Minnesota's Age-Discrimination Law Starts at 18, Not 40. It Also Still Lets a Small Employer Retire You at 70.

Federal age-discrimination law doesn’t care about you until your fortieth birthday. Minnesota’s covers you from the day you turn 18.

That’s the part people have heard, if they’ve heard anything. Here’s the part they haven’t. At the other end of a career, Minnesota’s law runs out before the federal one does. A Minnesota statute still on the books lets an employer set a compulsory retirement age of 70, and lets it retire certain executives at 65 if their pension clears $27,000 a year. Those were the federal numbers too, until Congress raised the $27,000 to $44,000 in 1984 and dropped the 70 in 1986. Minnesota never moved.

So the state law reaches younger workers than the federal law does, and smaller employers too. And at 70, the federal law is the one still standing.

Who does Minnesota protect, and from what age?

Every adult. Here’s the definition, whole:

The prohibition against unfair employment or education practices based on age prohibits using a person’s age as a basis for a decision if the person is over the age of majority except for section 363A.13 which shall be deemed to protect any individual over the age of 25 years.

— Minn. Stat. § 363A.03, subd. 2

“Majority” is defined elsewhere as “the period of time after the individual reaches the age of 18.” Minn. Stat. § 645.451, subd. 5. The 25-year floor in the second half of the sentence belongs to § 363A.13, the education section. For a job, the line is 18.

The Court of Appeals has said it in so many words: the protected class “includes anyone over the age of majority.” Ward v. Employee Dev. Corp., 516 N.W.2d 198, 201 (Minn. Ct. App. 1994), review denied (Minn. July 8, 1994). It said that while working out how to prove a case when the usual formula breaks. The classic test asks whether you were replaced by someone outside the protected class. Under the Minnesota Human Rights Act, read strictly, that would mean someone under 18. The court wasn’t going to make plaintiffs prove that, and it didn’t.

The employer side of the definition matters just as much. Under the Act, an “employer” is “a person who has one or more employees.” § 363A.03, subd. 16. One. The federal age statute covers an employer with “twenty or more employees for each working day in each of twenty or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year”. 29 U.S.C. § 630(b). A dental office with eight people on staff is outside the federal law completely and inside Minnesota’s.

What does federal law actually say about the young?

Congress wrote a floor. “The prohibitions in this chapter shall be limited to individuals who are at least 40 years of age.” 29 U.S.C. § 631(a).

And in February 2004, the Supreme Court held that the floor isn’t the only limit. In General Dynamics Land Systems, Inc. v. Cline, a union contract eliminated retiree health benefits for future retirees except workers who were already at least 50. Workers in their 40s, inside the federal protected class, sued, saying the deal discriminated against them because they were younger. 540 U.S. 581, 584–85 (2004). They lost. The Court explained what the 40 line was for in one sentence: “The enemy of 40 is 30, not 50.” Id. at 591. And it held the statute “does not mean to stop an employer from favoring an older employee over a younger one.” Id. at 600.

So federally, a worker under 40 has no age claim at all, and a 45-year-old passed over in favor of a 60-year-old has no age claim either. Age discrimination under the federal statute runs one direction.

Minnesota’s definition has no direction in it. It prohibits “using a person’s age as a basis for a decision”. It doesn’t say “older age”.

Has a Minnesota court ever ruled for a worker who was too young?

I couldn’t find one. The closest case went all the way to the Minnesota Supreme Court, and it shows exactly where these claims run into trouble.

Colleen Leemon worked for the White Bear Lake school district for about ten years and resigned at 36. Her contract paid severance to administrators who’d put in ten years of service, but only if they were at least 45. She had the years. She didn’t have the age. The Department of Human Rights found probable cause, and an administrative law judge awarded her roughly $106,000. State by Beaulieu v. Indep. Sch. Dist. No. 624, 509 N.W.2d 572, 573–74 (Minn. Ct. App. 1993).

