An employee tells a supervisor that the company’s billing practice looks illegal. The supervisor already knew. Nobody at the company is surprised, nothing is exposed, and two months later the employee is gone.
For thirteen years, that employer had a defense: the employee had not really blown a whistle, so the report was not made in “good faith.” That defense no longer exists.
The Minnesota Whistleblower Act — Minn. Stat. §§ 181.931 to 181.935 — was rewritten in one small, consequential way in 2013, and the Minnesota Supreme Court confirmed the consequence in 2017. What survives is a statute that protects the act of reporting rather than the correctness, novelty, or purpose of the report. That single distinction decides most of these cases.
The 2013 amendment that changed the burden of proof
Before 2013, the Act used the phrase “good faith” without defining it. The Minnesota Supreme Court filled the gap in Obst v. Microtron, Inc., 614 N.W.2d 196, 202 (Minn. 2000), holding that good faith had two elements — the content of the report and the reporter’s purpose — and that the reporter had to act with “the purpose of blowing the whistle, i.e., to expose an illegality.” The court reaffirmed that reading in Kidwell v. Sybaritic, Inc., 784 N.W.2d 220, 227 (Minn. 2010) (plurality opinion).
In 2013 the Legislature supplied its own definition. Minn. Stat. § 181.931, subd. 4:
“Good faith” means conduct that does not violate section 181.932, subdivision 3.
And § 181.932, subd. 3, in turn, is a single sentence:
This section does not permit an employee to make statements or disclosures knowing that they are false or that they are in reckless disregard of the truth.
The Minnesota Supreme Court held that this replaced the judicial test rather than supplementing it. In Friedlander v. Edwards Lifesciences, LLC, the court answered a certified question from the federal district court. Its syllabus:
The 2013 amendment to the Minnesota Whistleblower Act, Minn. Stat. §§ 181.931-.935 (2016), defining the phrase “good faith,” eliminated the judicially created requirement that a putative whistleblower act with the purpose of exposing an illegality.
Friedlander v. Edwards Lifesciences, LLC, No. A16-1916 (Minn. Aug. 9, 2017).
The court’s reasoning is worth reading closely, because it defines the scope of the inquiry that is left:
Our prior interpretation of “good faith” in Obst gives the phrase a meaning different from the definition provided in the 2013 amendment. Specifically, the definition in Obst requires us to examine the reporter’s purpose as well as the content of the report. … The statutory definition, however, directs us to conduct a different inquiry, looking only to the content of the report.
Friedlander, slip op. at 7 (emphasis added).
Note the facts Friedlander was decided against. The parties did not dispute “that those who were told about Friedlander’s concern already knew about the conduct in question.” The employer’s whole argument was that a report to people who already know is not whistleblowing. That argument lost.
The six categories of protected conduct
Subdivision 1 opens with an unusually broad list of prohibited employer responses — an employer “shall not discharge, discipline, penalize, interfere with, threaten, restrain, coerce, or otherwise retaliate or discriminate against an employee regarding the employee’s compensation, terms, conditions, location, or privileges of employment because”:
(1) Reporting a violation of law. The employee, “or a person acting on behalf of an employee, in good faith, reports a violation, suspected violation, or planned violation of any federal or state law or common law or rule adopted pursuant to law to an employer or to any governmental body or law enforcement official.”
(2) Participating in a public investigation. The employee “is requested by a public body or office to participate in an investigation, hearing, inquiry.”
(3) Refusing an unlawful order. The employee “refuses an employer’s order to perform an action that the employee has an objective basis in fact to believe violates any state or federal law or rule or regulation adopted pursuant to law, and the employee informs the employer that the order is being refused for that reason.”
(4) Reporting a health care quality problem. The employee, “in good faith, reports a situation in which the quality of health care services provided by a health care facility, organization, or health care provider violates a standard established by federal or state law or a professionally recognized national clinical or ethical standard and potentially places the public at risk of harm.”
(5) A public employee’s scientific or technical findings. “[A] public employee communicates the findings of a scientific or technical study that the employee, in good faith, believes to be truthful and accurate, including reports to a governmental body or law enforcement official.”
