AB 1041

With AB 1041, California expands who an employee can care for under both the California Family Rights Act (CFRA) and California’s paid sick leave law, the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act (HWHFA). Currently, both laws allow employees to take leave to care for a spouse, registered domestic partner, child, parent, parent-in-law, grandparent, grandchild and sibling. Beginning January 1, 2023, employees can also take CFRA leave or paid sick leave to care for a “designated person.” It’s important to note that AB 1041 amends two distinct laws, the CFRA and the HWHFA, and it defines a designated person in each of them — but the definitions are slightly different in each.

For the CFRA, the law defines designated person as “any individual related by blood or whose association with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship. The designated person may be identified by the employee at the time the employee requests the leave.”

For the HWHFA, the Labor Code was amended to define designated person more broadly as “a person identified by the employee at the time the employee requests paid sick days.”

In both instances, an employer may limit an employee to one “designated person” per 12-month period.