By Bradley T. Cave
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Get Your Report Now!Use care when writing policies that affect employees and their jury duty responsibilities to keep from running afoul of the FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act).
First, check to see if your state has laws regulating leave for jury duty. Even if it doesn’t, your policy may result in violations of the FLSA salary basis requirement for exempt employees. The salary basis rule requires that exempt employees be paid a predetermined amount of salary, without reductions for the quality or quantity of work. The regulations specifically state that employers cannot make deductions from an exempt employee’s salary because of jury duty absences.
Also, while the regulations permit employers to substitute accrued PTO for absences due to sickness or disability, they do not extend that option to absences for jury duty. As a very small consolation, you can reduce the pay of an employee on jury duty by the amount of jury fees he receives.
Bradley Cave is an attorney with Holland & Hart in Cheyenne, Wyoming. He may be contacted at bcave@hollandhart.com.