(6) A state employee’s report about state programs. As amended in 2025, “a state employee communicates information that the employee, in good faith, believes to be truthful and accurate, and that relates to state programs, services, or financing, including but not limited to fraud or misuse within state programs, services, or financing,” to a legislator or the legislative auditor, a constitutional officer, an employer, any governmental body, or a law enforcement official.
Subdivision 1 closes with a limit that gets skipped: “The disclosures protected pursuant to this section do not authorize the disclosure of data otherwise protected by law.” Subdivision 5 says the same thing about federal or state law and common-law confidentiality.
Three textual details that decide cases:
- “In good faith” does not appear in every clause. It qualifies clauses (1), (4), (5), and (6). Clause (3) uses a different standard entirely — an “objective basis in fact to believe” — and clause (2) contains no state-of-mind qualifier at all.
- Clause (3) has an express notice element. Refusing the order is not enough. The employee must inform the employer that the order is being refused because the employee believes it unlawful. Employees lose clause (3) claims on that sentence.
- Clause (1) reaches reports made to the employer. Nothing requires an external report. An internal complaint to a supervisor is within the statute’s terms.
What is a “report,” and who is an “employee”
The 2013 amendments also added a definition of “report” that is broader than most employers assume. Minn. Stat. § 181.931, subd. 6:
“Report” means a verbal, written, or electronic communication by an employee about an actual, suspected, or planned violation of a statute, regulation, or common law, whether committed by an employer or a third party.
Two things follow. A verbal report counts — no writing is required. And the wrongdoer does not have to be the employer. An employee who reports a customer’s, vendor’s, or client’s suspected violation is reporting within the definition.
What the definition still requires is subject matter. A “report” is a communication “about an actual, suspected, or planned violation of a statute, regulation, or common law.” A complaint that identifies no body of law at all is not obviously within the definition, and whether a particular complaint clears that bar is a fact-specific question that these cases still turn on.
The Act’s coverage definitions are broad on the employer side and narrow on the worker side. Section 181.931:
| Term | Definition | Practical effect |
|---|---|---|
| Employee (subd. 2) | “a person who performs services for hire in Minnesota for an employer. Employee does not include an independent contractor.” | Independent contractors are outside the Act — unlike Minnesota’s non-compete statute, which expressly includes them |
| Employer (subd. 3) | “any person having one or more employees in Minnesota and includes the state and any political subdivision of the state” | There is no small-employer exemption. One employee is enough |
| Penalize (subd. 5) | “conduct that might dissuade a reasonable employee from making or supporting a report, including post-termination conduct by an employer or conduct by an employer for the benefit of a third party” | Reaches conduct after the employment ends, and conduct done for someone else’s benefit |
That definition of “penalize” is doing quiet work. It is an objective, reasonable-employee standard rather than a materially-adverse-action standard, and it expressly captures post-termination conduct — a negative reference, an aggressive enforcement posture, a report to a licensing board. An employer that considers itself safe because the employee is already gone is reading the wrong subdivision.
The 2025 amendments added three more definitions — “fraud” (subd. 3a), “misuse” (subd. 4a), and “personal gain” (subd. 5a) — and broadened clause (6) of § 181.932, subd. 1, from an employee in the classified service of state government reporting to a legislator, the legislative auditor, or a constitutional officer, to any state employee reporting to any of five recipients.
On the effective date: those amendments were enacted as 2025 c 39, art. 2, §§ 54–57 (S.F. No. 3045), an act appropriating money, signed by the governor on May 23, 2025. Sections 54 through 57 carry no effective-date clause of their own. Minn. Stat. § 645.02 provides that “[a]n appropriation act or an act having appropriation items enacted finally at any session of the legislature takes effect at the beginning of the first day of July next following its final enactment, unless a different date is specified in the act.” Final enactment May 23, 2025, plus the default rule, yields July 1, 2025.
Remedies
Minn. Stat. § 181.935(a) is short and generous:
In addition to any remedies otherwise provided by law, an employee injured by a violation of section 181.932 may bring a civil action to recover any and all damages recoverable at law, together with costs and disbursements, including reasonable attorney’s fees, and may receive such injunctive and other equitable relief as determined by the court.
Paragraph (c) lists what a district court may order on a finding of violation: “reinstatement, back pay, restoration of lost service credit, if appropriate, compensatory damages, and the expungement of any adverse records of an employee who was the subject of the alleged acts of misconduct.”
