Missouri Paid Sick Time Law Repealed
May 15, 2025On May 14, 2025, two weeks after Missouri’s paid sick time law went into effect, the Missouri Senate voted to repeal it; Governor Mike Kehoe is expected to sign the repeal into law. The Senate action follows approval in the House of HB 567 and, if signed into law by Governor Kehoe as expected, will completely eliminate the earned paid sick time requirements placed on Missouri employers by the voter-approved Proposition A in November 2024.
Employers should note however, that even assuming the Governor’s signature, these changes would not take effect until August 28, 2025 as the bill contains no provision for immediate effect or retroactive application. Employers who modified their paid leave policies in compliance with Prop A will soon be free to change or reverse course. We continue to evaluate the legal and practical impact of this repeal and will provide a more detailed update following the Governor’s signature.
UPDATE: Missouri Supreme Court Upholds Sick Leave Mandate, as Focus Shifts to Legislature
Published: April 30, 2025
On April 29, 2025, two days before the sick leave provisions of the voter-approved Proposition A are set to take effect, the Missouri Supreme Court upheld the law in the face of challenges brought by business groups and dissenting voters. The plaintiffs challenged the validity of Proposition A based on alleged procedural irregularities and constitutional violations. After hearing arguments and briefing from numerous interested parties, the Supreme Court held that no election irregularity took place, meaning the election results from November 5, 2024, are valid. Even as it upheld the ballot language on procedural grounds, the Supreme Court did not consider the constitutional challenges to Proposition A due to lack of jurisdiction. This leaves open the possibility that the plaintiffs or others could re-file, seeking trial court determination of the constitutional issues that were not considered by the Court.
House legislation repealing Proposition A’s sick leave provisions has been debated in the Senate, and repeal or amendment remain possibilities. However, absent unexpected and last-minute legislative action or a new lawsuit obtaining injunctive relief, the paid sick leave requirements of Proposition A will take effect on May 1, 2025. Employers weighing options on how to navigate this uncertainty should contact one of the authors or another member of Lewis Rice’s employment law team.
UPDATE: Missouri Paid Sick Time Deadlines Approach as Legal Challenges Continue
Published: March 27, 2025
April 15, 2025 is the date by which nearly all private sector employers in Missouri must take the first steps to comply with the state’s new paid sick time law. On that date, employers must provide their Missouri employees with a written notice about earned paid sick time and also display a poster in each establishment where their Missouri employees work. The Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations recently published a form notice and poster containing the statutorily required information. As explained in our alert below, Missouri employees will begin accruing paid sick time on May 1, 2025.
A lawsuit challenging the passage of Proposition A, the ballot measure containing the new sick time law, has been argued before the Missouri Supreme Court, which has not yet issued its opinion. Additionally, the Missouri House of Representatives has passed HB 567 which, if passed by the Senate and signed by the governor, would repeal the sick time requirements in their entirety. Absent intervening legal action, however, employers must comply with the upcoming April 15th deadline.
Missouri Paid Sick Time Deadlines Approach as Legal Challenges Continue
Published: November 12, 2024
Missouri voters' approval of Proposition A ushers in some of the most significant changes to Missouri employment law in recent history. Starting in the Spring of 2025, private employers must begin to administer a new sick leave benefit that will, at minimum, likely require modification of existing paid time off policies. In many cases, the provision of paid sick leave will add additional administrative burdens and force some employers to rethink how they handle attendance management. In addition, voters approved a minimum wage increase to $13.75 January 1, 2025 and to $15 a year later. This alert lays out the key provisions of Proposition A that Missouri employers will need to consider in the coming months.
Earned Paid Sick Time
Covered Employers and Employees
Missouri’s earned paid sick time law (the “Paid Sick Time Law”) applies to all private sector employers with limited exceptions. Many public employers, such as cities, school districts, and public institutions of higher education, are excluded. Similarly, the Paid Sick Time Law applies to nearly all employees working for covered employers within the State of Missouri (the law does not cover employees who work outside of Missouri). Additionally, the Paid Sick Time Law will not apply to employees subject to existing collective bargaining agreements until those agreements are renewed, amended or extended.
Basic Paid Sick Leave Entitlement
Beginning May 1, 2025, paid sick time will accrue at the rate of 1 hour for every 30 hours worked and may be used immediately upon accrual. For overtime exempt employees, the law directs employers to generally assume they work 40 hours per week. There is no cap on accrual. Thus, an employee working 40 hours per week would accrue at least 69.33 sick hours each year. That said, the Paid Sick Time Law allows employers to limit the use of paid sick time to 56 hours per year (or 40 hours for employers with fewer than 15 employees).
