Louisiana Jury Duty Laws for Employers: Pay, Retaliation, Fines

Louisiana jury duty laws for employers set two firm obligations: you must let an employee attend jury service without firing or punishing them, and you must pay their regular wages for at least one day of that service without docking any benefits. The rule sits in Louisiana Revised Statutes 23:965, applies to every employer in the state regardless of headcount, and carries mandatory fines when broken.¹

The Two Things You Owe the Employee

The statute does two distinct jobs. It bars you from firing an employee or taking any adverse action against them because they were summoned for or are serving on a jury, whether grand jury, criminal trial jury, or civil trial jury. That protection runs the full length of service, not just the first day.¹

It also requires you to grant a paid leave of absence of up to one day for the time required for jury duty, with no loss of wages, sick leave, emergency leave, personal leave, or any other benefit. If a full-time employee reports for selection on a Monday and sits at the courthouse all day, they get their normal Monday pay, and nothing comes out of their accrued leave buckets to cover it.¹

The employee has one condition to meet. They must notify you about the summons within a reasonable time after receiving it and before they appear. The statute doesn’t put a number on “reasonable,” so if you want certainty, build a short written notice rule into your handbook and apply it consistently.¹

What You Don’t Have To Pay Past Day One

One day of paid leave is the statutory floor, not a cap on service. If your employee is seated on a trial that runs a week or two, you still cannot fire them or retaliate, but Louisiana law does not require you to keep paying wages past that first day.¹

Some employers choose to pay full wages for the whole trial through company policy or a collective bargaining agreement. If you do, put it in the handbook so expectations line up before a summons arrives. On the days you aren’t paying, the court covers the juror modestly: $25 per day in criminal cases, $50 per day in civil cases, plus mileage.²

What Counts as Retaliation

The anti-retaliation reach is broad. You cannot fire, demote, cut hours, reassign to a worse position, or take any other negative action because of jury service. You also cannot write or enforce a workplace policy that penalizes jurors. A rule that counts jury days as unexcused absences, for instance, would not survive the statute.¹

If a court finds you fired someone for jury service, the remedy is reinstatement to the same job with the same wages, salary, benefits, and conditions the employee had before. It is not discretionary, and a severance check in place of the job does not satisfy the statute.¹

Fines, Broken Out by Which Rule You Broke

RS 23:965 runs two separate penalty tracks:

Firing or adverse action under Subsection A: reinstatement plus a fine of $100 to $1,000 for each employee who was discharged.
Failing to grant the paid day, or docking benefits for that day, under Subsection B: payment of the full day’s wages plus any improperly reduced benefits, and a fine of $100 to $500 for each offense.

Both tracks are mandatory once a violation is found. The statute’s remedies are what the statute says: reinstatement, back pay for the day, benefit restoration, and the fine. There is no punitive damages provision and no emotional distress claim built into the law.¹

Timing is the fact that usually decides these cases. A termination that lands the same week an employee reports to the courthouse, after a clean performance record, tells its own story in court. Keep documentation that shows a legitimate, independent reason for any discipline or separation that happens near a jury summons.

Federal Jury Service Is a Different Statute

If your employee is called to a federal jury rather than a Louisiana state jury, the controlling law is 28 U.S.C. § 1875, not RS 23:965. The federal statute also bars firing or intimidating an employee for jury service, and the penalties run higher. A federal court can impose a civil penalty of up to $5,000 per violation per employee, order community service, and require reinstatement with full lost wages and benefits.³

The federal law also lets the court shift the employee’s reasonable attorney fees onto the employer when the employee wins, and it allows court-appointed counsel for the employee at no cost if the claim shows probable merit. Louisiana’s state statute has no attorney fees provision.³

Federal jurors are paid $50 per day, rising to $60 per day after 10 days of service, with transportation reimbursed separately. You don’t administer any of that, but knowing the number helps when an employee asks what to expect.

Small Businesses Get No Exemption

RS 23:965 covers every employer in Louisiana. A two-person shop carries the same obligations as a 500-person company. There is no headcount threshold that lets a small operation opt out of the paid day or the anti-retaliation rule.¹

The operational hit is real for small employers, and the practical defense is logistical rather than legal. Cross-train so the sole bookkeeper or sole shift lead is not a single point of failure. Ask the employee to bring a certificate of attendance from the court showing the days and hours served; the clerk’s office issues these on request, and they clean up payroll records and scheduling. If the employee’s absence will genuinely damage the business, they can petition the court themselves for a hardship excusal or postponement under Title 13, but that request belongs to the juror, not to you.

1
Justia. Louisiana Code 23:965 – Jury Duty; Dismissal Forbidden; Uninterrupted Compensation; Penalties
2
Louisiana State Legislature. Louisiana Revised Statutes Title 13 3049
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 1875 – Protection of Jurors Employment