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Maryland JSIA and Overseas Business Travel

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One of our senior-level executives in Maryland has a business trip coming up to India. However, the executive has just received a jury duty summons that coincides with the India trip. Can the employee postpone jury duty in order to take the trip?

The Jury Systems Improvement Act is a federal Act that ensures that employees can take time off of work in order to serve on a jury if they have been summoned to do so. Employees should not be coerced to postpone jury duty service by the employer for any reason, even if the employee is a senior-level executive that has a business trip coming up.

However, employees may be able to postpone jury duty for certain qualifying reasons. For example, an employee could possibly postpone due to a planned vacation or an illness. The reason for the postponement must have nothing to do with employment or pressure from the employer to postpone, though.

According to the JSIA, employers should also not discriminate against employees that need to take time off of work to serve on a jury. Therefore, even if an employee must miss an important overseas business trip in order to serve on a jury, the employer cannot take this jury duty service into consideration when making any business-related decisions. Also, the employee cannot be terminated for reasons directly related to the jury duty service.

If an employer does discriminate against an employee for serving on a jury or if the employee terminates an employee for serving on a jury, the employer could be fined up to $1,000 per instance, per employee. Also, the employer could have to pay for lost wages and benefits to the employee.

After the employee has completed his or her jury duty service, the employee should be able to return to work to have the same job or an equivalent job. The employee should also have the same salary and benefits that he or she had prior to taking time off for jury duty service, even if those benefits include seniority and vacation days. CB