Can Kentucky employers require doctor’s notes for absences? What state law says
As of December, 18 states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws requiring private employers to provide paid sick leave for their employees, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
Kentucky isn’t one of them.
In recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic brought the issue to the fore, with low-wage service workers who interact directly with the public left most exposed.
In Kentucky, as of 2020, it’s estimated 62% of private sector workers have access to paid sick leave at work, and rural workers in general are less likely to have access to it, according to the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy.
So what if you do need to take a day off work due to a sore throat or cold? Is your job at risk if you can’t provide a doctor’s note?
For help with answering these questions, we spoke with Kelly Mulloy Myers, a Cincinnati-based attorney who is licensed to practice law in Ohio and Kentucky. Myers is a specialist in labor and employment law, and was one of the first Ohio attorneys to be certified by the Ohio State Bar Association as such.
What Kentucky workers should know about sick leave policies
In Kentucky, at least in the private sector, employers have broad latitude to set their own sick leave policies, barring a few narrow exceptions, Myers explained.
“The law does not require a private employer to offer any sick leave or vacation time or PTO,” Myers said.
Many private-sector employers do choose to offer those benefits to compete for workers, but there isn’t a legal requirement that they do, Myers said.
While there a few exceptions to that general rule, they are limited ones.
At the federal level, qualifying employees may take up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave per year under the Family and Medical Leave Act.
According to the Department of Labor, employees are eligible for FMLA if:
They have worked for their employer for at least 12 months.
They have worked at least 1,250 hours over the previous 12 months.
They work at a location where the company employs 50 or more employees within 75 miles.
Employees can take 12 weeks of unpaid leave for any of the following reasons:
The birth and care of a newborn child of an employee
The employee has adopted a child or accepted a foster care placement
Caring for an immediate family member, such as a spouse, child or parent, who has a serious health condition
Medical leave that keeps the employee from working due to a serious health condition
What about discrimination?
The protections offered to workers under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act could also factor into the sick leave an employer offers, Myers said.
“To the extent that an illness may rise to the level of a disability, that can require accommodation under the law,” Myers said.
An employee diagnosed with cancer who needs time off work to get treatment could be one example, according to Myers.
Additionally, if employers set a policy of requiring doctor’s notes for employee absences due to illness, the requirement must be applied “consistently over the workplace,” Myers said. Requiring women in the workplace to provide a doctor’s note for missing work — perhaps to take care of a sick child — but not male employees, could raise concerns about discrimination, for example.
Apart from those exceptions though, employers are free to request doctor’s notes from their employees if they are chronically absent from work, Myers confirmed.
Can I be fired for not providing a doctor’s note when I miss work in KY?
As explained by Myers, the most important thing to understand about how private-sector, nonunion employment works in Kentucky is that it is “at will.”
This doctrine gives the employer broad latitude to terminate an employee for almost any reason or no reason, barring the exceptions discussed above. Employees have the same freedom; at-will employment goes both ways.
Barring FMLA protections or workplace discrimination, it’s possible employees could face termination for not offering a doctor’s note if that’s the policy in their workplace.
Given the nature of at-will employment in Kentucky, and the fact that employers are largely free to set their own sick leave policies, it’s best to consult your workplace’s employee handbook or its human resources department for questions about sick leave.
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