The Court of Appeals reversed, and it never doubted that a 36-year-old could bring an age claim in Minnesota. The panel conceded “the disparate treatment alleged by Leemon under an isolated reading of the age discrimination provisions”. Id. at 575. It reversed because another statute let school districts adopt severance rules, and the Human Rights Act exempts age-based benefits provided “pursuant to statute”. Id. at 575–76. Then it went out of its way to “express no opinion on the broader question of ‘reverse’ age discrimination protection under the Human Rights Act.” Id. at 576. One judge dissented: “Leemon was a victim of age discrimination with respect to compensation.” Id. at 576 (Peterson, J., dissenting).

The supreme court affirmed. It began from the premise that the Act “clearly prohibits age discrimination with respect to employee compensation”, and decided the case on the statutory exception. State by Beaulieu v. Indep. Sch. Dist. No. 624, 533 N.W.2d 393, 395–96 (Minn. 1995). Nobody on either court suggested Leemon was too young to be protected.

I ran the question through CourtListener four ways — “reverse age discrimination”, “too young” with the Act, “age of majority” with “younger”, and the subdivision number — and read every Minnesota appellate hit in the case archive. Leemon’s case is the one. And it tells you how these cases go. Whether you’re protected is the easy part. The exceptions are the fight.

The exceptions are where these cases live

Section 363A.20 is the list, and several items are about age by name. In the order the statute gives them:

• Working for your own parent, grandparent, spouse, child, or grandchild, and working in someone’s domestic service, fall outside § 363A.08 entirely. § 363A.20, subd. 1.
• A bona fide seniority system is exempt “so long as the operation of the system is not a subterfuge to evade the provisions of this chapter.” Subd. 5. A union shop that bumps by seniority is going to favor older workers, and that’s lawful.
• Insurance and fringe benefits can vary by age, but only “so long as the cost to the labor organization or employer for the benefits is reasonably equivalent for all members or employees.” Subd. 6(a). That’s the exception both Leemon courts said the school district couldn’t use; it hadn’t shown equal cost. 509 N.W.2d at 575; 533 N.W.2d at 395 n.1.
• A state statute, charter, ordinance, or civil service rule may set a maximum age for entry into employment as a peace officer or firefighter, if it’s applied “uniformly and without exception”. Subd. 7.
• A mandatory retirement age set “[b]y law or published retirement policy” is lawful if it’s “consistent with section 181.81.” Subd. 9. More on that below.
• The Act doesn’t prohibit “differential privileges, benefits, services, or facilities for persons of designated ages” if the treatment is provided by statute, or if “the designated age is greater than 59 years or less than 21 years.” Subd. 9. The statute-based version doesn’t apply to “hiring, tenure, compensation, upgrading, or conditions of employment.” The over-59, under-21 version isn’t carved out of employment in those words. That’s my reading of the sentence as written, and it’s the one the Leemon dissent applied to a benefit that shrank after age 61. 509 N.W.2d at 578 (Peterson, J., dissenting).
• The state summer youth employment program is exempt from the age provisions. Subd. 10.

And above all of them sits the bona fide occupational qualification. Every age prohibition in § 363A.08, subdivision 2 opens with “Except when based on a bona fide occupational qualification”.

Notice what’s not on the list. The federal statute lets an employer “observe the terms of a bona fide employee benefit plan” under conditions it spells out. 29 U.S.C. § 623(f)(2)(B). The Leemon dissent pointed out that Minnesota’s Act, as it then read, didn’t. 509 N.W.2d at 578 (Peterson, J., dissenting). An employer can’t assume a benefit plan that passes federal review passes Minnesota’s.

The front door: applications and job ads

Minnesota also polices age before anybody’s hired. Unless a listed exception applies, it’s an unfair employment practice for an employer, before a person is employed, to “require or request the person to furnish information that pertains to” age, among other characteristics. § 363A.08, subd. 4(a)(1). It’s also unfair to publish a job notice or advertisement that “discloses a preference, limitation, specification, or discrimination based on” age. Subd. 4(a)(3).

