Deviation from policy on Arizona paid sick time revives retaliation claim

The Arizona Fair Wages and Healthy Families Act—aka Arizona Paid Sick Time Law—requires all employers to provide all employees a certain amount of paid sick time. An employer with at least 15 employees must provide them with at least 40 hours of paid sick time each year. To comply with the Act, employers are also required to follow certain notice requirements, including posting the Earned Paid Sick Time Poster and providing employees with pays stubs that include the amount of paid sick time available, the amount taken to date in the year, and the amount of pay received as sick time.

Even if the employee exhausts paid sick time, employers must be cautious taking any adverse employment action within 90 days of the employee’s last use of paid sick time. How can an employer that pays an employee more paid sick time than required find itself in hot water for retaliation under the Act?

What you need to know

Joshua Papias worked as a headerman for Parker Fasteners beginning on May 29, 2019. Although Parker implemented various policies on paid sick time (PST), paid time off (PTO), and attendance, its actual employment practices deviated from the policies in various instances.