Minnesota's Public-Policy Exception to At-Will Employment Is One Sentence Long
Phipps v. Clark Oil covers an employee fired for refusing to break the law, and nothing else. Minnesota's Supreme Court has refused three times to widen it.
Read →Work & Employment
Non-competes, wages, leave, discrimination, and being fired.
Your Rights When a Background Check Costs You a Job in Minnesota
The FCRA makes employers build a five-document paper trail before rejecting you over a background check — and the step they skip is the one you can't see.
Read →Minnesota Child Labor Law: Why Following Chapter 181A Is Not Enough
Minnesota lets a 14-year-old work eight hours a day until 9 p.m. Federal law caps the same kid at three hours on a school day. A practitioner's read of Minn. Stat. ch. 181A.
Read →MNOSHA Employee Rights: The Private Action Federal OSHA Does Not Give You
Minnesota's occupational safety act lets a retaliated-against employee sue in district court, in front of a jury. Federal law does not. What Minn. Stat. ch. 182 actually hands a worker — and where it stops.
Read →Minnesota's Captive-Audience Law Does Not Ban a Single Meeting — and It Gives the Employee 90 Days
Minn. Stat. § 181.531 prohibits punishing an employee who declines an employer's political or religious meeting. It doesn't ban the meeting. The state's own poster says so, and the private action expires 90 days after the violation.
Read →Minnesota Deleted the Word That Used to Save Misclassifying Employers
Minn. Stat. § 181.722 was a misrepresentation statute until July 1, 2024. The rewrite dropped the misrepresentation element, added individual liability, and made the penalties recoverable by the worker.
Read →Minnesota's Pay Transparency Law Tells Employers What to Publish and Says Nothing About What Happens If They Don't
Minn. Stat. § 181.173 makes a 30-employee Minnesota employer put a starting salary range in every job posting. Then, in the same act, the legislature left it off the commissioner's compliance-order list in § 177.27 and off the private-action list in § 181.171.
Read →Minnesota's Salary History Ban Is a Civil Rights Law, Not a Wage Law
Minnesota's pay-history inquiry ban sits inside the Human Rights Act. That means a one-employee threshold, a one-year clock, treble damages, and a mandatory penalty paid to the state.
Read →Minnesota Banned Noncompetes and Left Employment NDAs Almost Entirely Alone. The Limits That Exist Are Federal, and Narrower Than People Think.
The word 'nondisparagement' doesn't appear anywhere in the Minnesota Statutes. The Speak Out Act reaches only clauses signed before the dispute arose. The most useful Minnesota provision is a 15-day rescission right in the Human Rights Act that most severance packets never mention.
Read →Minnesota Breaks and Overtime After January 1, 2026: Hard Numbers, Real Damages, and a 48-Hour Rule That Rarely Applies
Minnesota's break law got teeth on January 1, 2026: 15 minutes, 30 minutes, and liquidated damages. The 48-hour overtime rule didn't change, and it usually isn't the one that governs.
Read →Unused PTO at Separation in Minnesota: Why “Wages Actually Earned” Does Not Get You Paid
Minnesota has no statute requiring a vacation or PTO payout. The Supreme Court held § 181.13 is a timing statute, so the employer's own documents decide the case.
Read →Jury Duty, Voting, School Conferences: Minnesota's Civic Leave Statutes
Seven Minnesota leaves that have nothing to do with illness: what each one costs an employer, and why the remedy is almost always narrower than the duty.
Read →Minnesota Tip Law After the 2024 Changes: The Swipe Fee, the Service Charge, and Who Owns the Money
Since August 1, 2024, a Minnesota employer has to hand over the full credit-card tip with no deduction for processing. And a mandatory service charge is legally a gratuity unless the customer got notice in the right type size.
Read →Unpaid Commissions After Termination: Minnesota's § 181.145 Is Not an Employee Statute
Minn. Stat. § 181.145 pays commission salespeople fast and penalizes employers who stall. But it covers independent contractors, not employees, and the penalty clock runs out four years before the contract clock does.
Read →When a Minnesota Employee Handbook Becomes a Contract — and Why the Disclaimer May Not Save You
Minnesota reads a handbook one provision at a time. In 2021 the Supreme Court held a general 'this is not a contract' disclaimer was ambiguous and sent the question to a fact-finder.
