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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2012
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    Default Subpoenaed to Court Out-Of-State After Starting New Job - Can I Be Fired for This

    My question involves employment and labor law for the state of: Arizona

    Wasn't quite sure which category to put this in, so hopefully this will work.

    I will be starting a new job next week. My previous employment was as a senior IT administrator, and I was directly involved in a situation where a client's computer was found to have illegal material (child pornography). I found out today that I am being subpoenaed to court as a witness by one of the lawyers in the case. I was told I will be required to show up and cannot simply submit my evidence as paperwork as I will need to be cross-examined in court. The court case is in Virginia.

    Is my employer required to allow me leave as a result of my court order? I am not an involved party in the case (the defendant or the prosecution), but my paperwork says specifically I need to be there. The court case is scheduled to take three days and I am required to be there all three days. In addition, since this is an east coast trial, there are no flights that leave PHX after 3 PM, so I will need to take the previous day off as well for travel, or at least take a half-day at work.

    I will only have been at my job for a month at this point so I will not have saved up enough vacation days. Is this something that, legally, could jeopardize my job? Or is an employer required to allow me to leave the state as a result of a mandated court order? And if so, are they required to allow me sufficient travel time?

    Thanks!

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
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    Default Re: Subpoenaed to Court Out-Of-State After Starting New Job - Can I Be Fired for This

    Arizona has a statute protecting employees who are summoned for jury duty, but I don't see a comparable protection for other types of court appearances.

    Have you spoken with HR?

    For the record, if this is a state court prosecution, the out-of-state attorney will have to go through considerable effort to issue a binding subpoena on you if you are now domiciled in a different state and cannot be served in the original state. He has an incentive to seek your cooperation.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 2012
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    3

    Default Re: Subpoenaed to Court Out-Of-State After Starting New Job - Can I Be Fired for This

    Quote Quoting Mr. Knowitall
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    Arizona has a statute protecting employees who are summoned for jury duty, but I don't see a comparable protection for other types of court appearances. Have you spoken with HR? For the record, if this is a state court prosecution, the out-of-state attorney will have to go through considerable effort to issue a binding subpoena on you if you are now domiciled in a different state and cannot be served in the original state. He has an incentive to seek your cooperation.
    I have not spoken with anyone yet. HR department is unavailable until Jan 2nd and I don't go in again until this Monday.

    My intention was to find out the legal requirements first before bringing it up. I'm of the understanding that it'll be a bit of an uphill battle on their side to get me in. If it meant I could possibly lose a job I'm essentially just starting, I'd like to make them climb that hill. If, on the other hand I'm legally protected, I have no problem flying back for the case; I spent a lot of time on this at my old job and have a lot of information, and feel like it is the "right thing to do". But the "right thing to do" doesn't pay my rent.

    Ultimately I do not doubt they will go through the trouble to get me out there, as it is a fairly serious case. I just find it hard to believe that being subpoenaed as a witness to a case would not be a situation where I would be protected from backlash from an employer, since my options would be "lose my job" or "go to jail for failure to appear and/or contempt"... two pretty crappy situations to be in. I can understand if I was a defendant in the case since at that point it's my own problem I've gotten myself into. But, like you, I haven't found anything online specifically protecting someone.

    If anyone else has any more information I'd love to hear it. Being unemployed for the past few months and having moved cross-country, I really don't have the budget for an attorney myself.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    Massachusetts
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    24,521

    Default Re: Subpoenaed to Court Out-Of-State After Starting New Job - Can I Be Fired for This

    My info is the same as Mr. K's.

    You might want to give the state DOL a call, though; the letter of the law may specify jury duty but the spirit of this and other similar laws is to offer protection to an employee who is doing their civic duty - for example, most if not all states require that an employee be given protected time off to vote if their work schedule would otherwise preclude it, and jury duty is protected in every state. While I can't find a reference to protection for other kinds of court appearances in any state, it's by no means impossible that the state's interpretation would be more generous than the absolute letter of the law. It would be worth a phone call to them, to inquire.

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