Almost every conversation about a Minnesota work injury reaches the same wall within five minutes: you cannot sue your employer, workers’ compensation is your only remedy.
That is a fair summary of the first sentence of Minn. Stat. § 176.031. It is not a fair summary of the section. Section 176.031 is one unbroken paragraph, and after stating the bar it describes a situation in which the bar does not hold — where the employer “fails to insure or self-insure liability for compensation” — and then takes three common-law defenses away from that employer.
Exclusivity in Minnesota is not a status employers have. It is something the statute gives to employers who bought coverage. An employer that did not faces an election it does not control, and a negligence case without the usual defenses.
What does § 176.031 actually say?
The whole section, in full. It is worth reading as one block, because the conditions are embedded in the middle of it rather than set off as subdivisions.
Minn. Stat. § 176.031, “Employer’s liability exclusive”:
The liability of an employer prescribed by this chapter is exclusive and in the place of any other liability to such employee, personal representative, surviving spouse, parent, any child, dependent, next of kin, or other person entitled to recover damages on account of such injury or death. If an employer other than the state or any municipal subdivision thereof fails to insure or self-insure liability for compensation to injured employees and their dependents, an injured employee, or legal representatives or, if death results from the injury, any dependent may elect to claim compensation under this chapter or to maintain an action in the courts for damages on account of such injury or death. In such action it is not necessary to plead or prove freedom from contributory negligence. The defendant may not plead as a defense that the injury was caused by the negligence of a fellow servant, that the employee assumed the risk of employment, or that the injury was due to the contributory negligence of the employee, unless it appears that such negligence was willful on the part of the employee. The burden of proof to establish such willful negligence is upon the defendant. For the purposes of this chapter the state and each municipal subdivision thereof is treated as a self-insurer when not carrying insurance at the time of the injury or death of an employee.
Six sentences. One states the bar. Four describe what happens when an employer has no coverage. One treats the state and its municipal subdivisions as self-insurers whether or not they carry insurance — which is why the escape hatch is unavailable against a public employer.
Who else besides the injured worker is barred?
Seven named categories of claimant, plus a catchall. The bar is not written as a rule about the employee; it is written as a rule about the employer’s liability “to” a list of people — in order: the employee; a personal representative; a surviving spouse; a parent; any child; a dependent; next of kin; and “other person entitled to recover damages on account of such injury or death.”
That is why derivative claims do not escape the bar simply because the person bringing them was never the employer’s employee. A loss of consortium claim and a wrongful death action brought by a court-appointed trustee for next of kin are both claims by people named in that sentence, asserted “on account of such injury or death.”
What happens if the employer never bought coverage?
The employee gets a choice the statute puts in the employee’s hands. An injured employee, legal representative, or (if death results) any dependent “may elect to claim compensation under this chapter or to maintain an action in the courts for damages on account of such injury or death.”
And the court action is not an ordinary negligence case. Section 176.031 removes three defenses by name, in a single sentence, and adds a pleading rule on top:
- Fellow-servant negligence. The defendant may not plead as a defense “that the injury was caused by the negligence of a fellow servant” —
- Assumption of the risk. — nor “that the employee assumed the risk of employment” —
- Contributory negligence. — nor “that the injury was due to the contributory negligence of the employee, unless it appears that such negligence was willful on the part of the employee.”
Then the pleading rule — “In such action it is not necessary to plead or prove freedom from contributory negligence.” — and the allocation of proof on the one surviving carve-out: “The burden of proof to establish such willful negligence is upon the defendant.”