And there is a small, overlooked penalty for a paperwork failure. Paragraph (b): an employer that failed to give the notice required under § 181.933 or § 181.934 to an employee injured by a violation of § 181.932 “is subject to a civil penalty of $25 per day per injured employee not to exceed $750 per injured employee.”
Fee-shifting is what makes these cases viable, and it is why an employer’s assessment of a whistleblower claim should never start with the size of the back-pay number. We mapped Minnesota’s fee-shifting statutes here.
The limitations period is not one number
There is no limitations period inside the Whistleblower Act. The clock comes from chapter 541, and the Minnesota Supreme Court has held that which clock applies depends on which clause of subdivision 1 the claim arises under.
For a reporting claim under subdivision 1(1): six years. Ford v. Minneapolis Public Schools, No. A13-1072 (Minn. Jan. 20, 2016). The syllabus:
The statute of limitations for the cause of action created by subdivision 1(1) of the Minnesota Whistleblower Act (MWA), Minn. Stat. § 181.932 (2012), which prohibits employment discrimination based on a good-faith report of a violation of law, is the 6-year limitations period in Minn. Stat. § 541.05, subd. 1(2) (2014), because the cause of action is statutory and has no counterpart at common law.
The reasoning is a two-step. Section 541.05, subd. 1(2) covers actions “upon a liability created by statute, other than those arising upon a penalty or forfeiture or where a shorter period is provided by section 541.07.” And under Sipe v. STS Manufacturing, Inc., 834 N.W.2d 683, 686 (Minn. 2013), the two-year period in § 541.07(1) for an “other tort resulting in personal injury” “is limited to common law causes of action not created by statute.” Because Minnesota has never recognized a common-law action for discharge in retaliation for reporting, the six-year statute applies.
For a refusal claim under subdivision 1(3), Ford did not decide. It flagged the problem instead. The court recorded the school district’s argument:
MPS further argues that it is anomalous that an MWA claim under subdivision 1(3) may have a 2-year limitation when a claim under subdivision 1(1) has a 6-year limitation.
And answered it this way:
But our decision today is grounded in the text of the applicable statutes and on controlling precedent. In such an instance, the merits of MPS’s policy arguments are for the Legislature to consider.
The asymmetry is not accidental. Ford explained that the common-law wrongful discharge tort recognized in Phipps v. Clark Oil & Refining Corp., 408 N.W.2d 569, 571 (Minn. 1987) — discharge for refusing to violate the law — “has its statutory counterpart in subdivision 1(3) of the MWA.” A claim with a common-law counterpart is the kind of claim § 541.07(1) reaches.
The practical instruction is unglamorous and important: plead the clause, and calendar the short clock. A complaint that recites retaliation under the Minnesota Whistleblower Act without identifying which clause of subdivision 1 it arises under has not answered the first question a limitations motion will ask. Minnesota is full of deadlines that run from a contested fact rather than a docket entry — we wrote about that category here.
Where federal law displaces the Act
The Revisor of Statutes appends three preemption notes to § 181.932, and they are worth knowing before a complaint is drafted:
- Subdivision 1, clause (1) “was found preempted by the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) as applied to claims resulting from reporting violations of ERISA” in McLean v. Carlson Companies, Inc., 777 F. Supp. 1480 (D. Minn. 1991).
- Clauses (1) and (3) “were found preempted by the federal Airline Deregulation Act to the extent that they relate to air carrier routes and services” in Botz v. Omni Air Int’l, 286 F.3d 488 (8th Cir. 2002).
- Clause (1) “was found preempted by the federal Airline Deregulation Act to the extent that it relates to air carrier service” in Regner v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 652 N.W.2d 557 (Minn. Ct. App. 2002).
Subdivision 4 also preserves collective bargaining rights: the section “does not diminish or impair the rights of a person under any collective bargaining agreement.”
What to do
If you are the employee:
- Put the report in writing if you can, and keep a copy. The statute protects verbal reports, but the fight is almost always about whether the report happened and what it said.
- Say what law you think is being broken. The definition of “report” is tied to “an actual, suspected, or planned violation of a statute, regulation, or common law.” Naming the concern in those terms costs nothing and matters later.
