Goddamit Jury service. Get outs?

[richardrsc]

Dear PH Legal Massive,

I run a small company. There's only two of us full time at the moment, and it *needs* two people. We have to plan rather carefully for any time off, avoiding booking any work in, and it's always bloody awkward, because only having one person in the office completely screws us if we get anything go wrong that needs a call out and screws our sla's.

My colleague has been called up for jury service.. which is for an indeterminate amount of time.

Hiring a temp is out, it's not that kind of business, you need to know a lot of systems and know the clients - a temp for a couple of weeks is as good as useless.

Colleague does not want to do it.

How do we get out of this?

And on a more general note, what the hell gives them the right to demand with menaces that people come and work for them at £32 a day? Is this the bloody roman empire?

Edited by richardrsc on Saturday 14th May 19:22

[richardrsc]

marshalla said:

I wonder how the OP's business would cope if one of them fell ill ?

And how loudly he complains about "bad" jury decisions ?

How would your own corporate behemoth do without yourself? Do you hire extra people just in case the state decides it needs to requisition one? PLease do enlighten me as to your excellent business management skills, I'm all ears.

[richardrsc]

chevy55 said:

Phone up the clerk, explain your problem and tell him/her it'll cause real problems and your colleague may get excused or asked to do a week. Be pleasant and don't lay the law down to them and they are generally quite helpful if you have a genuine case which it sounds like you do.

Thanks , yes I think this or the 'kick it into the long grass' one sound like the sensible options.

[richardrsc]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

The same one that gives you the right to a trial by jury should you ever be accused of something. Not a right that was available under the Roman Empire.

Yes, I knew the romans never did anything for us

[richardrsc]

INWB said:

If you really want to get out of it simply put this:

"I am willing to fulfil my civic duties however as a (name religion) I will be using bible principles to make my judgement."

You won't be called.

That sounds promising. How about "As a Satanist I will be proposing the death sentence for even minor felonies?"

[richardrsc]

Paul Dishman said:

My experience was the same, I'd happily serve on a jury again.

Well there seem to be lots of people happy to go and do it. Why can't they ask them instead?

[richardrsc]

OK just to finish this thread up on a happy note (and may be useful to others out there), we sent an email to the jury service explaining (very politely) that as a fairly specialist two-person company, taking 1 employee for an unspecified amount of time would be very likely to cause damage to the company.

Got an email back the next day & colleague had been excused.

Thanks for all the suggestions. It seems they are reasonable.

Edited by richardrsc on Saturday 15th October 11:21