I recieved a summons to Jury Duty on Saturday. Woo! I was all psyched to go, because I’ve always wanted to serve on a Jury, and then I find out my company makes no provisions for Jury Duty, so I’d have to either make up missed work time (not always possible for me) or burn vacation/sick leave. (Pfft.)
This sucks.
But it’s not pitworthy.
I’m not sure that’s legal. Check the laws in your state.
The other option, I think, is leave without pay.
According to what I can find quickly - they’re not required to pay me for absent time for Jury Duty, but the sites I’ve found aren’t 100% clear on that.
Talk to the judge and insist that you would be glad to serve but alas, your boss is giving you trouble. Most judges will be happy to put in a call to your boss and have a little chat about civic duty, etc.
Do you work for an SME (Small- or medium-sized employer)? SMEs have rather different rules, because for them, losing a single employee for a period of time can have a much greater adverse impact than it does on a larger company.
I don’t have the judge’s number, or anything. If my only options are leave without pay, or working evening hours - then I really can’t manage it financially if it’s more than a few hours.
There’s a form they sent me - and if my employer confirms what they’ve told me, and isn’t willing to bend on the subject, I’m going write on the form to ask to be excused on the grounds of undue hardship / extreme inconvenience.
Checked another website - While WV requires that Employers not threaten, demote, fire, or penalize employees for jury duty, they aren’t required to compensate them for time absent.
Abbie, it doesn’t aound like the boss is trying to interfere with jury duty, just not planning on paying for the time off unless it’s taken as vacation.
And again I am envious of the people who get called for jury duty. I got called once and it would have been perfect as I was unemployed at the time and would’ve had no conflicts at all. Unfortunately my number never came up and I haven’t been called again (that was five or six years ago so I should be back in the pool). I’m so eager that I called once trying to volunteer for jury duty but you can’t which I think is stupid. People constantly bitch about jury duty yet people who want to serve can’t.
Indeed, I do. But my position - I could be gone two days a week and there wouldn’t be a whole lot of impact for a while. I work as a techie contractor - my employer is a contracting company - and there are 60 or so of us from that company at this location.
IANAL, but I believe some states require the employer to pay you the difference of what jury duty pays you to get you up to your normal rate of pay.
Smart. Can you think of any other reasons to write down?
Bad back, hard time sitting for long periods of time, strange and disturbing bladder problems, etc.?
You may end up with a cool judge and be excused, not all of them are total hardasses. If not you may get lucky and get struck during voir dire (if you have any legal friends/family, be sure to mention that when they question you).
Sucks that you can’t do it 
I’ve always wanted to do jury duty, too.
As far as I can tell, WV does not require that. Some nice employers DO that, but it’s not required.
My HR director just told me that in the event I could make up the time, they’d do their best to treat me as fairly as possible. I was polite, but said that without specifics, that was minimally reassuring. (They’ve done a couple other things that I consider definitely unfair already, in the 3 months I’ve worked for them) I told him I’d try to be excused.
I’m a computer programmer - so pretty much I sit all the time anyway.
Update.
Heard back from the judge - while he didn’t feel my reasons were strong enough to entirely excuse me, they did reduce my “on-call” period to two weeks, rather than five, and I thought that was fairly nice of them.
It reduces my billable hour bonus for the year but I can’t complain as I get normal salary during jury duty. Good thing too as I got on a kidnapping trial that took two weeks a few months ago.
The county court only pays $12 a day for those that lose pay plus mileage. Maricopa county won’t call me back for two years since I served and if I had been called but didn’t get put on a jury on that day they won’t call me for 18 months.
How do they do it in WV? In California you get called for one day, and if you don’t get put on a jury, you’re free for six months. I just went, and the judge said that if you could get a form or letter from your employer saying that you didn’t get paid, you could get excused if you get picked.
I did get picked, and was excited because it was one of the few times it wouldn’t screw up my life - and then they settled the next morning. A case of judicus interuptus, if you ask me.
You get a letter with a form. You send in the form with information. You are told to call a certain number every night for five weeks. If your name/juror number is listed, you go in the next day in the pool of available jurors.
So why should her boss be out and that is OK, but if the employee is going to be out then that is not OK?
So you have to be available to them, and not travel or anything, for five weeks? :eek: That’s a screwed up system. My condolences for getting stuck in it.