Employees may use sick time for their own mental or physical illness, injury, or health condition, to care for a family member with a mental or physical illness, injury or health condition, for business closures during certain public health emergencies, or for specific domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking reasons. Sick time can also be used for purposes of seeking preventive care for the employee or a family member, even if neither the employee nor their family member is sick. Notably, earned paid sick time may be used in the smallest increment that the employer’s payroll system uses to account for absences or other leave time. As for the rate of pay, generally, employees must be paid their same hourly regular rate.
Accrued but unused paid sick leave does not need to be paid out upon separation from employment.
Employer Options
Employers have some options in how to implement earned paid sick time. First, employers may choose to either front-load the paid sick time at the beginning of the year, or require that it be accrued over time at the rate of 1 hour for every 30 hours worked. If employers choose to frontload, they must grant the full amount that the employee is expected to accrue during the year.
Second, at the end of the year employers must allow up to at least 80 hours of paid sick leave to carry over into the new year. Alternatively, employers may choose to pay out sick leave that would otherwise carry over, provided that they grant a year’s worth of sick time for immediate use in the new year.
Third, an employer may also comply with, or already be in compliance with, the new requirements by maintaining a paid leave policy, such as a paid time off policy, that makes available to employees an amount of paid leave sufficient to meet the accrual requirements and that may be used for the same purposes and under the same conditions as defined under the Paid Sick Time Law. However, employers should reexamine their existing policies in light of the statutory amendments. For example, employers with no fault attendance policies should review their policies’ compliance with the Paid Sick Time Law because it specifically prohibits employers from counting earned paid sick time taken by an employee as an absence that may lead to any adverse action.
Employee Notice Requirements
Employees must request paid sick time. Employers may institute a written policy requiring employees to give notice of their need to use earned paid sick time “as soon as practicable” where the need is not foreseeable. Employers must provide employees with this written policy for it to be enforceable. The Paid Sick Time Law further requires that, where use of paid sick time is foreseeable, employees must make a “good faith effort” to provide notice of the need.
Documentation
The Paid Sick Time Law permits employers to require documentation only if an employee takes three or more consecutive paid sick time days. Even then, however, the required documentation need only affirm that the time off was needed for a covered purpose. The employer may not require that such documentation provide any further explanation of the nature of the illness or the details of any underlying health needs – unless entitled to do so under some other law. Although not specified in the Paid Sick Time Law, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act would likely qualify as grounds for further documentation under appropriate circumstances.
Additional Employer Obligations
Employers have other obligations beyond providing paid sick time. On April 15, 2025, employers are required to give existing employees a written notice about earned paid sick time that must meet certain formatting and content requirements. Thereafter, employers must provide this written notice to new employees within 14 calendar days of their start date. Additionally, starting on April 15, 2025, employers must also display a poster containing certain information about earned paid sick time at the workplace. Employers must also keep records of paid sick time for each employee for at least 3 years and allow the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations to access those records for compliance review.
Liabilities and Penalties
There is significant risk for noncompliance with the Paid Sick Time Law. An employer may be civilly liable for interfering with, restraining or denying an employee’s entitlement to paid sick leave. Moreover, the law contains anti-retaliation protections prohibiting employers from taking adverse action against employees who exercise their paid sick time rights. These claims are subject to a three-year statute of limitations, much longer than with certain other common employment laws. If a court finds a violation has occurred, an employee may recover the full amount of any unpaid earned sick time plus any actual damages suffered by the employee as a result of the employer’s violation, an additional amount equal to twice any unpaid earned sick time as liquidated damages, costs, and reasonable attorney’s fees, and other legal or equitable relief deemed appropriate by the court.
Employers who willfully violate or fail to comply with the Paid Sick Time Law are also exposed to a class-C misdemeanor for each day of violation or noncompliance. Additionally, the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations may impose fines for willful violations of up to $500 per day for each continuing violation.
Minimum Wage Increase
Although it may be a secondary consideration for some employers given the significant new entitlements created by the paid sick leave provisions, Proposition A also mandates significant increases to Missouri’s minimum wage. Effective January 1, 2025, the minimum wage will increase from $12.30 an hour to $13.75 an hour, then increasing January 1, 2026 to $15.00 an hour. Beginning January 2027, the minimum wage will adjust based on the Consumer Price Index. These increases more than double the federal minimum wage and place Missouri in the top tier of states nationwide (in 2024 only 6 states had minimum wages of $15 or higher).
We will continue to monitor developments and provide updates in the event additional clarity is provided through sick leave regulations, which may come in the new year. If you need any assistance in becoming compliant, or have any questions about how the new law will affect your company or business, please contact a member of Lewis Rice's employment law team.
