The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held recently the City of Pittsburgh had authority to enact the Paid Sick Days Act. This opinion reverses a lower court opinion and frees the PSDA from the legal limbo it has been in since its enactment in 2015.
The Court’s July 17 decision was based on the state’s Home Rule Charter Law which limits the City’s authority to regulate business “except as expressly provided by statutes…” Determining the scope of that business exception is a “vexing question,” the Court said but held that Pittsburgh has the right to protect the health and safety of its residents under various statutes and that the PSDA was an exercise of that right.
Enforcement of the PSDA had been enjoined pending the outcome of the legal challenge to it. It is unclear when Pittsburgh will begin enforcing the PSDA and how it will deal with the fact that employers were supposed to have allowed employees to accrue and use sick leave for the past 3 1/2 years.
The PSDA hews to the typical architecture of a PSL law. Employees of employers with at least fifteen employees accrue one hour of paid time for every 35 hours worked, to a maximum of 40 hours annually. Employees of smaller employers accrue up to 24 hours of unpaid sick time during the first year of the PSDA’s implementation and up to 24 hours of paid time subsequently.