That is a heavily tilted lawsuit, deliberately so. Compare what the same failure costs inside the compensation system. Under Minn. Stat. § 176.181, subd. 2(a), an employer liable to pay compensation “shall insure payment of compensation with some insurance carrier authorized to insure workers’ compensation liability in this state,” or obtain a written self-insurance order from the commissioner of commerce. If it does neither, Minn. Stat. § 176.183, subd. 1 provides that the employee “shall nevertheless receive benefits as provided for in this chapter from the special compensation fund.” The fund pays, and § 176.183, subd. 2 then directs the compensation judge to order the uninsured employer to pay all benefits owed, the fund’s disbursements, the employee’s disbursements paid by the fund, any attorney fees the fund paid to the employee’s attorney, “and a penalty in the amount of 65 percent of all compensation benefits ordered to be paid.” That award “shall constitute a lien for government services pursuant to section 514.67 on all property of the employer and shall be subject to the provisions of the Revenue Recapture Act in chapter 270A.”
Uninsured, the employer faces compensation liability, a 65 percent penalty, and a statutory lien — or, at the employee’s election, a stripped-down tort suit.
Does the bar protect a coworker?
No — but the opening is narrow, and it is narrowed further by case law.
The statutory text is one sentence, and it lives in the third-party liability statute, not § 176.031. Minn. Stat. § 176.061, subd. 5(e):
A coemployee working for the same employer is not liable for a personal injury incurred by another employee unless the injury resulted from the gross negligence of the coemployee or was intentionally inflicted by the coemployee.
In Stringer v. Minnesota Vikings Football Club, LLC, 705 N.W.2d 746 (Minn. 2005), the Minnesota Supreme Court applied that sentence to a wrongful death action arising from the death of Vikings player Korey Stringer, who died of heat stroke after the second day of practice at the 2001 training camp. His wife sued the club and several of its employees, including two athletic training staff members. The district court granted summary judgment, and the court of appeals affirmed on the ground that the trainers owed a personal duty but were not grossly negligent as a matter of law.
The supreme court affirmed on different grounds. It held that “[t]o have a personal duty to the injured employee, the coemployee must have (1) taken direct action toward or have directed another to have taken direct action toward the injured employee, . . . and (2) acted outside the course and scope of employment” — the ellipsis marks an internal citation — and it concluded that the two trainers had acted within the course and scope of their employment and therefore owed no personal duty. Having decided the case on personal duty, the court expressly declined to reach gross negligence.
Two details matter to anyone reading the statute today. The court quoted the coemployee sentence as Minn. Stat. § 176.061, subd. 5(c) (2004); the identical sentence appears in the current statute at subdivision 5, paragraph (e). And the court noted, quoting Dawley v. Thisius, that “coemployee” includes a “corporate officer, general supervisor, or foreman” — so naming the owner personally does not, by itself, get around the provision.
Does the bar protect the employer from the third-party defendant?
Not entirely — and the partial exposure is written into the statute.
Minn. Stat. § 176.061, subd. 11, first paragraph:
To the extent the employer has fault, separate from the fault of the injured employee to whom workers’ compensation benefits are payable, any nonemployer third party who is liable has a right of contribution against the employer in an amount proportional to the employer’s percentage of fault but not to exceed the net amount the employer recovered pursuant to subdivision 6, paragraphs (b) and (c). The employer may avoid contribution exposure by affirmatively waiving, before selection of the jury, the right to recover workers’ compensation benefits paid and payable, thus removing compensation benefits from the damages payable by any third party.
Read the ceiling and the exit together. The contribution claim is capped at what the employer actually recovered out of the employee’s tort case, and the employer can zero out that exposure by giving up its reimbursement — but the waiver has a deadline, “before selection of the jury.” This is the same statute that governs Naig settlements and the division of a third-party recovery, and the two provisions have to be planned together.
What falls outside the bar because it falls outside the chapter?
The bar reaches “[t]he liability of an employer prescribed by this chapter.” Where the chapter prescribes no liability, the first sentence has nothing to make exclusive. Three doors follow from that:
The definition of “personal injury.” Minn. Stat. § 176.011, subd. 16 defines it as mental impairment or physical injury “arising out of and in the course of employment,” and then carves out: “Personal injury does not include an injury caused by the act of a third person or fellow employee intended to injure the employee because of personal reasons, and not directed against the employee as an employee, or because of the employment.” The same subdivision provides that “[m]ental impairment is not considered a personal injury if it results from a disciplinary action, work evaluation, job transfer, layoff, demotion, promotion, termination, retirement, or similar action taken in good faith by the employer.” An injury the chapter defines out of coverage is not a liability the chapter prescribes — a textual argument this article does not report any court as having resolved. And note the limit of the carve-outs: they remove an injury from chapter 176. Whether a tort claim exists in its place is a separate question governed by other law.
