Human Resource Blog

Regarding Jury Duty pay in California

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If a non-exempt employee is off of work 1 day for Jury Duty and the employer has a policy of paying for Jury Duty time off, can the employer then tell the employee that they have to use that as their day off that week and require them to work 5 days on top of the Jury Duty and only pay them a total of 5 days pay?

This may be a case of a company policy that is not fair, but is entirely legal.

California has no law that requires employers to pay workers while on jury duty. However, California employers are urged to offer this benefit, by the state.

The question is not entirely clear, but it appears that this employer has the policy of paying hourly employees for jury duty.

However, in this case, apparently the employee is salaried non-exempt – meaning that she is paid on salary but is entitled to overtime. (If that’s not the case, please post another question.)

The questions raised are:

a) Can the employer require that the salaried employee work 5 days, plus  serving on jury duty one day, in a week?

b) Must the employer pay overtime when this happens?

The important point to keep in mind is that although the employee considers serving on jury duty “work”, the employer considers it “time off from work.” Under a few union contracts, time spent on jury duty counts as “work time.” However, there is no indication that is true here.

An employer can legally require that salaried employees work more than 5 days per week. In this case, the employer is requiring only that the employee work 5 days per week—although they are not the days that the employee would prefer. So the answer to question A is yes, the employer can require that a salaried employee work 5 days per week, even when the employee is on jury duty one additional day per week.

Under California law, employees are entitled to overtime after 8 hours per day, and on the 7^th work day of the payroll week. In addition, under state law, workers are entitled to double time after 12 hours per day and after 8 hours on the 7^th work day of the payroll week. This is the strictest overtime law in the nation.

Suppose the employee in this question has jury duty on Monday. Then the employee is scheduled to work 8 hours per day Tuesday through Saturday. The employee will work 40 hours total during the week. The employee would not be entitled to any overtime pay.

To frame this answer in another way, California employers set their own company policy regarding jury duty pay. In this case, the employer technically is not paying salaried-exempt employees for jury duty. As long as that policy is not selectively applied to a protected group, the employer has the right to set such a policy.

California has many unusual labor laws, compared to other states, so it’s always wise to double check with the state Department of Industrial Relations.