The section heading reads “POLYGRAPH TESTS OF EMPLOYEES OR PROSPECTIVE EMPLOYEES PROHIBITED.” Nearly everyone who’s heard of Minn. Stat. § 181.75 stops right there and files it away as the lie-detector statute, a rule about a machine Minnesota employers quit using decades ago.
I read the operative words differently, because they’re wider than the heading, and they’re why the statute still has work to do. What subdivision 1 actually prohibits is soliciting or requiring “a polygraph, voice stress analysis, or any test purporting to test the honesty” of an employee or prospective employee. That last clause isn’t tied to a device, a sensor, or a needle. A written questionnaire the vendor markets as measuring a candidate’s honesty is a test purporting to test honesty, and nothing in the sentence says otherwise.
That matters more now than it did in 1973, when the section was enacted. The polygraph has mostly left private hiring. The written pre-employment “integrity” or “honesty” inventory hasn’t. It’s sold as a screening product, scored by the vendor, and handed back to the employer as a risk rating.
Read the first sentence as it is written
No employer or agent thereof shall directly or indirectly solicit or require a polygraph, voice stress analysis, or any test purporting to test the honesty of any employee or prospective employee.
That sentence does a lot of work beyond the word “polygraph,” and most of it sits in the parts people skip.
The prohibition runs to “any test purporting to test the honesty.” The statute doesn’t define “test,” and it doesn’t limit the word to equipment. The phrase names a purpose, testing honesty. It doesn’t name a technology.
The prohibited conduct is to “solicit or require,” and it reaches conduct that’s “directly or indirectly” done. An employer that never orders a test but arranges for one, or leans on an applicant to volunteer, is doing something the sentence describes.
And the sentence covers a “prospective employee.” This is a hiring statute as much as an employment statute, so the person with the claim may be someone who never worked a day for the employer.
So does a written integrity questionnaire count? On the text, yes: a written instrument that purports to measure honesty is inside the statute. There’s no device requirement, no reference to physiological measurement, and no exclusion for paper-and-pencil or online instruments. The limiting word is “purporting” — what the test claims to do — and the vendor’s own marketing is ordinarily the best evidence of that claim.
The federal act is narrower, and the contrast proves the point
The federal Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988 defines its subject in terms of equipment. 29 U.S.C. § 2001(3):
The term “lie detector” includes a polygraph, deceptograph, voice stress analyzer, psychological stress evaluator, or any other similar device (whether mechanical or electrical) that is used, or the results of which are used, for the purpose of rendering a diagnostic opinion regarding the honesty or dishonesty of an individual.
“Any other similar device (whether mechanical or electrical)” is a closed category of machines. A written honesty inventory isn’t a device, mechanical or electrical, so it isn’t a “lie detector” for purposes of the federal prohibition in 29 U.S.C. § 2002. Minnesota’s phrase, “any test purporting to test the honesty”, has no such limit.
Federal law leaves that gap for the states to fill, and says so. 29 U.S.C. § 2009:
Except as provided in subsections (a), (b), and (c) of section 2006 of this title, this chapter shall not preempt any provision of any State or local law or of any negotiated collective bargaining agreement that prohibits lie detector tests or is more restrictive with respect to lie detector tests than any provision of this chapter.
And the federal statute exempts a whole class of employers that Minnesota’s doesn’t. 29 U.S.C. § 2006(a): “This chapter shall not apply with respect to the United States Government, any State or local government, or any political subdivision of a State or local government.” Section 181.75 says “No employer or agent thereof,” full stop. Its text states no commerce connection, no employee-count threshold, and no government carve-out.
Minnesota got here first, by fifteen years. Section 181.75 was enacted in 1973; the federal act dates from 1988.
The vendor is on the hook too
The second sentence of subdivision 1 is a separate prohibition aimed at the testing industry, and in my experience it’s the one nobody’s read:
No person shall sell to or interpret for an employer or the employer’s agent a test that the person knows has been solicited or required by an employer or agent to test the honesty of an employee or prospective employee.
Two things set this apart from the employer prohibition. It reaches any person — the sentence opens “No person shall” — not just an employer or its agent. That means the screening company, the consultant, the scoring service. And it has a knowledge element: the seller or interpreter has to know the test “has been solicited or required by an employer or agent” for that purpose. A vendor that sells a general assessment into a use it doesn’t know about is in a different spot than one that builds the honesty screen into a client’s hiring process and scores the results.
What happens when the employee asks for the test?