A date-of-birth box on an application is a request for information that pertains to age. So is year you graduated high school, if you think about what that question is for. And an applicant who has to answer is an “aggrieved party” under the Act. Subd. 4(b). Employers who copied their application form from a national template, take note.

At 70, Minnesota steps back

Here’s the half of the story nobody tells young workers or old ones.

Minnesota’s older age statute, § 181.81, makes it unlawful for a private employer to refuse to hire, fire, or demote someone “on the grounds that the individual has reached an age of less than 70”, unless federal statutes or rules or other state statutes compel or specifically authorize it. Then:

Nothing in this section shall prohibit compulsory retirement of employees who have attained 70 years of age or more; provided further that nothing in this section shall prohibit compulsory retirement of an employee who has attained at least 65 years of age and who for the two-year period immediately before retirement is employed in an executive or a high policy-making position if that employee is entitled to an immediate nonforfeitable annual retirement benefit from a pension, profit sharing, savings or deferred compensation plan of an employer, or any combination of these benefits which totals in the aggregate at least $27,000.

— Minn. Stat. § 181.81, subd. 1(a)

Every employer is supposed to post a notice “stating that the mandatory retirement age is age 70.” § 181.81, subd. 1(b). And because § 363A.20, subdivision 9 blesses a retirement age set “consistent with section 181.81”, a published policy retiring people at 70 isn’t a Human Rights Act violation either.

Now the federal side. The ADEA once had the same 70 cap. Congress struck “but less than 70 years of age” from § 631(a) in 1986, generally effective January 1, 1987. Pub. L. 99-592. It kept an executive exception, but the benefit test now reads “at least $44,000”, and that’s been the number since Congress substituted it for $27,000 in 1984. 29 U.S.C. § 631(c)(1); Pub. L. 98-459.

Minnesota’s statute still says 70 and still says $27,000. Its history line hasn’t moved since 2003.

What does that mean in practice? For an employer with 20 or more employees, the federal statute governs too. It makes it unlawful to discharge any individual 40 or older “because of such individual’s age”, 29 U.S.C. § 623(a)(1), and outside its own exceptions, like the executive rule and a bona fide occupational qualification, that leaves no room for a blanket retirement age of 70. For a private employer with fewer than 20, the federal law doesn’t apply at all. A small Minnesota business with a published retirement policy can retire a 70-year-old under § 181.81 and § 363A.20, subdivision 9, and I don’t see a statute that stops it.

That’s the irony. Minnesota protects the 24-year-old the federal law ignores, and leaves the 71-year-old at a ten-person shop where Congress left everyone before 1987.

One more piece of § 181.81 worth knowing. An employer that intends to terminate an employee who’s 65 or older, before 70, “on the ground that the employee no longer can meet the bona fide requirements for the job” must give 30 days’ notice. § 181.81, subd. 1(b). And § 181.81 carries its own lawsuit, in which the court may award reinstatement or compensation for the resulting period of unemployment, “together with actual and reasonable attorney fees”. Subd. 2(b). It can be joined to a Human Rights Act claim if that claim’s procedural requirements are met. Subd. 2(c).

How the two laws line up

If you’re deciding which statute your claim lives under, this is the map:

I walked through the Minnesota filing machinery, the 45- and 90-day windows, and the election-of-remedies trap at /news/minnesota-human-rights-act-deadlines/. Read that before you file anything. The one-year clock doesn’t care how old you are. And if you’re weighing state court against federal, I wrote about what that choice costs at /news/minnesota-mhra-or-federal-choosing-your-forum/.

