Firing You Over Jury Duty Is Criminal Contempt in Minnesota — and Four Other Civic Absences the Legislature Protected by Name

Jury duty is the one with teeth

Most Minnesota leave statutes tell an employer what to grant. The jury-service statute tells an employer what will happen to it.

Minn. Stat. § 593.50, subd. 1, in full:

An employer shall not deprive an employee of employment, or threaten or otherwise coerce the employee with respect to employment status, because the employee receives a summons, responds thereto, serves as a juror, or attends court for prospective jury service. An employer must release an employee from the employee’s regular work schedule, including any shift work, to permit the employee to attend court for prospective jury service. An employer must not require an employee to work an alternative shift on any day the juror is required to report to the courthouse for jury service. Nothing in this section shall prevent an employee from voluntarily requesting to work an alternative work schedule on any day the juror is required to report to the courthouse for jury service, as long as the employer does not encourage, prompt, or ask for the employee to make such a request.

The last three sentences are recent. The section’s History line reads “1977 c 286 s 20; 1984 c 628 art 3 s 11; 1986 c 444; 2024 c 123 art 13 s 6,” and the Revisor’s Recent History panel records the 2024 act as amending subdivision 1. The 2023 edition of the subdivision was one sentence: “An employer shall not deprive an employee of employment, or threaten or otherwise coerce the employee with respect thereto, because the employee receives a summons, responds thereto, serves as a juror, or attends court for prospective jury service.” The 2024 amendment replaced “with respect thereto” with “with respect to employment status” and added an affirmative duty to release the employee from the schedule, a prohibition on moving them to a different shift that day, and the shift-swap proviso. That proviso is written so that the employee’s own request is a defense only if the employer did not “encourage, prompt, or ask” for it.

Note the trigger. It is not the trial. It is receiving the summons, responding to it, serving, or attending “for prospective jury service” — the day you sit in the assembly room and are never called is inside the statute.

Then subdivision 2:

An employer who violates subdivision 1 is guilty of criminal contempt and upon conviction may be fined not more than $700 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

And subdivision 3:

If an employer discharges an employee in violation of subdivision 1 the employee within 30 days may bring a civil action for recovery of wages lost as a result of the violation and for an order requiring the reinstatement of the employee. Damages recoverable shall not exceed lost wages for six weeks. An employee who prevails shall be allowed a reasonable attorney’s fee fixed by the court.

Read the three together and the shape is unusual. Subdivision 1 prohibits a range of conduct — deprivation, threats, coercion, refusal to release, forced shift changes. Subdivision 2’s criminal contempt reaches all of it. Subdivision 3’s civil action reaches only discharge, is capped at six weeks of lost wages, and has to be filed within 30 days. That is the shortest limitations period on this page and one of the shortest in Minnesota employment law. Other deadlines are collected in every Minnesota employment deadline in one table.

Voting: the time you need, without a deduction, and no notice required

Minn. Stat. § 204C.04, subd. 1:

Every employee who is eligible to vote in an election has the right to be absent from work for the time necessary to appear at the employee’s polling place, cast a ballot, and return to work on the day of that election or during the time period allowed under section 203B.081 for voting in person before election day, without penalty or deduction from salary or wages because of the absence. An employer or other person may not directly or indirectly refuse, abridge, or interfere with this right or any other election right of an employee.

“The time necessary” is the whole measure. The statute names no number of hours and no window of the day. The 2023 amendment recorded in the History line — “1981 c 29 art 5 s 4; 1988 c 578 art 1 s 3; 1991 c 245 s 1; 1995 c 20 s 1; 2000 c 260 s 27; 2010 c 201 s 34; 2015 c 70 art 1 s 33; 2016 c 162 s 6; 2023 c 62 art 4 s 90” — extended the right beyond election day itself to the in-person early voting period. Section 203B.081, subd. 1, sets that period: an eligible voter may vote by absentee ballot in the county auditor’s office and at any other polling place the auditor designates “during the 46 days before the election, except as provided in this section.”

Which elections count is defined rather than assumed. Subdivision 2:

For purposes of this section, “election” means a regularly scheduled election, an election to fill a vacancy in the office of United States senator or United States representative, an election to fill a vacancy in nomination for a constitutional office, an election to fill a vacancy in the office of state senator or state representative, or a presidential nomination primary under chapter 207A.

