When an employee is called to jury duty and is absent from work for a long stretch, what actions may an employer take in response? A federal court recently faced that issue.

What happened. “Cathy” worked for the District of Columbia State Education Office (SEO) on a 13-month contract from May 2006 to June 2007 and received positive performance reviews during that time. She was called to jury duty and served as a juror on a capital case in federal court in the District from February 7 through June 6, 2007. When she was first called to jury service, she said, her boss, “Dr. Snopes,” gave her advice on avoiding it. Snopes later alleged that she could not recall that conversation, but said that she did talk to Cathy in a positive light about her own jury service.

During the period of service, Cathy was able to work at SEO from time to time, and although her tasks had been split up among her co-workers, not all the work was getting done, so Cathy would work late and on Saturdays to catch up. When she returned to her job after the jury service, she was informed that her 13-month employment contract would not be extended or renewed. She sued the agency and the District under the federal Jury System Improvements Act, which bars employers from taking adverse action against employees called to serve jury duty.

What the court said. There were two questions before the court: one, whether SEO refused to extend Cathy’s employment because of her 5-month jury service, and two, whether her status as a contract employee took her outside the protections of the Act.

On the first issue, Dr. Snopes had testified that Cathy’s job performance wasn’t very good, but the court found her testimony implausible because of the positive performance reviews. Snopes also said that Cathy’s jury duty had no bearing on the decision not to renew her contract, but the court found Cathy’s testimony more credible and found that she had been terminated because of her jury duty.

On the second issue, the court said nothing in the Act supported SEO’s argument that employees with non-permanent employment arrangements didn’t qualify for its protections. The court ordered SEO to reinstate Cathy, pay her back wages, restore her benefits, pay Cathy’s attorney’s fees and court costs, along with a $5,000 fine. Madison v. District of Columbia, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Misc. Action No. 07-289 (RMC) (1/23/09).

Point to remember: As the court pointed out in this case, employers may find it in their commercial interests to convince employees to try to evade jury service or be tempted to punish those employees who are summoned to serve. But the Act, and many state laws, bar that behavior, and employers ignore them at their peril.