Byars, 010780 MSAGO, 19800107

• Case Date: January 07, 1980
• Court: South Carolina

Mr. Jack Byars No. 19800107 Mississippi Attorney General Opinions January 7, 1980          Mr. Jack Byars          Commissioner          Department of Public Welfare          Post Office Box 4321          Fondren Station          Jackson, Mississippi 39216          Dear Mr. Byars:          Attorney General Summer has received your letter of November 15, 1979, and has assigned it to me for review and reply.          In your letter, you state, inter alia :

         Executive Order 241, attached hereto, signed January 5, 1979, permits absence from work without loss of compensation for death (paragraph 1) and critical illness (paragraph 2) of an immediate family member.          An employee of this agency has missed a total of five days of work because her child was sick in the hospital for 3 days and then was home for 2 days sick. The attending physician wrote a statement saying that the mother was needed to stay with the child not giving the nature of illness or that the illness was critical.          Executive Order 241 state in paragraph 3 that the head of an agency approves or disapproves such leave request.          Is the employee of paragraph 2 entitled to leave because of critical illness to her child as described in paragraph 1?

         Executive Order 241 grants advance permission to a state employee to be absent from his employment without loss of compensation where the absence results from the death of a member of the immediate family or the critical illness of such member of the family, and where

         . . . such absence is approved in writing accompanying payroll requisitions by the head of his agency, board, commission, department or institution . . .

         The order further states:

         . . . the heads of all agencies, boards, commissions, departments, and institutions are best qualified to determine the necessity for a leave of absence in excess of those provided for in said Chapter 490, Laws of 1976 . . .

         It is apparent from the Executive Order that the Governor...