Read →The Termination-Reason Letter Under Minn. Stat. § 181.933
A fired Minnesota employee has 15 working days to demand the truthful reason for the termination in writing, and the employer then has ten working days to answer.
Read →What a Severance Release Can and Cannot Buy in Minnesota
A Minnesota severance release comes with a 15-day rescission right, a federal 21-day clock for workers 40+, and a short list of claims no employer can buy at any price.
Read →Minnesota's Polygraph Statute Is Not Really About Polygraphs
Minn. Stat. § 181.75 bars an employer from soliciting or requiring 'a polygraph, voice stress analysis, or any test purporting to test the honesty' of an employee or applicant. Those words aren't limited to a machine. And the statute backs them with a misdemeanor, an attorney general injunction, and a private action with fees.
Read →Employment Misconduct Under Minn. Stat. § 268.095: The List of Things That Are Not Misconduct
Minnesota defines employment misconduct by statute, then carves ten categories right back out. Most unemployment denials are won or lost inside that list, not on the appeal deadline.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 181.79: The Deduction Authorization Has to Come After the Loss
Minnesota conditions a deduction for a broken tool or a till shortage on a writing the employee signs after the loss occurred, or on a court judgment. Any contrary agreement is void, and the remedy is double.
Read →Minnesota's Exclusive Remedy Rule Is One Sentence Long, and the Sentence Immediately After It Is the Escape Hatch
Minn. Stat. § 176.031 makes workers' compensation the employer's exclusive liability. Then it hands the employee of an uninsured employer a choice and strips that employer of the fellow-servant, assumption-of-risk, and contributory-negligence defenses.
Read →Minnesota's Workers' Compensation Retaliation Statute Contains Two Different Claims, and Only One of Them Reaches a Small Employer
Minn. Stat. § 176.82 holds two claims. Subdivision 1 runs against 'any person' and carries fees plus punitive damages up to three times the compensation benefit. Subdivision 2 is a capped one-year-wages claim that never touches an employer with 15 or fewer full-time equivalent employees.
Read →Compelled Self-Publication in Minnesota: The Defamation Claim You Publish Yourself
Minnesota lets a fired employee sue over a defamatory statement only the employee ever repeated. But the qualified privilege, the proof bar from Rouse, and a one-sentence statute sink most of these claims before a jury ever sees them.
Read →Minnesota Earned Sick and Safe Time: Carryover, Attendance Points, and the Recordkeeping Default
The 1-hour-per-30-worked rule is the easy part. The real exposure is in the 80-hour carryover bank, the ban on attendance points, and a damages provision that fixes liability at 48 hours a year when the employer has no records.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 181.64: Minnesota's 1913 Statute Against Lying Someone Into a Job
Section 181.64 bars inducing a worker to relocate by knowingly lying about the job, and § 181.65 adds actual damages plus attorney fees. The limits are where these cases are won or lost.
Read →Minnesota Pregnancy Accommodations and Parenting Leave: Entitlements That Stack, Not Substitute
The accommodation statute people still cite was repealed in 2021. Here's where the duty lives now, why a four-person employer owes it, and what can and can't be counted against the 12-week leave.
Read →Minnesota's Veterans Preference Act: A Discharge Statute Whose Remedy Is a Writ of Mandamus
Section 197.46 gives a covered veteran a hearing before removal and names mandamus as the remedy — which in Minnesota means a jury-triable civil action that carries a damages judgment.
Read →Minnesota's Wage Theft Crime Runs on Paperwork: § 181.032 and § 609.52, Subd. 2(a)(19)
Minnesota made wage theft a theft offense, but the criminal clause borrows its measuring stick from the wage notice and earnings statements required by § 181.032. The paperwork is the case.
Read →The Minnesota Unemployment Appeal Is Decided at the First Hearing
One telephone hearing builds the only record there'll ever be. Minn. Stat. § 268.105 closes it, and every deadline in the appeal path is written in calendar days.
Read →When a Minnesota Public Employee Can Be Disciplined for Speech
Pickering's balance, Connick's public-concern gate, Garcetti's official-duties rule — and why the Eighth Circuit makes the employer prove the workplace disruption it claims.
Read →Is My Non-Compete Enforceable in Minnesota? If You Signed It On or After July 1, 2023, Almost Certainly Not.
