Can My Employer Require That Sick Time Be Used For The Same Dates That I Received Disability Insurance For?

I’m located in California. I do realize that my employer can require me to use sick time for the one week waiting period before disability payments start. My question is if they can require it to be used for days that I was/will be paid disability benefits by the state?

There’s a SDI FAQ on the CA EDD website that says: “Employees are not required to use vacation, paid time off, or sick leave when receiving Disability Insurance or Paid Family Leave benefits.”

The specifics:

There was a department shutdown from December 23rd to January 6th. I had surgery on December 23rd. I informed my employer’s leave management of the situation and provided the surgeons work restrictions. My employee was unable to accommodate the restrictions, so I am on LOA until the restrictions lift.

Leave Management said that my sick time would be used for the waiting period. The sick time was applied for the pay period of 12/29/24 to 1/11/25. The specific dates that I would have been scheduled to work during that pay period are 1/6/25 through 1/10/25.

This all took place prior to my state disability claim being processed and approved. I now have an active claim effective 12/23/24. The claim shows my payment waiting period as 12/23/24 to 12/29/23 and my first payment was issued for the dates of 12/30/24 to 1/23/25.

Given that I was paid disability insurance for the dates that my sick time was initially used for and given that I was not scheduled to work during the dates of my disability waiting period due to a department shutdown, is my employer now obligated to return my sick time?