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Trust

How we verify state jury-pay rules

Procedural civic-duty information is only useful if it's right. Here's exactly how each figure on JurorPay gets there — and what we do when we can't confirm one.

1. Primary sources, not aggregators

Every figure is read from a state's own legislative-information system (its published statute text) or its court administrative office (its juror per-diem schedule). HR-software pages, employer-onboarding blogs, and legal-marketing sites are used only as cross-checks — never as the citation behind a claim. When we cite a number, the link goes to the law that sets it.

2. Each state carries up to three citations

Per state, we pin separate primary sources for:

  • the employer-pay rule (whether your wages continue, and for how long);
  • the anti-retaliation statute (whether you can be fired for serving);
  • the court per-diem schedule (what the court itself pays).

These are frequently three different code sections — so we keep them separate rather than pretend one citation covers all three.

3. The federal baseline

Across every state, federal law sets a floor: 28 U.S.C. § 1875 (the Jury System Improvements Act) protects your job during federal-court jury service but does notrequire employers to pay your wages. State law is what adds (or doesn't add) a pay mandate on top of that. Federal law protects an employee's JOB during federal jury service (no discharge, intimidation, or coercion) but does NOT require employers to pay wages. Remedies for violation: reinstatement, lost wages/benefits, civil penalty up to $5,000 per violation, court-appointed counsel.

4. Honest about what we couldn't verify

Of 51 jurisdictions, 47 are currently pinned to a primary or official source we read directly. The remaining 4 carry a visible “provisional”badge: their state portal was unreachable when we last compiled the data, so rather than publish a guessed number we mark the field accordingly and keep the citation slot open. We would rather show “Varies” than invent a figure.

Where a state sets its per-diem locally (county-by-county, or pegged to minimum wage), there is no single statewide dollar amount — so we say so instead of forcing a number into the field.

5. Refresh cadence + date stamps

Jury-pay law is evergreen but not static — legislatures raise per-diems and amend leave rules. Every state page shows the date we last verified it; the dataset was last compiled on June 16, 2026. Material changes are logged on the changelog.

6. Limitations

JurorPay summarizes state-by-state jury-duty pay rules and job-protection statutes. This is procedural civic-duty information, not legal advice. Statutes change; verify directly with your state court, employer HR, or a licensed attorney before relying on this summary.

Editorial review

An employment attorney from our review pool is being onboarded to sign off on the jury-leave and anti-retaliation summaries. Until that review is complete, every figure on the site links directly to the state legislature or court primary source so you can verify it yourself. We will publish the reviewer's name, bar number, state, and profile here once secured — and never a placeholder name.