Do I need a jury duty policy in my handbook?

While all employees must be provided with the necessary time off work for jury duty service, no law requires that a nonexempt employee be paid for jury duty. That is not the case for an exempt employee. Both federal and state law require that an exempt employee be paid their regular weekly salary for any workweek in which they perform work.

Nonexempt employees do not need to be paid for jury duty unless the employer has a policy or practice of providing pay. It is recommended that an employer have a nonexempt jury duty policy that specifies whether nonexempt employees are paid for jury duty and under what circumstances. Without such a policy, an employee may incorrectly assume that the employer will continue to pay wages.

Paid jury duty policies often are limited in time and scope. Some policies limit the use of paid jury duty to regular full-time employees and pay the difference between what the employee would receive for jury duty service and their regular pay. Others require that a certain amount of time be worked (one year) prior to the employee being eligible for paid jury duty.

A typical jury duty policy for nonexempt employees may include pay for up to 10 working days per year. This generally is adequate to cover the standard jury duty service requirement of two weeks.

However, paid jury duty is required for an exempt employee if during the jury duty they perform any work during the workweek. This is a significant factor because exempt work is primarily intellectual in nature and often can be performed outside the office. When an exempt employee works one-half hour or less, the employee must be paid their entire weekly salary.

Exempt work can be as nebulous as checking voice mail and returning phone calls, checking and answering mail or e-mails, assigning or delegating work, working on weekends or coming in before or after jury duty to see what is going on and/or catching up.

If an employer does not want to be legally responsible for paying an exempt employee's salary during jury duty, make certain that the employee understands that they're not to perform any work. Also arrange to have someone else cover all the employee's responsibilities while the employee is serving on jury duty.

Due to the difficulty in establishing when an exempt employee is working and often because the employer is not able to delegate an exempt employee's work, the alternative is to assume that the employee will be working, require them to check in and keep up with the work, and pay the employee. An exception would apply if an employee were sequestered on a jury and not able to have outside contact during the jury trial.

Read more about Jury or Witness Duty Leave in the HR Library.