40 | 2025 Cal-Peculiarities ©2025 Seyfarth Shaw LLP www.seyfarth.com other military leave benefits paid pursuant to any other law or employer policy.127 Failure to comply with this category of leave may result in fines and penalties of (i) the greater of three times the amount of differential pay withheld or $250, and (ii) up to $50 per day to employees for each day the compensation was withheld.128 These penalties are in addition to other available remedies, including temporary revocation of employers’ certificates, permits, or licenses, and a private right of action.129 2.13 Military Spousal and Partner Leave California employers with 25 or more employees must grant up to ten days of unpaid leave to employees married to (or registered domestic partners of) certain members of the active military service who are on leave from a combat zone or during a military conflict.130 Employees who work an average of at least 20 hours per week are eligible for military spousal leave if they are spouses or registered domestic partners131 of a “qualified member” of the military. A “qualified member” is a member of the U.S. Armed Forces deployed to a combat zone, or a member of the National Guard or Reserves who has been deployed anywhere during a military conflict. Employees requesting leave must notify the employer of their intention to take time off within two business days of receiving official notice that the employee’s spouse or registered domestic partner will be on leave from military deployment. There is no provision allowing an employer to deny or delay the leave. Because the law establishes no cap on the aggregate amount of time off, it appears that the employee can take the full ten days off on each qualifying occasion. The statute states that spousal leave shall not prevent an employee from taking a leave that the employee “is otherwise entitled to take,”132 suggesting that an employer cannot require an employee on military spousal leave to concurrently use other leave that the employee is entitled to take. Employers must not retaliate or otherwise discriminate against employees requesting military spousal leave. 2.14 Paid Sick Leave In most states, and in the absence of a federal mandate, employers are not required to pay workers while they are on sick leave. California is one of about 22 states that, as of 2025, have enacted some form of paid sick leave law. California followed the lead of the City of San Francisco, which, in 2007, became the first American city to mandate paid sick leave for private employees. Since then, California and many of its cities and counties have followed suit, with each local jurisdiction piling on to make its own peculiar piece in a patchwork of paid sick laws. Generally speaking, California employers must comply with whichever material provision – state or local – that is the most generous to employees. During 2020, local laws spread like a coronavirus among cities and counties seeing a need for special employer mandates to provide supplemental sick pay for Covid-related reasons.133 All of those special measures have since expired, but they left their mark. For example, San Francisco opted to pass a permanent Public Health Emergency Leave law in the event of a future pandemic or other public health emergency.134 2.14.1 California Paid Sick Leave Law In 2014, California became the second state (after Connecticut) to impose a state-wide PSL law. The Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act (the California Paid Sick Leave Law) created a poster requirement, an amended Wage Theft Prevention Act Notice requirement, and a PSL entitlement provision (including specific PSL accrual provisions). In 2023 and 2024, the California legislature passed three bills that significantly expanded the State’s paid sick leave mandate.135 Effective January 1, 2024, SB 616 increased the annual PSL entitlement from 24 hours (or three days) to 40 hours (or five days) of paid sick leave per year.136 This update resulted in changes to the accrual cap, annual usage cap, and frontloading requirements.137 Effective January 1, 2025, SB 1105 and AB 2499 significantly expanded and clarified employees’ available reasons for use of PSL.138
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