Subdivision 3 supplies the penalty and the prosecutor: “A person who violates this section is guilty of a misdemeanor, and the county attorney shall prosecute the violation.”

What is not in § 204C.04 matters as much as what is. A text search of the section as the Revisor publishes it returns no occurrence of “notice,” “notify,” or “written.” The Legislature imposed advance-notice conditions on four of the other absences on this page — ten days for caucuses and party conventions, twenty for election-judge service, reasonable notice for foreseeable school conferences, and notice as practicable for family casualty leave — and imposed none here.

Serving as an election judge is a different section with different rules

Minn. Stat. § 204B.195, in full:

An individual who is selected to serve as an election judge pursuant to section 204B.21, subdivision 2 may, after giving an employer at least 20 days’ written notice, be absent from a place of work for the purpose of serving as an election judge without penalty. An employer may reduce the salary or wages of an employee serving as an election judge by the amount paid to the election judge by the appointing authority during the time the employee was absent from the place of employment.

The written request to be absent from work must be accompanied by a certification from the appointing authority stating the hourly compensation to be paid the employee for service as an election judge and the hours during which the employee will serve. An employer may restrict the number of persons to be absent from work for the purpose of serving as an election judge to no more than 20 percent of the total work force at any single worksite.

Three conditions the voting-time section does not have: twenty days’ written notice, a certification from the appointing authority, and an employer’s right to cap the number of absent employees at 20 percent of a worksite. And one offset the voting-time section does not allow: the employer may reduce your wages by what the county pays you for the day.

There is a related protection aimed at anyone who pressures an election official — a category that includes an election judge. Minn. Stat. § 211B.076, subd. 2(a):

A person may not directly or indirectly use or threaten force, coercion, violence, restraint, damage, harm, or loss, including loss of employment or economic reprisal, against another with the intent to influence an election official in the performance of a duty of election administration.

Subdivision 1 defines “election official” to include “an election judge, an election judge trainee,” among others. Paragraph (b) of subdivision 2 sets the standard of proof in a civil action brought to restrain violations or require civil penalties: the plaintiff “may show that the action or attempted action would cause a reasonable person to feel intimidated” and “does not need to show that the defendant intended to cause the victim to feel intimidated.” Section 211B.076 was enacted by Laws 2023, ch. 62, art. 4, § 128.

Caucuses and party conventions: ten days’ written notice, twice

Two sections cover political party participation, and they are frequently confused with each other.

Precinct caucuses are Minn. Stat. § 202A.19, subd. 2:

Every employee who is entitled to attend a major political party precinct caucus is entitled, after giving the employer at least ten days’ written notice, to be absent from work for the purpose of attending the caucus during the time for which the caucus is scheduled without penalty or deduction from salary or wages on account of the absence other than a deduction in salary for the time of absence from employment.

Read the last clause closely. There is no penalty and no deduction “on account of the absence” — other than a deduction for the actual time you were gone. The time is protected; it is not paid.

Committee meetings and conventions are Minn. Stat. § 202A.135, a single paragraph:

If an employee gives at least ten days’ written notice to the employer, the employee may be absent from work to attend any meeting of the state central committee or executive committee of a major political party if the employee is a member of the committee, or may attend any convention of major political party delegates including meetings of official convention committees if the employee is a delegate or alternate delegate to that convention. An employee who gives proper notice as provided in this section shall suffer no penalty or deduction from salary or wages on account of absence other than a deduction in salary or wages for the actual time of absence from employment. A violation of this section by an employer is a misdemeanor.

Section 202A.135 is not caucus leave. It reaches committee members, delegates, and alternate delegates, and it carries a criminal penalty that § 202A.19 does not. Section 202A.19’s own History line — “1973 c 349 s 2; 1975 c 5 s 10; 1975 c 321 s 1; 1981 c 29 art 7 s 38; 1983 c 168 s 2; 1986 c 444; 1996 c 395 s 9; 1Sp2001 c 10 art 18 s 9” — contains no penalty provision, and a reading of its six subdivisions turns up none.