Minn. Stat. § 181.988 makes employee non-competes void and unenforceable, with only two narrow exceptions. But it applies only to contracts and agreements entered into on or after July 1, 2023. Older agreements still get the common-law reasonableness review.
Read →Salaried Doesn't Always Mean 'No Overtime': A Plain-English Guide to Minnesota Wage-and-Hour Rights
Exempt vs. non-exempt, tips, overtime, and wage theft in Minnesota — what the law actually says, told through everyday scenarios.
Read →You Can Be Billed for Leaving a Pension Plan Using Assumptions Nobody Had Adopted When You Left
In M&K Employee Solutions v. IAM National Pension Fund, a unanimous Court held that withdrawal-liability assumptions don't have to be chosen by the measurement date. Minnesota has one of the most heavily unionized workforces in the country, so this one lands here harder than most places.
Read →Minnesota Paid Leave Is Live: What Employers and Employees Need to Know Now
Benefits started January 1, 2026, and the first premiums were due April 30. A plain-English guide to the 2026 premium rate, the leave categories, the 20-week cap, and where Minnesota employers most often trip up.
Read →Minnesota Banned Non-Competes in 2023. Trade Secret Law Is What Employers Have Left — and It Is Sharper Than People Think.
Minn. Stat. ch. 325C protects information with independent economic value that isn't readily ascertainable and is the subject of reasonable efforts to keep it secret. Exemplary damages up to twice compensatory, attorney's fees that run both ways, and a three-year clock from discovery under § 325C.06.
Read →In Minnesota Construction, Every Worker Is an Employee by Default. Fourteen Requirements Get You Out — and You Must Meet Every One.
Minn. Stat. § 181.723 makes every individual performing building construction services an employee unless they operate as a business entity meeting all fourteen statutory requirements — with penalties up to $10,000 per worker and personal liability for owners.
Read →Minnesota Took the Non-Compete Away. It Did Not Take the Protection Away — It Moved It Somewhere Most Employers Have Never Built.
Minn. Stat. § 181.988 voids employee non-competes signed on or after July 1, 2023. What's left is ch. 325C and the DTSA, the carve-outs in subd. 1(a), § 181.9881, the sale exception, and the duty of loyalty.
Read →Minnesota Discrimination Claims Are Usually Lost on the Calendar, Not the Merits
Minn. Stat. § 363A.28, subd. 3(a) gives one year from the occurrence. Then § 363A.33, subd. 1 adds 45- and 90-day windows, § 363A.07, subd. 3 makes the forum choice exclusive, and § 363A.31 gives 15 days to rescind a release. Here's the whole machine, mapped.
Read →Minnesota Gives Every Employee Free Discovery Before the Lawsuit Exists. Almost Nobody Uses It.
Minn. Stat. §§ 181.960–181.966 give an employee the right to review and copy the personnel record on written request — seven working days, no fee — and § 181.963 bars the employer from using record material it left out in a later proceeding, unless the omission wasn't intentional and the employee gets a reasonable chance to review it first.
Read →Minnesota Does Not Ban Workplace Drug Testing. It Makes Your Policy Document the Thing You Get Sued Over.
Under Minn. Stat. §§ 181.950–181.957 an employer may not request or require a drug or alcohol test except as authorized. And nothing is authorized unless it's done pursuant to a written policy meeting § 181.952, subd. 1.
Read →Minnesota's Whistleblower Act Protects the Report, Not the Reporter's Motive — and Since 2013 It Has Not Mattered Whether the Employee Was Right
Minn. Stat. § 181.932 protects six categories of conduct. Since the 2013 amendment defining 'good faith' in § 181.931, subd. 4, there's only one state-of-mind question left: was the report knowingly false or reckless?
Read →Minnesota's Ban-the-Box Law Is Two Different Statutes Wearing One Chapter Number
Minn. Stat. § 364.021 bars a public or private employer from asking about criminal history before the interview. But the direct-relationship standard in § 364.03 and the written-explanation duty in § 364.05 reach only public employment and licensing, and § 364.06, subd. 2(d) makes the private-employer remedy exclusive.
Read →Minnesota Gives a Fired Employee 24 Hours' Leverage. Most Employers Do Not Know the Clock Exists.
Under Minn. Stat. § 181.13, wages owed a discharged employee are due immediately on written demand, and the employer is in default 24 hours later, with a penalty of one day's average earnings for every day, up to 15. Attorney fees are mandatory.
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