Paying Exempt Employees Who Serve Jury Duty
Employers are often unaware of the requirements under Federal law regarding paying exempt employees who serve jury duty. Failing to comply with these requirements can expose employees to significant risks. The main principle is simple enough:
If an exempt employee is serving jury duty and does any work whatsoever (including the most basic tasks) during the workweek (as the workweek is defined by the employer), the employee needs to be paid his or her full salary.
Consider the following two examples:
1) An exempt employee serves jury duty during the entire workweek, and never sets foot in the office. Nevertheless, during jury breaks at the courthouse, the employee checks her blackberry and periodically reviews and sends work-related e-mail. Although the employee may have done what amounts to minutes of work during the workweek, the employee must receive his or her full salary for that workweek. Any deductions from the employee’s salary risks compromising the employee’s status as being exempt from overtime pay.
2) An exempt employee serves on a jury Monday through Friday for two weeks, but works several hours on Wednesday and Thursday of the second week. The employer defines its workweek for payroll purposes as running from Thursday at 12:01 a.m. to Wednesday at 12:00 midnight. In that situation, where the employee missed an entire week of work and most of a second week, the employee would still be entitled to her full salary because he worked at least some time in each defined workweek.
Beyond these Federal requirements, there may be additional state law requirements such as in New York State that employers need to follow in meeting their obligations to exempt employees who serve jury duty. Companies are free to implement generous jury duty policies (.e.g, “Employees who serve jury duty receive two weeks of full pay”), but they should not assume that guaranteeing employees some amount of paid jury duty leave obviates their legal obligations with regard to exempt employees.