School conferences: 16 hours, one employee, and a cross-reference that outlived its target

Minn. Stat. § 181.9412, subd. 2, in full:

An employer must grant an employee leave of up to a total of 16 hours during any 12-month period to attend school conferences or school-related activities related to the employee’s child, provided the conferences or school-related activities cannot be scheduled during nonwork hours. If the employee’s child receives child care services as defined in section 142E.01, subdivision 7, or attends a prekindergarten regular or special education program, the employee may use the leave time provided in this section to attend a conference or activity related to the employee’s child, or to observe and monitor the services or program, provided the conference, activity, or observation cannot be scheduled during nonwork hours. When the leave cannot be scheduled during nonwork hours and the need for the leave is foreseeable, the employee must provide reasonable prior notice of the leave and make a reasonable effort to schedule the leave so as not to disrupt unduly the operations of the employer.

Four things are worth pulling out.

The condition is scheduling, not permission: the leave is owed when the conference or activity “cannot be scheduled during nonwork hours.” The notice obligation attaches only when “the need for the leave is foreseeable,” and it is “reasonable prior notice,” not a fixed number of days.

The right extends below school age. A child receiving child care services as defined in § 142E.01, subd. 7 — which defines “child care services” as “the provision of child care as defined in subdivision 5” — or attending a prekindergarten regular or special education program is covered, and so is time spent to “observe and monitor the services or program,” not merely to attend a conference.

“Child” is defined for these sections by § 181.940, subd. 4, as “an individual under 18 years of age or an individual under age 20 who is still attending secondary school,” and § 181.9412, subd. 1a, adds: “For the purpose of this section, ‘child’ includes a foster child.”

The leave is unpaid unless you choose otherwise. Subdivision 3: “Nothing in this section requires that the leave be paid; except that an employee may substitute any accrued paid vacation leave or other appropriate paid leave for any part of the leave under this section.” The substitution is the employee’s to make.

There is no employer-size threshold, and there used to be one. “Employer” for §§ 181.940 to 181.944 is now defined by § 181.940, subd. 3, as “a person or entity that employs one or more employees,” and the definition then names individuals, corporations, partnerships, associations, businesses, trusts, nonprofit organizations, groups of persons, and every level of Minnesota government. The 2022 edition of that subdivision read very differently: “‘Employer’ means a person or entity that employs 21 or more employees at at least one site, except that, for purposes of the school leave allowed under section 181.9412, employer means a person or entity that employs one or more employees in Minnesota.” Laws 2023, ch. 53, art. 11, § 29, deleted the 21-employee floor. The exception that had been written for school leave became the general rule.

The same 2023 act produced an orphan cross-reference that is still on the books. Section 181.9412, subd. 1, reads in full: “For purposes of this section, ‘employee’ does not include the requirement of section 181.940, subdivision 2, clause (1).” In the 2022 edition, § 181.940, subd. 2, defined “employee” as a person performing services for hire “for: (1) at least 12 months preceding the request; and (2) for an average number of hours per week equal to one-half the full-time equivalent position,” so subdivision 1 was removing the 12-month tenure requirement for school leave. Laws 2023, ch. 53, art. 11, § 28, struck both clauses. Section 181.940, subd. 2, now reads: “‘Employee’ means a person who performs services for hire for an employer from whom a leave is requested under sections 181.940 to 181.944. Employee includes all individuals employed by the employer but does not include an independent contractor.” There is no clause (1) left for § 181.9412, subd. 1, to carve out. The practical result is unchanged — there is no tenure requirement either way — but the sentence now points at text that no longer exists.

Coming back. Section 181.942, subd. 1(a), draws a distinction inside one paragraph: an employee returning from leave under § 181.939 or § 181.941 “is entitled to return to employment in the employee’s former position or in a position of comparable duties, number of hours, and pay,” but “[a]n employee returning from a leave under section 181.9412 or sections 181.9445 to 181.9448 is entitled to return to employment in the employee’s former position.” School conference leave and earned sick and safe time get the former position, full stop.

Enforcement. Section 181.9412 falls inside two ranges. Minn. Stat. § 181.944 gives a private action: “In addition to any other remedies provided by law, a person injured by a violation of sections 181.172, paragraph (a) or (d), 181.939 to 181.943, and 181.9445 to 181.9448 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 injunctive and other equitable relief as determined by a court.” And § 177.27, subd. 4, authorizes the commissioner of labor and industry to order compliance with a list of sections that includes “181.939 to 181.943”; subdivision 7 then provides that on a finding of violation and an order to comply, “the commissioner shall order the employer to pay to the aggrieved parties back pay, gratuities, and compensatory damages, less any amount actually paid to the aggrieved parties by the employer, and for an additional equal amount as liquidated damages.”

