The California Family Rights Act (CFRA) prohibits businesses with five or more employees from denying an eligible worker’s request to take up to a total of 12 unpaid workweeks in any 12-month period for family care and medical leave.

Assembly Bill (AB) 1041, effective for 2023, expands the class of people for whom an employee may take leave to include a “designated person.”  This is any individual related by blood or whose association with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship. Employee may identify that person at the time the employee requests the leave. The new law allows the employer to limit each employee to one designated person per 12-month period.

AB 1041 also widens the reach of this state’s Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014. That act generally entitles an employee to no less than 24 hours of paid sick leave annually ● after 30 or more days of work for a business within a year; and ● after she/he has completed an 89-day employment period for that business.  The worker may use the time for diagnosis, care, or treatment of an existing health condition of, or preventive care for, that individual or a family member.

Beyond the various blood, marriage and other relationships specifically defined in this law, “family member” can now include a designated person “identified by the employee at the time the employee requests paid sick [time].” Here too the employer may limit each employee to one designated person per 12-month period.

Take away: Effective 2023, employers should revise and distribute the appropriate workplace policies to include these broader definitions.

See also:

• Laying Down the Law; Workplace Policy and Forms for 2023 (November 18, 2022)
• What’s New in 2023: Covering Employment Legal Essentials and New Workplace Laws (November 15, 2022)
• Covid Benefits Resurgence – State Extends COVID -19 Sick Pay and Employer Relief to December 31 (October 7, 2022)
• What’s New in 2021: Workplace Time Outs – California’s Expanded Family and Medical Leave Significantly Impacts Small Business (November 12, 2020)
• Mandatory Paid Sick Leave For California Employees – Law Goes into Effect July 1, 2015 (September 15, 2014)

Tim Bowles
December 9, 2022