- If you are refusing an order, say why, at the time. Clause (3) has an express notice element. A silent refusal is a different case.
- Do not take documents you are not entitled to. The Act protects the report; it does not authorize disclosure of data protected by other law, and subdivisions 1 and 5 both say so.
- Ask for the reason for your termination in writing. Section 181.933 gives an involuntarily terminated employee 15 working days to request the reason in writing, and gives the employer ten working days to answer in writing with “the truthful reason for the termination.”
If you are the employer:
- Stop litigating motive. After Friedlander, “he wasn’t really blowing the whistle” is not a defense. The defensible ground is causation and the legitimacy of the employment decision.
- Treat internal complaints as protected activity from the moment they are made. Clause (1) covers reports to the employer.
- Remember that “penalize” reaches conduct after the separation. Reference practices, board reports, and enforcement letters are all inside the definition.
- Answer § 181.933 requests on time and truthfully. The answer is shielded from a defamation claim by § 181.933, subd. 2, and a failure to give required notice carries its own penalty under § 181.935(b).
- Do not net anything out of a final paycheck while a dispute is pending. That is a separate statute with its own penalty — see our final paycheck guide.
The observation
Most whistleblower statutes ask a hard question — was this person a good-faith whistleblower? — and then let the answer swallow the case. Minnesota asked that question for thirteen years and then stopped.
What is left is narrow and clean. Was the report knowingly false or made in reckless disregard of the truth? If not, it was made in good faith. The employee’s motives, the novelty of the information, and whether anyone was surprised are no longer part of the inquiry.
That does not make these cases easy. It moves the difficulty to where it belongs: whether the report caused what happened next. A statute that stops interrogating the employee’s soul and starts interrogating the employer’s decision is a better statute, and a harder one to defend against with a story.
Madgett Law, LLC represents Minnesota employees and employers in whistleblower and retaliation matters, including the clause-by-clause limitations analysis that decides whether a claim is timely. If a report has been made, or a termination has followed one, the first questions are which clause of § 181.932 applies and when the clock started. Send us a message or call 612-470-6529.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 181.931 (definitions — subd. 2, employee; subd. 3, employer; subd. 3a, fraud; subd. 4, good faith; subd. 4a, misuse; subd. 5, penalize; subd. 5a, personal gain; subd. 6, report); Minn. Stat. § 181.932 (subd. 1, clauses (1)–(6), prohibited action; subd. 2, disclosure of identity; subd. 3, false disclosures; subd. 4, collective bargaining rights; subd. 5, confidential information; and the Revisor’s notes recording the preemption holdings in McLean v. Carlson Companies, Inc., 777 F. Supp. 1480 (D. Minn. 1991), Botz v. Omni Air Int’l, 286 F.3d 488 (8th Cir. 2002), and Regner v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 652 N.W.2d 557 (Minn. Ct. App. 2002)); Minn. Stat. § 181.933 (notice of termination — subd. 1, 15 working days to request and ten working days to answer; subd. 2, defamation action prohibited); Minn. Stat. § 181.934 (employee notice); Minn. Stat. § 181.935 (individual remedies; penalty — paragraph (a), damages, costs, and attorney’s fees; paragraph (b), $25 per day to a maximum of $750 per injured employee; paragraph (c), reinstatement, back pay, service credit, compensatory damages, expungement); Minn. Stat. § 541.05, subd. 1(2) (six years, liability created by statute); Minn. Stat. § 541.07(1) (two years, other tort resulting in personal injury); Minn. Stat. § 645.02 (effective date of laws); 2025 Minn. Laws ch. 39, art. 2, §§ 54–57 (S.F. No. 3045), signed May 23, 2025 — all from the Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Friedlander v. Edwards Lifesciences, LLC, No. A16-1916 (Minn. Aug. 9, 2017), and Ford v. Minneapolis Public Schools, No. A13-1072 (Minn. Jan. 20, 2016), official slip opinions from the Minnesota Judicial Branch. Sipe v. STS Manufacturing, Inc., 834 N.W.2d 683 (Minn. 2013).
This article is general legal information about Minnesota law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. Which clause of § 181.932 applies, and which limitations period governs, depend entirely on the facts. No outcome is promised or implied.