Excluded employments. Minn. Stat. § 176.041, subd. 1 lists employments to which “[t]his chapter does not apply” — among them FELA-covered railroad employees, family farm employment, sole proprietors and their immediate family, certain executive officers of closely held and family farm corporations, casual employment not in the usual course of the employer’s business, and independent contractors as defined by §§ 176.043 and 181.723 (with the express proviso that “these exclusions do not apply to an employee of an independent contractor”).
Whether the injured person is an employee at all. If a worker was misclassified, that fight comes first — see construction worker misclassification under § 181.723.
Is there anything you can sue the employer for inside chapter 176?
Yes — the chapter contains its own civil damages action. Minn. Stat. § 176.82 imposes liability “in a civil action” on a person who discharges, threatens to discharge, or intentionally obstructs an employee seeking workers’ compensation benefits, and on an employer that refuses without reasonable cause to offer continued employment within an injured employee’s physical limitations. Those are two different claims with different rules; we treat them separately in our article on § 176.82.
Note the structure. Section 176.031 makes the employer’s liability “prescribed by this chapter” exclusive of other liability, and § 176.82 is a liability prescribed by that chapter. The retaliation claim is not an exception to exclusivity; it is part of what the chapter provides.
What to do
- Check coverage first. Whether the employer insured or self-insured decides whether § 176.031’s election exists at all. That is a records question, answerable early.
- If the employer is a public entity, the election is off the table. Section 176.031’s last sentence treats the state and each municipal subdivision as a self-insurer “when not carrying insurance.”
- Identify every non-employer who touched the injury — property owners, general contractors, equipment manufacturers, motor carriers. Exclusivity is about the employer; the third-party case is where a work injury usually finds real value.
- Screen the coemployee question against both prongs. Gross negligence or intentional infliction under § 176.061, subd. 5(e) is the statutory gate; Stringer’s requirements are the judicial one.
- Calendar the employer’s contribution waiver. Under subdivision 11 it must be made “before selection of the jury.”
- Ask whether the injury is a “personal injury” at all, and check the fireman’s rule if a public-safety response was involved — that doctrine operates independently of chapter 176.
The observation
The legislature said out loud what it was doing. Minn. Stat. § 176.001 declares that “[t]he workers’ compensation system in Minnesota is based on a mutual renunciation of common law rights and defenses by employers and employees alike,” and that employers’ rights to raise “common law defenses such as lack of negligence, contributory negligence on the part of the employee, and others, are curtailed as well.” The same section instructs that the chapter is “not remedial in any sense” and is not to be given a broad liberal construction in favor of either side.
Read § 176.031 against that declaration and its architecture makes sense. The bar is the employee’s half of the trade. The compulsory-insurance duty in § 176.181, the special compensation fund in § 176.183, and the 65 percent penalty are the enforcement of the employer’s half. The election in the second sentence of § 176.031 is what happens when an employer takes the benefit of the bargain without performing it: the trade is called off, and the common law comes back — minus three of the defenses the common law would otherwise have supplied.
An employer that does not insure is not merely uninsured. By the terms of the statute it declined to follow, it is a worse defendant than an ordinary one.
