Jury Service: I can't afford to do it!!

marcdominic

Freddie_Snowbits wrote: »

You are entitled to claim an allowance for attendance at court per day. Your employer will eventually dock this from your wages.


Not if they decide not to pay your wages when you attend court.

Your comment is completely useless to people whose employer will not pay the difference... Please understand the situation (posting) you’re referring to before posting something that looks good but is useless

darich

marcdominic wrote: »

Not if they decide not to pay your wages when you attend court.

Your comment is completely useless to people whose employer will not pay the difference... Please understand the situation (posting) you’re referring to before posting something that looks good but is useless

Correct
If your employer decides not to pay you then the court will pay your salary in full up to a certain point - i'm not sure exactly where that point is but i am fairly well paid and my salary is fully covered.
If your employer does pay you for going to jury duty then you can claim no salary from the court but you would still be entitled to expenses.

What i found is that i actually made money from court. My personnel department filled in the required form stating my day's wage. This was a gross amount. I then presented that to the office in the court and was paid for the appropriate number of days multiplied by my day's wage. Quite simple.
However, since my employer quite correctly, stated my salary as gross, i received a cheque from the court so effectively paid no tax on the salary i earned while on jury duty.

A couple of weeks later my employer didn't pay me since i had been at court.

When you do jury duty the idea is that no one should be out of pocket. It's part of your civic duty and as someone already said, the change is good and interesting.

marcdominic

creditcontroller wrote: »

I did Jury Service in November and any unused balance from the daily allowance was included in the cheque with the travelling expenses.

I can confirm this is the case at the court I am attending.

I stand to lose £150+ for doing two weeks of jury service but I shall be able to make ~£50 back over the two weeks by taking a packed lunch – not including the price of the packed lunch itself so in actual fact let’s say ~£25! I’m going to start taking a flask of coffee to the courthouse so I don’t have to start to pay for that either (I’ve only consumed free water since I’ve been there – the coffee move is going to be a new one).

In actual fact the case I’m assigned to is expected to last three or more weeks: however after the 10th day of court service (we weren’t required to attend on Tuesday and so therefore I attended work, meaning I don’t think this will count for a day in our court attendance at all), I will at least get paid my losses on a per day basis.

My car tax is due up for renewal at the end of this month (October), and because I’m on a tight budget I may not be able to afford it (due to previously indicated losses). Therefore, because of my obligatory jury service attendance I may lose my car – it getting towed for non-payment of tax, or I may appear before the magistrates (to explain non-payment of car tax), because I did jury service.

Anybody got any ideas about how I may be able to defend that? For example have the court service got a loan facility that people may use when they’re left out of pocket due to jury service? Perhaps I should speak to the judge and ask him if my road tax payment may be delayed by one month and he can put a sticker on my car saying so…!

Yours skintley out of pocket,

An obligatory servant of the judiciary and Her Majesty.

marcdominic

darich wrote: »

Correct
If your employer decides not to pay you then the court will pay your salary in full up to a certain point - i'm not sure exactly where that point is but i am fairly well paid and my salary is fully covered.
If your employer does pay you for going to jury duty then you can claim no salary from the court but you would still be entitled to expenses.

What i found is that i actually made money from court. My personnel department filled in the required form stating my day's wage. This was a gross amount. I then presented that to the office in the court and was paid for the appropriate number of days multiplied by my day's wage. Quite simple.
However, since my employer quite correctly, stated my salary as gross, i received a cheque from the court so effectively paid no tax on the salary i earned while on jury duty.

A couple of weeks later my employer didn't pay me since i had been at court.

When you do jury duty the idea is that no one should be out of pocket. It's part of your civic duty and as someone already said, the change is good and interesting.

Darich,

Don’t raise this too loudly but your employer should have filled in your net salary per day: not gross! This may well be how you lucked out.

However the current rate is for a full day at court up to and including the tenth day £61.28 (for a half day it is £30.64). The court will NOT pay more than this – exceptions are travel provision and subsistence.

I earn more than £61.28 a day (nett) so I lose out! There is nothing in English law that states jurors should get compensation equal to their loss of earnings period!

Still even skinter – and looking for road tax….

pebblespop

i did jury service a few years ago. my company paid me in full and i got all the meal allowances paid to me as i didn't spend them - ended up making a bit of money out of it!

Rolandtheroadie

marcdominic wrote: »

I can confirm this is the case at the court I am attending.

I stand to lose £150+ for doing two weeks of jury service but I shall be able to make ~£50 back over the two weeks by taking a packed lunch – not including the price of the packed lunch itself so in actual fact let’s say ~£25! I’m going to start taking a flask of coffee to the courthouse so I don’t have to start to pay for that either (I’ve only consumed free water since I’ve been there – the coffee move is going to be a new one).

In actual fact the case I’m assigned to is expected to last three or more weeks: however after the 10th day of court service (we weren’t required to attend on Tuesday and so therefore I attended work, meaning I don’t think this will count for a day in our court attendance at all), I will at least get paid my losses on a per day basis.

My car tax is due up for renewal at the end of this month (October), and because I’m on a tight budget I may not be able to afford it (due to previously indicated losses). Therefore, because of my obligatory jury service attendance I may lose my car – it getting towed for non-payment of tax, or I may appear before the magistrates (to explain non-payment of car tax), because I did jury service.

Anybody got any ideas about how I may be able to defend that? For example have the court service got a loan facility that people may use when they’re left out of pocket due to jury service? Perhaps I should speak to the judge and ask him if my road tax payment may be delayed by one month and he can put a sticker on my car saying so…!

Yours skintley out of pocket,

An obligatory servant of the judiciary and Her Majesty.

I would recommend you budget better for your car tax. What if you had fell down some stairs and broke your neck? Jury duty expenses would have ceased as would your wages (if you received full pay when absent i'd assume they'd pay for jury duty).
Road tax is a legal requirement so that you can use your vehicle on the public highway. If you are unable to pay your road tax, I would advise you to SORN your vehicle and leave it parked off road (at an address/place that you have advised DVLA of).

darich

marcdominic wrote: »

Darich,

Don’t raise this too loudly but your employer should have filled in your net salary per day: not gross! This may well be how you lucked out.

However the current rate is for a full day at court up to and including the tenth day £61.28 (for a half day it is £30.64). The court will NOT pay more than this – exceptions are travel provision and subsistence.

I earn more than £61.28 a day (nett) so I lose out! There is nothing in English law that states jurors should get compensation equal to their loss of earnings period!

Still even skinter – and looking for road tax….

You might be right about the gross or net salary per day. I think the maximum limit per day may vary between districts or even countries (I'm in Scotland) clear more than £61 per day and around 3 years ago i was on jury duty but received the full amount of my salary from the court. You are right that there is a maximum limit but I don't reach it on my salary.

consultant31

Hermann wrote: »

I think the selection is made from the Electoral Register.

As I said, randomly, by computer

smartandshrewd

So what happens if your work pattern is irregular or erratic, say if you're a temp worker, bank nurse, supply teacher etc.? Or self-employed?

annamc75

Hi there,
I am in scotland and I have been called for jury duty. I am worried (probably unnecessarily) that I will lose out financially.

I know that my work will not pay me - but do I need to get paperwork from the court to show them that I was at court. I only have the sheet that you get the work to fill in to say how much wage you will be losing and you put your travelling expenses etc but there is nothing else that goes from court to work. I think that I am worrying over nothing but I would hate to find that there is something that i should be doing that I am not and that because of that I have a hold up getting my money back or that I dont get paid at all.

Anna x