Adding Insult to Jury Duty

Question

I am currently serving on a federal grand jury. My problem is with my employer's method of paying my wages and benefits while I'm away. Our employee handbook states that vacation hours accrue only on regular hours worked, so every paycheck I lose vacation hours because of being away on jury duty. I receive only my wages, less jury duty pay. I am thinking of hiring a lawyer to sue. Do you think I have a case?

Answer 1

Far be it from our gentle sensibilities to predict the outcome of anything that could be as bloody as a legal battle. But I do recommend making a few stops before beating a path to a barrister's back door.

Most state laws spell out that you cannot be fired or demoted for taking time off to serve on a jury. But money is a more ticklish issue. Poke into the nearest law library to check your state statute. The general rule is that unless employee handbooks or other written policies state otherwise, employees are not generally entitled to be paid by their employers for time off work spent responding to a summons or serving on a jury. But laws in about a baker's dozen of the states do set out some qualified rights to payment.

Since my cat Spot had a particularly graceless run-in with a teacup next to your letter, I can now make out only that you live in a state that begins with A. If you work in Alaska, you may be in luck. It's the only A state that clearly entitles jurors to paid leave during juror absences.

You will also need to find out whether your state law treats vacation time as it treats wages. In states that do, there is little your employer can do to get out of accruing your regular vacation time while you do your civic duty. A call to your local labor department should help clear up this mystery if you find it hard to read between the lines of the law.

Unless you have an exceptionally high tolerance for legal minutiae, you probably don't want to use the courtroom as the place to stand up for your rights to accrued vacation during jury duty. As a practical matter, laws that set out penalties for law-breaking employers can speak more loudly during negotiations to resolve a wrong rather than in court. Check out the law on your right to leave for jury duty and the law characterizing vacation time. If you are in the right, showing your employer a copy of the law will probably make all straighten up and fly right. But if that doesn't work, try the stick approach: File a complaint with your local department of labor.