What a Minnesota age claim can be worth

In 2024 the Legislature gave the courts their own remedies subdivision. 2024 Minn. Laws ch. 105, § 18. When a court or jury finds an unfair discriminatory practice, the court “shall order the respondent to pay an aggrieved party who has suffered discrimination compensatory damages, including mental anguish or suffering, in an amount up to three times the actual damages sustained”, and “may also order” punitive damages under § 549.20. Minn. Stat. § 363A.33, subd. 8(a). The $25,000 punitive cap that used to travel with court cases now applies in court only when the defendant is a political subdivision. Subd. 8(b). It’s still the ceiling if you take the administrative route. § 363A.29, subd. 4(a). The court also orders a civil penalty to the state, can order hiring, reinstatement, or back pay, and “in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party a reasonable attorney’s fee”. § 363A.33, subds. 7, 8(a), 9(1).

Two cautions on releases. If you’re over 40 and you’re offered severance, federal law imposes a checklist on any release of your ADEA claims; I covered it at /news/minnesota-severance-release-agreements/. If you’re 30, that checklist doesn’t protect you, because the ADEA doesn’t. Your Human Rights Act claim still exists, and so does the release that would give it away. And if you were fired and don’t know why, Minnesota lets you demand the truthful reason in writing on a short clock. I covered that at /news/minnesota-termination-reason-letter-181-933/.

Too green is a reason. In Minnesota it can also be evidence.

Madgett Law, LLC

Madgett Law, LLC handles discrimination claims under the Minnesota Human Rights Act and its federal counterparts. Whether an age claim fits, which exception the employer will reach for, and which clock is running depend on your age, your employer’s size, and what was said and written at the time. Read about our civil rights practice, then send us a message.

Sources: Minn. Stat. § 363A.03, subd. 2 (age), subd. 16 (employer); Minn. Stat. § 645.451, subd. 5 (majority); Minn. Stat. § 363A.08, subd. 2 (unfair employment practices; bona fide occupational qualification), subd. 4(a)(1), (a)(3), (b) (pre-employment inquiries and advertisements; aggrieved party); Minn. Stat. § 363A.20, subd. 1 (family and domestic employment), subd. 5 (seniority), subd. 6(a) (fringe benefits), subd. 7 (peace officer or firefighter), subd. 9 (mandatory retirement; designated ages), subd. 10 (summer youth employment); Minn. Stat. § 181.81, subd. 1(a) (under-70 protection; compulsory retirement at 70; executive exception at 65 and $27,000), subd. 1(b) (posting; 30 days’ notice), subd. 2(b)–(c) (civil action; joinder with chapter 363A); Minn. Stat. § 363A.28, subd. 3(a) (one year); Minn. Stat. § 363A.29, subd. 4(a) (administrative remedies; $25,000 punitive limit); Minn. Stat. § 363A.33, subd. 7 (attorney’s fees), subd. 8(a)–(b) (compensatory up to three times actual damages; punitive damages under § 549.20; political subdivisions), subd. 9(1) (employment relief); 2024 Minn. Laws ch. 105, §§ 17–19; 29 U.S.C. § 623(a)(1) (discharge because of age), (f)(2)(B) (bona fide employee benefit plans); 29 U.S.C. § 630(b) (employer); 29 U.S.C. § 631(a) (at least 40), (c)(1) (executive exception; $44,000), and the statutory notes to § 631 (Pub. L. 98-459, 1984; Pub. L. 99-592, 1986); 29 U.S.C. § 626(d)(1) (180 and 300 days); 29 U.S.C. § 633(b); General Dynamics Land Systems, Inc. v. Cline, 540 U.S. 581, 584–85, 591, 600 (2004); State by Beaulieu v. Indep. Sch. Dist. No. 624, 509 N.W.2d 572, 573–76, 576–79 (Minn. Ct. App. 1993) (majority and dissent), aff’d, 533 N.W.2d 393, 395–96 (Minn. 1995); Ward v. Employee Dev. Corp., 516 N.W.2d 198, 201 (Minn. Ct. App. 1994), review denied (Minn. July 8, 1994). This article is general information about Minnesota law, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship, and no outcome is promised or implied.