Federal Law The federal Jury System Improvement Act prohibits employers from discharging, intimidating, threatening, or coercing any permanent employee by reason of the employee's federal jury service or scheduled attendance for such service. While federal law does not require nonexempt employees to be paid for time off to perform jury duty, employers cannot make deductions for absences of an exempt employee because of jury duty. The employer may, however, offset any amount received by an exempt employee as jury fees for a particular week against the salary due for that week. Many states also prohibit employers from penalizing employees for attending jury duty service. In addition, some state laws require employers to pay employees who are asked to serve jury duty.