MORTL for Employers · Free download

Every state's bereavement law,
read at the statute.

Every state mandate, the sick-leave states, the discrimination exposure, and a policy floor that satisfies all of them, read at the statute

Bereavement Leave Law for Employers, 2026 · September 2026 edition · 39 minute read · PDF

What's inside

01
Federal law gives you nothing to copy
No federal statute requires bereavement leave, FMLA stops at the death , and the only federal rules that mention funerals are the ones written for federal employees .
02
The five mandate states, clause by clause
California, Illinois, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington each require something specific. The thresholds, day counts, windows, family definitions, and documentation limits differ enough that one policy has to be written to the strictest of each.
03
Where paid sick leave has to cover a death
Seven states and one county make accrued paid leave usable after a death, by naming funerals and grief, by barring the employer from asking why, or by listing no permitted purposes at all. Massachusetts reaches reproductive loss and not a death. Nine more sick-leave laws were read and none of them covers a death.
04
Public employees and the local layer
State-employee rules don't bind private payrolls, but they're the benchmark employees quote back to you, and a county ordinance can outrun the state statute.
05
Designing one policy that clears every mandate
A floor of ten working days per death, a year to use them, a family definition wider than any statute, proof only after the fact, and a rule for which state's law applies to each remote worker.
06
Discrimination and retaliation exposure after a death
Grief that becomes a diagnosable condition can trigger the ADA , pregnancy loss triggers the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act , and a termination in the weeks after a leave request reads as retaliation under every one of these statutes .
07
All 51 jurisdictions
One row per state and the District of Columbia. Every row with a citation was read live in September 2026; rows marked "not verified" report an absence of statute that couldn't be re-read for this edition.
08
The compliance checklist and the template
Fourteen items to tick before the policy ships, and where to get a policy that already has them built in.

Who it's for

HR leads and people-ops managers at companies with employees in more than one state who need the legal floor without a law firm's hourly rate.
Founders and owners who write the handbook themselves and want a bereavement policy that's compliant on the day they publish it.
Payroll and benefits staff who have to decide, on a Tuesday morning, whether the five days an employee just asked for are paid, protected, both, or neither.
Employment counsel and PEO account managers who want the statutes in one place with the language quoted rather than summarized.

You'll walk away with

Set a company-wide floor of ten working days per death, usable within a year, and you've satisfied California, Illinois, Oregon, and Vermont on day count and window at the same time.
Write the family definition to include domestic partners, in-laws, step and foster relationships, and one person the employee names, because Oregon, Minnesota, and Vermont already reach that far and your definition is where the disputes start.
Ask for proof only after the leave, only from the list California allows, and never make an Illinois employee say which reproductive loss they had.
Treat grief that lasts past a year as a possible ADA accommodation request , and expect any adverse action within weeks of a leave request to be read as retaliation .
Load the 51-row table into your leave system by the state where each employee physically works, and re-read the five mandate statutes every January.

How it was researched

Every statute, regulation, and agency page cited was opened on September 14, 2026 and read against the sentence that cites it. Primary sources came first: the statute on the legislature's own site where it loaded (California, Oregon, Washington, Maryland, Minnesota, Maine, Nevada, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Arizona, New York, Rhode Island, the District of Columbia), the federal regulations at Cornell's Legal Information Institute where eCFR blocked automated reading, and the state labor department's official summary where the legislature's site was down (Illinois, Vermont) or where the agency FAQ is the operative guidance (Connecticut, New Jersey, Alaska, Nebraska, Missouri, Tennessee). Quoted language is quoted from the page as read. The Washington SB 5217 rumor was checked against the bill summary, which shows a pregnancy-accommodations bill signed May 20, 2025 as chapter 379 with a January 1, 2027 effective date, and against the current RCW text. MORTL's August 2026 article on bereavement leave by state was the starting map; this book re-read its sources live and departs from it in one place, Tennessee's state-employee days, now tiered at three, five, and ten. Missouri's May 1, 2025 start date moved to the state labor department's own earned paid sick time notice, because the HB 567 FAQ states only the repeal date. A second, adversarial pass then tried to break the twelve claims a reader would act on and eight table rows, statute by statute, and corrected seven sentences the source didn't plainly support: Minnesota's documentation rule does reach a death, because the funeral use sits in the same clause as the illness uses and the two-day threshold applies to it; BOLI names three OFLA qualifying reasons, not four, with Oregon Military Family Leave Act days counting against OFLA from a separate act; BOLI also lets an Oregon employer request written verification of the need for bereavement leave within five business days; Maryland's Flexible Leave Act reaches only employees primarily employed in the state and still runs through the employer's own policy terms, so it isn't approval as of right; Maine's statute lists no permitted purposes rather than barring the employer from asking why; Massachusetts earned sick time is paid only at employers with 11 or more employees; and Washington's seven child-loss days draw from the claim year's available leave rather than adding to it. Vermont's documentation rule, Illinois's 48-hour notice rule, and the Illinois bar on taking both CEBLA and FBLA leave for the same child were added because the sources state them and the draft left them out. Prose was audited line by line against MORTL's voice rules, and the Illinois child-loss passage against AFSP and WHO safe-messaging guidance.

This book is general information for employers. It isn't legal advice for any company. Six sources couldn't be read: the Illinois General Assembly and Vermont Legislature websites returned server errors on every attempt, including on re-check (those entries rest on the labor departments' official summaries), and Michigan's and New Mexico's official sites, Chicago's ordinance pages, and the Utah Code blocked automated requests. Twenty-nine table rows say "not verified live": twenty-seven report an absence of statute that couldn't be re-verified live, and two are the blocked Michigan and New Mexico reads. No Bureau of Labor Statistics figure on paid funeral leave appears because the table couldn't be opened. Collective bargaining agreements and local ordinances beyond Cook County are out of scope, and California's section itself exempts employees under a qualifying collective bargaining agreement . Which state's law applies to a remote worker, how a state counts headcount near a threshold, and whether an employee's grief meets the ADA's definition are questions for employment counsel with your facts. Three of the five mandates are recent: California's bereavement section took effect January 1, 2023 and its reproductive loss section on January 1, 2024 , and Illinois's Family Bereavement Leave Act and Vermont's Act 32 are the other two . Oregon's bereavement leave is older, added by the 2013 session laws, rewritten by SB 1515 in 2024 and amended again in 2025 , and Washington's child-death clause reaches deaths on or after June 9, 2022 . The table is dated September 2026.

49 sources, each read on the date shown in the book.

Cover of Bereavement Leave Law for Employers, 2026

Go further

The site pages that pick up where the book stops.

More from the library

MORTL for EmployersWhat a Death Costs a CompanyHow often a death reaches a company of 100, 500, or 2,000 people, what it costs, and a per-100-employee worksheet built from sourced inputs.

MORTLThe Executor's First 90 DaysA calm, ordered guide for the new executor: authority, appointment, the first 90 days, taxes, the mistakes that cost money, and when to hire help.

MORTL for EmployersThe First CallA 45-minute drill for HR and one manager: the first call after an employee loss, named responsibilities, a 20-item gap finder, and a 30-day fix plan.