P.R. Laws tit. 34, § 1735k
(a) Any employer who authorizes, consents or performs a firing, and any person who threatens with firing, dismissal, or dismisses, suspends, reduces the salary, lowers the category or imposes or intends to impose onerous work conditions on an employee for the fact that said employee has been summoned to serve, is serving or will serve as a juror, or who for such reason refuses to reinstate or reinstates in a lower category or with a lower remuneration than that held when the jury duty began, as long as the provisions of this chapter are complied with, shall incur in civil liability:
(1) For an amount equal to the damages that the act has caused to the worker, or for one thousand dollars ($1,000), whichever is greater; or
(2) for an amount of not less than one thousand dollars ($1,000) nor greater than three thousand dollars ($3,000), at the discretion of the court, if money damages cannot be determined.
In the civil action filed in agreement with the previous provisions, the court may order the employer to reinstate the worker in his job and to cease and desist from the action in question.
(b) Any public or private employer is hereby banned from discounting salary, or vacation or sickness leave, from his employees during the days and hours that a duly summoned employee uses to appear as a jury before a court, except as is set forth.
Any employee who has complied with the provisions of this chapter and whose salary or vacation or sickness leave is illegally discounted, shall have the right to collect the difference owed to him, plus an equal amount that he has not received, corresponding to additional compensation, apart from legal costs, expenses, interests and attorney’s fees, the latter in a reasonable amount, never below one thousand dollars ($1,000).
(c) The civil actions established in subsections (a) and (b) may be filed by the employee or by the Secretary of Labor and Human Resources, in the latter’s name, through the procedure determined in §§ 2871 et seq. of Title 32, known as the “Controversies and Provisional Legal Status Act,” through the special proceeding established by law for labor claims or through a regular civil action, at the employee’s choice.
History —Sept. 27, 2003, No. 281, § 13, eff. 180 days after Sept. 27, 2003.