What is the law regarding an employee attending court due to a subpoena or summons for something like divorce, child custody, public intoxication, etc.? If they are summons/subpoenaed can the time off be counted against their attendance record? I know it can not for jury duty, but what about these other situations?
This would be state specific as there aren't any federal regulations. In absence of state specific regulations you do not have to excuse any type of absences due to court appearances. In companies that I have worked for, however, if the EE was appearing as a witness, they would be excused. If they were the defendant they would not be excused.
In my current organization we have a flextime policy so if an EE has to report to court for anything other than jury duty they have the ability to either flex their time or use vacation time. If they choose not to do either the attendance policy is applied.
In accordance with our attendance policy, if an employee is summoned for court they need to pre-arrange their absence and then bring proof of attendance at court on the day they requested. They would then be excused.
If the EE received a Jury Summons that would be excused time.
I would ask for a court document for any other court appearance. Consider the time as a planned absence (should be advance notice) and ask the EE to use accrued time or as unpaid leave, whichever your policies allow.
Of course if the ER is requesting the employee to testify then this will be paid work time.
I work for a manufacturing company in Indiana and I was advised by our attorney to excuse any court appearance if the employee is "required to appear". The logic is that if the employee does not go because it would result in discipline under our attendance policy (we have a points system), they may be found in contempt of court and may get thrown in jail, which means we've lost the employee for a lot longer than what we would have to just have excused the employee for the time of the hearing. So, we ask for a copy of the notice they received and if it states they are required to appear, we note the time of the hearing and give them time to get there and tell them to come back to work when they get out.
I think also that you need to consider what they are in court for. In MN, abused spouses are protected. So, if they are going to court to file a restraining order, etc, then it is a protected leave and they cannot be terminated for it.
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