You have probably heard a lot about leaves under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), California Family Rights Act (CRFA), and other well-established leave laws, but below are some less common types of leave that employers should recognize and cover in their policies.
SCHOOL ACTIVITY
The Family School Partnership Act provides employees the option of taking leave to participate in their children’s education. (Lab. Code, § 230.8.) Under the Act, an employee who is a parent (“parent” includes a parent, guardian, stepparent, foster parent, or grandparent of, or a person who stands in loco parentis to, a child) having custody of a child in kindergarten or grades one through twelve, including a licensed child care facility, can take off up to forty hours a year for the purpose of certain child care or school-related activities. Covered activities include finding, enrolling, or reenrolling a child in a school or with a licensed child care provider; time off for this purpose is limited to eight hours in a calendar month.
Covered activities also include addressing a child care provider or school emergency, including a request that the child be picked up from school/child care, behavioral/discipline problems, closure or unexpected unavailability of the school (excluding planned holidays), or a natural disaster, field trips, open houses, and extracurricular activities. (Lab. Code, § 230.8.)
Employers must also provide an employee who is the permanent guardian of a child in kindergarten through twelfth grade leave to attend a school meeting after the employee’s child has been suspended. (Lab. Code, § 230.7.)
BEREAVEMENT LEAVE
Since Assembly Bill 1949 amended the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) on January 1, 2023, eligible employees have the right to take up to five days of bereavement leave upon the death of a covered family member. (Gov. Code, § 12945.7(b).)
AB 1949 applies to all public agencies and all other employers with five or more employees. Employees are eligible for statutory bereavement leave if they have been employed for at least 30 days before the leave commences. Bereavement leave may be taken for the death of a family member, which means a spouse, child, parent, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, domestic partner, or parent-in-law. The bereavement leave must be completed within 3 months of the date of death but need not be taken consecutively. (Gov. Code, § 12945.7(a)-(d).)
This statutory leave works in conjunction with any existing bereavement leave policies an employer may have. Employers that have no bereavement leave policy, or a policy that provides less than five days, must provide no less than five days of leave. (Gov. Code, § 12945.7(a), (e).)
LEAVE FOR VICTIMS OF CRIME AND ABUSE
Under Labor Code section 230 and section 230.1, an employee who is a victim of certain forms of crime or abuse is entitled to take time off from work under certain circumstances. An employee is eligible for leave if they are:
(a) a victim of stalking, domestic violence, or sexual assault (each of which is defined specifically by statute);
(b) a victim of a crime that caused physical injury, or that caused mental injury and a threat of physical injury; or
(c) if the employee’s immediate family member is deceased as the direct result of a crime.
(Lab. Code, § 230(j)(6).)
Eligible employees may take time off to seek relief, such as to seek a temporary restraining order, or other assistance to help safeguard the “health, safety, or welfare” of the employee or his or her child. (Lab. Code, § 230(c).)
An employer with 25 or more employees also must allow eligible employees time off from work for any of the following purposes:
(1) to seek medical attention for injuries caused by crime or abuse;
(2) to obtain services from a domestic violence shelter, program, rape crisis center, or victim services organization as a result of crime or abuse;
(3) to obtain psychological counseling or mental health services related to an experience of crime or abuse; or
(4) to participate in safety planning and take other actions to increase safety from future crime or abuse, including temporary or permanent relocation. (Lab. Code, § 230.1(a).)
Employees must provide reasonable advance notice of their intent to take leave under either of these statutes, unless the advance notice is not feasible. (Lab. Code, § 230(d)(1); Lab. Code, § 230.1(b)(2).)
JURY DUTY AND WITNESS TESIMONY UNDER SUBPOENA
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. (28 U.S.C. § 1875(a).)
Upon completing jury service, the employee must be reinstated to the same position he or she occupied before the leave. Employers are not required to pay employees during jury service under federal law, unless the employer had a policy of paying employees for jury service at the time the employee’s service began. (28 U.S.C. § 1875(c).)
Similarly, employees are protected under California law against discharge, discrimination, or retaliation for taking time off to serve on a jury. An employee serving jury duty is not entitled to pay under California law, but has the right to use vacation, personal leave or compensatory time off pursuant to the employer’s leave policies.
In addition, if an employee of a public agency is subpoenaed to testify as a witness in a case where he or she is not a party or an expert witness, and the case is not brought about because of the employee’s own misconduct, the public employer must give the employee a leave of absence with pay (minus jury or witness fees) for the appearance if the employer has a policy granting this pursuant to Government Code section 1230. (Gov. Code, §§ 1230, 1230.1.)