Madgett Law, LLC handles Minnesota work injury matters where the question is who else can be held responsible — third-party claims against contractors, property owners, equipment manufacturers, and motor carriers, and the coverage and classification questions that decide whether the exclusive remedy rule applies at all. If you were hurt at work and are being told a compensation claim is your only option, the employer’s insurance status is the first fact to establish. Send us a message or call 612-470-6529.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 176.031 (whole section, quoted in full: sentence 1, the exclusive-liability bar and its list of claimants; sentence 2, the election available where an employer other than the state or a municipal subdivision “fails to insure or self-insure”; sentence 3, no need to plead or prove freedom from contributory negligence; sentence 4, the three defenses the defendant may not plead and the willful-negligence proviso; sentence 5, burden of proof on willful negligence upon the defendant; sentence 6, the state and each municipal subdivision treated as a self-insurer when not carrying insurance). Minn. Stat. § 176.001 (mutual renunciation of common law rights and defenses; limitation of employees’ rights to sue; curtailment of employers’ defenses; the directive that the chapter is not remedial and not to be liberally construed for either side). Minn. Stat. § 176.011, subd. 16 (definition of “personal injury”; the carve-out for an injury caused by a third person or fellow employee “intended to injure the employee because of personal reasons”; the carve-out for mental impairment resulting from a good-faith disciplinary action, work evaluation, job transfer, layoff, demotion, promotion, termination, retirement, or similar action). Minn. Stat. § 176.041, subd. 1 (employments to which the chapter does not apply, including clauses (1) FELA-covered railroad employees, (2)–(3) family farm employment, (4) sole proprietors and immediate family, (5) partners and immediate family, (6)–(9) certain executive officers of family farm and closely held corporations and their immediate family, (11) casual employment not in the usual course of the employer’s business, and (12) independent contractors as defined by §§ 176.043 and 181.723, with the proviso that the exclusions do not apply to an employee of an independent contractor). Minn. Stat. § 176.061, subd. 5, paragraph (e) (coemployee not liable absent gross negligence or intentional infliction) and subd. 11 (nonemployer third party’s right of contribution against a faulted employer, capped at the net amount the employer recovered under subd. 6, paragraphs (b) and (c), and the employer’s ability to avoid contribution by affirmatively waiving recovery of benefits paid and payable “before selection of the jury”). Minn. Stat. § 176.82 (referenced for the civil damages actions the chapter itself provides; treated in full in the companion article). Minn. Stat. § 176.181, subd. 2, paragraph (a) (compulsory insurance or a written self-insurance order from the commissioner of commerce). Minn. Stat. § 176.183, subd. 1 (benefits payable from the special compensation fund where the employer is not insured or self-insured) and subd. 2 (findings on insurance status; order against the uninsured employer for benefits, the fund’s and the employee’s disbursements, attorney fees paid by the fund, “and a penalty in the amount of 65 percent of all compensation benefits ordered to be paid”; the award as a lien for government services under § 514.67). All statutory text retrieved from the Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes, revisor.mn.gov, on 2026-08-10. Stringer v. Minnesota Vikings Football Club, LLC, 705 N.W.2d 746 (Minn. 2005) (Nos. A03-1635, A04-205, decided November 17, 2005) — reporter citation and docket numbers taken from the Caselaw Access Project structured case metadata at static.case.law/nw2d/705, and the majority opinion read in full from the CAP archival text at static.case.law/nw2d/705/cases/0746-01.json. Relied on for: the facts (heat stroke death of Korey Stringer after the second day of practice at the 2001 Vikings training camp; wrongful death action by Kelci Stringer; summary judgment for respondents affirmed by the court of appeals on the ground that a personal duty existed but the conduct was not grossly negligent as a matter of law); the supreme court’s affirmance on different grounds; the quotation of the coemployee provision as Minn. Stat. § 176.061, subd. 5(c) (2004); the quoted two-prong personal duty test; the court’s express decision not to reach gross negligence; and the court’s quotation of Dawley v. Thisius for the proposition that “coemployee” includes a “corporate officer, general supervisor, or foreman.” No citator was consulted; CAP contains none, and this article reports what the 2005 opinion says rather than asserting its current precedential status. This article states what these provisions say. It does not report how Minnesota courts have construed the interaction between § 176.031 and the definitional carve-outs in § 176.011, subd. 16, and it takes no position on whether any tort claim exists where the chapter does not apply. This is general legal information about Minnesota law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. Every case depends on its own facts. No outcome is promised or implied.