People overstate this part of the statute in both directions. The last sentence of subdivision 1 reads:
If an employee requests a polygraph test any employer or agent administering the test shall inform the employee that taking the test is voluntary.
It’s not an exemption. It doesn’t say an employee-requested test is lawful, and it doesn’t authorize an employer to administer anything. The first sentence’s prohibition runs against employer solicitation and requirement. A test the employer neither solicited (directly or indirectly) nor required simply isn’t the conduct the first sentence describes, and the last sentence then adds an affirmative duty on top of that situation.
It’s a notice duty, and the duty falls on the employer or agent giving the test, not on the employee.
And it’s narrower than the rest of the section. The first sentence covers a polygraph, voice stress analysis, and any honesty test. This sentence names only “a polygraph test.”
For an employer, that means “the employee volunteered” isn’t a defense the statute hands out. It’s a factual claim about who started it, and “directly or indirectly solicit” is a broad phrase. An employee who’s told an investigation would go faster if he cleared himself has a strong argument that he was solicited, at least indirectly.
Three enforcement routes, none dependent on the others
It’s a crime. Subdivision 1: “An employer or agent or any person knowingly selling, administering, or interpreting tests in violation of this section is guilty of a misdemeanor.” Under Minn. Stat. § 609.02, subd. 3, a misdemeanor is “a crime for which a sentence of not more than 90 days or a fine of not more than $1,000, or both, may be imposed.” The knowledge element attaches to the selling, administering, and interpreting.
Subdivision 2 supplies the machinery: “The Department of Labor and Industry shall investigate suspected violations of this section.” The department “may refer any evidence available concerning violations of this section to the county attorney of the appropriate county, who may with or without such reference, institute the appropriate criminal proceedings under this section.” The county attorney doesn’t need a referral to act.
The attorney general can stop it. Subdivision 3 is an independent grant, and it’s written to beat any argument that equitable relief isn’t available: “In addition to the penalties provided by law for violation of this section, specifically and generally, whether or not injunctive relief is otherwise provided by law, the courts of this state are vested with jurisdiction to prevent and restrain violations of this section and to require the payment of civil penalties.” It then provides that “[w]henever it shall appear to the satisfaction of the attorney general that this section has been or is being violated, the attorney general shall be entitled, on behalf of the state, to sue for and have injunctive relief in any court of competent jurisdiction against any such violation or threatened violation without abridging other penalties provided by law.”
Two details. The subdivision reaches a “threatened violation” — the state doesn’t have to wait for the test to be given. And it authorizes “the payment of civil penalties” without putting a cap on them in the section.
The injured person can sue. Subdivision 4 gives “any person injured by a violation of this section” a civil action for “any and all damages recoverable at law, together with costs and disbursements, including costs of investigation and reasonable attorney’s fees,” plus “other equitable relief as determined by the court.”
Read that remedy clause closely, because it’s unusually generous in two places. “Costs of investigation” is an express addition to ordinary costs and disbursements. What it costs to find out what the vendor sold and what the employer asked for is recoverable. The plaintiff doesn’t just eat it. And the subdivision closes by providing that the court “may, as appropriate, enter a consent judgment or decree without a finding of illegality,” which gives a defendant a way to settle that doesn’t require an admission.
What subdivision 4 doesn’t do is set a statutory damages floor. “Any and all damages recoverable at law” means the plaintiff proves loss the ordinary way. The federal act doesn’t fix a statutory sum either — 29 U.S.C. § 2005(c)(1) makes an offending employer liable for “such legal or equitable relief as may be appropriate” — but it makes fees discretionary, § 2005(c)(3): “The court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party (other than the United States) reasonable costs, including attorney’s fees.” Minnesota’s fee language isn’t phrased that way.
Telling anyone the test happened is its own misdemeanor
Not to anyone but the person tested, except that when the employee asked for the test, the results can go to the people the employee authorizes. It’s a separate statute most people never get to. Minn. Stat. § 181.76, enacted in the same 1973 act:
No person shall disclose that another person has taken a polygraph or any test purporting to test honesty or the results of that test except to the individual tested. If such a test is given after August 1, 1973 and at the employee’s request, the results may be given only to persons authorized by the employee to receive the results. A person who violates this section is guilty of a misdemeanor.
The first sentence bars disclosing two separate facts, that the person took the test at all and what the results were, to anyone other than the person tested. The second sentence is the release valve for the employee-requested test: the employee can authorize who gets the results. The third makes a violation a misdemeanor.
