For those of you who may have missed this important update, Maryland law now requires employers with 15 or more employees to permit the use of existing accrued paid leave for bereavement purposes. Effective October 1, 2021, (“MFLA”) was amended to allow employees to use paid leave for bereavement purposes related to the death of an immediate family member. For purposes of bereavement leave, “immediate family member” is broadly defined as the employee’s spouse, parent, or child (which includes an adopted, biological, or foster child or parent, a stepchild or stepparent, a legal ward or guardian, or a person standing in loco parentis). Notably, the MFLA only applies to private sector employers with 15 or more employees who provide paid leave to their employees.
Specifically, under the expanded law, eligible employees may now use previously earned “leave with pay,” including paid sick leave, vacation time, paid time off, compensatory time, and other time away from work that is earned and available to the employee, as bereavement leave. Before this amendment, the MFLA only authorized employees of employers with 15 or more individuals to use paid leave to care for an immediate family member who is ill under the same conditions and rules that would apply for an employee’s own illness. Aside from the addition of bereavement leave, the MFLA remains unchanged. For example, an employee may only use leave with pay that has been earned and employees who earn more than one type of...
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