An Administrator's Guide to California Private School Law

Chapter 8 – Leaves And Absences

As of July 1, 2017, employers are also required to provide written notice to employees regarding the workplace rights for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking. 1375 The template notice that schools should provide to employees can be accessed here: https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/Victims_of_Domestic_Violence_Leave_Notice.pdf .

J URY D UTY A ND W ITNESS T ESTIMONY U NDER S UBPOENA

Section 11

Federal and California laws provide employees with leaves of absence for jury service. The Federal Jury System Improvement Act of 1978 (“the Jury Act”) provides employees with leave for jury service in federal court. Under the Jury Act, employees are entitled to time off for jury duty “in any court of the United States” which includes service on a grand jury and trial jury. 1376 Upon completing jury service, the employee must be reinstated to the same position he or she occupied before the leave. 1377 Schools are not required to pay employees during jury service under federal law, unless the school had a policy of paying employees for jury service and changed the policy during the employee’s service. 1378 The Jury Act may be enforced through legal action, and the aggrieved employee may request a federal district court in the district to appoint an attorney if the employee needs representation. 1379 Similarly, employees are protected under California law against discharge, discrimination, or retaliation for taking time off to serve on a jury. 1380 An employee serving jury duty is not entitled to pay under California law, but has the right to use vacation, or personal leave pursuant to the school’s leave policies. 1381 An employee is also protected from discharge, discrimination or retaliation for appearing in court to comply with a subpoena. 1382 The rights and remedies available to employees who serve as witnesses are the same as those available under jury service. Although schools may encourage employees to perform their jury duty during the summer break or other school breaks, a school may not prohibit an employee from performing his or her jury service. LCW Practice Advisor It is important to note that although Schools are not required to pay employees while they are serving jury duty or testifying as a witness, it may affect the

overtime exempt status of exempt employees to dock their pay for partial workweeks. For that reason, we recommend that Schools have a practice of not docking an exempt employee’s pay while on jury duty or attendance as a witness unless they are out for an entire workweek and perform no work. See Chapter 6, Section 3 for a discussion on this topic.

An Administrator’s Guide to California Private School Law ©2019 Liebert Cassidy Whitmore 313