Section 181.76 is why a reference check that mentions a failed honesty screen is its own problem, whether or not the test should have been given in the first place. Where a former employee is forced to repeat the employer’s stated reason to prospective employers, the disclosure question can run into Minnesota’s self-publication doctrine. See defamation by self-publication in Minnesota employment cases.
Where this sits among Minnesota’s other testing statutes
Section 181.75 sits between a much more elaborate testing law and a much thinner one, and they couldn’t be drafted more differently.
Minnesota’s Drug and Alcohol Testing in the Workplace Act, Minn. Stat. §§ 181.950 to 181.957, doesn’t prohibit testing at all. It conditions the right to ask on a compliant written policy and a qualifying laboratory. I cover how that works in Minnesota does not ban workplace drug testing. Section 181.75 has no policy exception, no safety-sensitive category, and no laboratory route. It’s a flat prohibition with a notice duty attached to one narrow situation.
On the thin side, § 181.75’s phrase “voice stress analysis” squarely reaches one kind of voice-based measurement at work, a point I develop in Minnesota has no biometric privacy act. Minnesota has no BIPA-style statute governing what an employer may capture from a body.
Two neighboring hiring statutes round it out: Minnesota’s criminal history hiring rules govern when an employer may ask about a record, and Minn. Stat. § 181.64 governs what the employer may say to get someone in the door. Employers audit those and never think about § 181.75 at all.
My advice runs the same way on both sides of the table. If you’re an employer buying screening products, pull the vendor’s own description of what the assessment measures. If any part of it is sold as measuring honesty, integrity, or theft propensity, § 181.75 is in play whether or not a machine is involved, and the vendor’s exposure under the second sentence of subdivision 1 is separate from yours. A signed applicant consent doesn’t fix it, because the statute prohibits soliciting, not just requiring. If you were tested, or asked to be, the claim under subdivision 4 belongs to “any person injured by a violation,” and that includes an applicant who was never hired. Keep the invitation, the vendor’s name, the instrument, and anything showing what the employer was told. Costs of investigation are expressly recoverable, and that changes the math on finding out. And if the result was passed on to anyone, § 181.76 is a separate violation that doesn’t require proving the underlying test was unlawful.
Madgett Law, LLC represents employees and applicants in Minnesota employment disputes, including claims arising from workplace testing, hiring practices, and the disclosure of employment information, and advises Minnesota employers on whether a screening product they’re about to buy is lawful here. If a test was proposed, given, or reported on you, call 612-470-6529 or send us a message.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 181.75, subd. 1 (prohibition on soliciting or requiring “a polygraph, voice stress analysis, or any test purporting to test the honesty of any employee or prospective employee”; separate prohibition on selling to or interpreting for an employer a test the person knows was solicited or required for that purpose; misdemeanor for knowingly selling, administering, or interpreting tests in violation of the section; and the notice duty when an employee requests a polygraph test), subd. 2 (Department of Labor and Industry investigation and county attorney referral), subd. 3 (jurisdiction to prevent and restrain violations and to require payment of civil penalties; attorney general injunctive relief against a violation or threatened violation), and subd. 4 (civil action by any person injured; any and all damages recoverable at law, costs and disbursements including costs of investigation and reasonable attorney’s fees; other equitable relief; consent judgment or decree without a finding of illegality); Minn. Stat. § 181.76 (disclosure that a person has taken a polygraph or any test purporting to test honesty, or the results, prohibited except to the individual tested; employee-requested tests given after August 1, 1973; misdemeanor); Minn. Stat. § 609.02, subd. 3 (definition of misdemeanor); Minn. Stat. §§ 181.950–181.957 (Drug and Alcohol Testing in the Workplace Act, referenced generally) — all from the Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988: 29 U.S.C. § 2001(3) (definition of “lie detector”), § 2002 (prohibitions on lie detector use by an employer engaged in or affecting commerce), § 2005(c)(1)–(3) (private civil action; liability for legal or equitable relief; discretionary costs including attorney’s fees; three-year limitation), § 2006(a) (no application to the United States Government or to any State or local government or political subdivision), and § 2009 (no preemption of more restrictive state or local law) — from the Office of the Law Revision Counsel, United States Code, at uscode.house.gov.
This article is general legal information about Minnesota law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. Collective bargaining agreements, federal regulations, and the specific facts of a hiring or investigation can all change the analysis. No outcome is promised or implied.