I Have COVID-19 So I Called In Sick To My Employer In Manhattan. Must My Employer Pay Me While I’m Out Of Work?

If you call in sick to your employer in Manhattan because you have COVID-19 or because a family member of yours has COVID-19, your employer will likely need to pay you for at least a portion of the time that you are out of work.

Your rights to paid sick leave for COVID-19 arise under four different statutes: the New York State Paid Sick Leave Law, the New York State Paid Family Leave Law, the New York Earned Safe And Sick Time Act, and the New York State COVID-19 Paid Sick Leave Law.

The New York State Paid Sick Leave Law

In Manhattan, all private-sector workers are covered by the New York State Paid Sick Leave Law, regardless of industry, occupation, part-time status, overtime-exempt status, or seasonal status.

The law requires employers with five or more employees to provide paid sick and safe leave. Businesses with fewer than five employees and a net income of $1 million or less must provide unpaid sick and safe leave to employees.

Contracting COVID-19 is a permissible reason to take paid sick leave under the New York State Paid Sick Leave Law.

More specifically, under the New York State Paid Sick Leave Law, employees receive an amount of sick leave depending on the size of their employer.

For employers with zero to four employees and a net income of $1 million or less in the previous tax year, the employer must provide up to 40 hours of unpaid sick leave per calendar year.

For employers with zero to four employees and a net income of greater than $1 million in the previous tax year, the employer must provide up to 40 hours of paid sick leave per calendar year.

For employers with five to 99 employees, the employer must provide up to 40 hours of paid sick leave per calendar year.

Finally, employers with 100 or more employees must provide up to 56 hours of paid sick leave per calendar year.

The New York State Paid Family Leave Law

Under the New York State Paid Family Leave Law, all private employers in Manhattan and many public employers in Manhattan must allow employees to take, and return to their jobs after taking, as much as twelve (12) weeks of paid leave in a 12-month period, among other reasons, to participate in providing care made necessary by a “serious health condition” of a child, spouse, domestic partner, parent, grandchild, grandparent, sibling, or parent of a spouse or domestic partner.

Under the New York State Paid Family Leave Law, leave taken by an employee from work in qualifying circumstances is called “family care” leave.

So when a family member of yours, within the meaning of the New York State Paid Family Leave Law, contracts COVID-19, you can take, and return to your job after taking, family care leave to participate in providing care made necessary by that virus.

Beginning on January 1, 2021, and continuing thereafter, workers are eligible for up to twelve (12) weeks of family care leave at 67% of the employee’s average weekly wage, up to a maximum of 67% of New York State’s average weekly wage.

The New York Earned Safe And Sick Time Act

In addition, under the New York Earned Safe and Sick Time Act (“NYCESASTA”), employers in Manhattan that employ five or more employees must give each employee one hour of paid safe or sick time for every 30 hours worked, up to five days per calendar year.

Under NYCESASTA, an employee can take paid sick time for any of three purposes: (1) The employee’s mental or physical illness, injury or health condition or need for medical diagnosis, care or treatment of a mental or physical illness, injury or health condition or need for preventive medical care; (2) the care of a family member who needs medical diagnosis, care, or treatment of a mental or physical illness, injury or health condition or who needs preventive medical care; or (3) closure of the employee’s place of business by order of a public official due to a public health emergency or the employee’s need to care for a child whose school or childcare provider has been closed by order of a public official due to a public health emergency.

So, in Manhattan, NYC, when you contract COVID-19 or when a family member of yours contracts COVID-19, you can take paid sick time.

The New York State COVID-19 Paid Sick Leave Law

Further, the New York State COVID-19 Paid Sick Leave Law, N.Y. State Senate Bill S08091, N.Y. State Assembly Bill A10153, requires all employers in Manhattan to allow employees, who are “subject to mandatory or precautionary orders of quarantine or isolation” because of COVID-19, to take, and to return to work after taking, paid or unpaid sick leave. So, too, the State’s COVID-19 Paid Sick Leave Law expands such quarantined or isolated employees’ eligibility for family care leave or short-term disability benefits.

The amount of leave available to quarantined or isolated employees under the New York State COVID-19 Paid Sick Leave Law varies depending on an employer’s net income and the number of employees that the employer employs.

Specifically, under the New York State COVID-19 Paid Sick Leave Law:

• Nongovernmental employers in Manhattan with ten or fewer employees (as of January 1, 2020) and a net annual income of $1,000,000 or less must provide unpaid sick leave for the whole period of an employee’s mandatory or precautionary quarantine or isolation, during which time the quarantined or isolated employee is also eligible for family care leave and short-term disability benefits.
• All private employers in the Empire State with 11 to 99 employees, and employers with ten or fewer employees (as of January 1, 2020) and a net annual income of more than $1,000,000, must provide five days of paid sick leave, and then unpaid sick leave for the remainder of an employee’s period of mandatory or precautionary quarantine or isolation. Once a quarantined or isolated worker has used up these five days of paid sick leave, the worker is also eligible for family care leave and short-term disability benefits.
• Nongovernmental employers with not fewer than 100 or employees (as of January 1, 2020), and governmental employers of all sizes, must provide not fewer than 14 days of paid sick leave during an employee’s mandatory or precautionary period of quarantine or isolation because of COVID-19.
• The above-described, statutory paid sick leave is in addition to any paid sick leave that a worker may have accrued under an employer’s policies.

For purposes of the New York State COVID-19 Paid Sick Leave Law, a “mandatory or precautionary order of quarantine or isolation” means a mandatory or precautionary order of quarantine or isolation issued by New York State, by the New York State Department of Health, by a local board of health, or by any governmental entity authorized to issue such orders because of COVID-19.

The New York State COVID-19 Paid Sick Leave Law contains an exception for private employers who have voluntarily closed business operations because of COVID-19 safety-related concerns. So if an employee is out of work because his or her employer chose to close, and the employee then contracts the coronavirus, the employee does not receive paid sick leave.

Further, an employee who “is deemed asymptomatic or has not yet been diagnosed with any medical condition and is physically able to work while under a mandatory or precautionary order of quarantine or isolation, whether through remote access or other similar means,” is not entitled, under the State’s COVID-19 Paid Sick Leave Law, to paid or unpaid sick leave, family care leave, or short-term disability benefits.

If you are an executive or a professional in the Manhattan, NYC metro area and you believe that you have been wrongfully terminated, that you’ve been denied salary, bonuses, commissions, or other wages that are owed to you, or that your employer has failed or refused to reasonably accommodate your disability, call Manhattan Employment Attorney David S. Rich at (347) 835-5688 today.

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• Business Contracts and Agreements

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