, more expensive lawyer - it all comes down to $ money, power, and in the end, the employee will get a bad name for fighting for what it right, based on principle. Unfortunately in many cases, our legal system has failed because misinformation and flat out lies are provided by defense lawyers. How can a judge make the right decision based on that? Lie detector tests should be allowed in all cases. What a shame.

Thanks for your responses - but this is probably not worth the time, money and energy to fight when it already feels like defeat. :(