Section 181.9412 itself contains no anti-retaliation clause. Its neighbors do — § 181.941, subd. 3, and § 181.939, subd. 2(d), each carry the nine-verb formula the Legislature uses across chapter 181 — and § 181.9412 does not. The section has four subdivisions — 1, 1a, 2, and 3 — and none of them addresses reprisal. That is what the text says, and this page does not supply a clause the Legislature did not write.

Related leaves with their own rules: earned sick and safe time, pregnancy and parenting leave, and Minnesota paid leave.

The military-adjacent sections are narrower than their names suggest

Three sections of chapter 181 are routinely described as “military leave.” None of them is leave for your own military service.

Minn. Stat. § 181.947 is leave for the family of a casualty. Subdivision 2: “An employer must grant up to ten working days of a leave of absence without pay to an employee whose immediate family member, as a member of the United States armed forces, has been injured or killed while engaged in active service.” “Immediate family member” is defined in subdivision 1(e) as “a person’s parent, child, grandparents, siblings, or spouse,” and “employer” in subdivision 1(d) as an entity “located or doing business in this state and having one or more employees.” Notice is what is “practicable,” under subdivision 3, and under subdivision 4 the leave “may be reduced by any period of paid leave provided by the employer.” Unusually, subdivision 1(c) defines “employee” to include “a person, independent contractor, or person working for an independent contractor who performs services for compensation.”

Minn. Stat. § 181.948 is leave to attend a ceremony, and it is short. Subdivision 2: “Unless the leave would unduly disrupt the operations of the employer, an employer shall grant a leave of absence without pay to an employee whose immediate family member, as a member of the United States armed forces, has been ordered into active service in support of a war or other national emergency. The employer may limit the amount of leave provided under this subdivision to the actual time necessary for the employee to attend a send-off or homecoming ceremony for the mobilized service member, not to exceed one day’s duration in any calendar year.” One day a year, and the “unduly disrupt” clause is a condition on the whole obligation.

Minn. Stat. § 181.946 is civil air patrol leave, and it comes with a size floor that is easy to miss because it is not written in the section. Subdivision 2: “Unless the leave would unduly disrupt the operations of the employer, an employer shall grant a leave of absence without pay to an employee for time spent rendering service as a member of the civil air patrol on the request and under the authority of the state or any of its political subdivisions.” Subdivision 1 then says: “For purposes of this section, ‘employee’ and ‘employer’ have the meanings given them in section 181.945.” Section 181.945, subd. 1(b) and (c), defines “employee” as a person performing services for hire “for an average of 20 or more hours per week” and “employer” as “a person or entity that employs 20 or more employees at at least one site.” So civil air patrol leave, alone among the sections on this page, reaches only employers of 20 or more and only employees averaging 20 or more hours a week.

For your own service, the operative Minnesota provision is Minn. Stat. § 192.34, and it is a criminal statute, not a leave statute:

It shall be unlawful for any employer to discharge any person from employment because of membership in the military or naval forces of the United States, of this state, or any other state, or to hinder or prevent any person from performing any military service that person may be called upon to perform by proper authority, or to dissuade any person from enlistment in the military service by threat or injury, in case that person shall so enlist, in respect to that person’s employment, trade or business. Any person violating any of the provisions of this section shall be deemed guilty of a gross misdemeanor.

The Minnesota leave-and-reinstatement statute, § 192.261, is written for “any officer or employee of the state or of any political subdivision, municipal corporation, or other public agency of the state,” with one extension: subdivision 6 gives the same leave and reinstatement rights to a person “not an officer or employee of this state or of any political subdivision” who “engages in active service in the military forces in time of emergency declared by the proper authority of any state,” and expressly does not apply where federal reemployment rights already protect the person.

Those federal rights are the ones most private-sector service members actually use. 38 U.S.C. § 4311(a):

A person who is a member of, applies to be a member of, performs, has performed, applies to perform, or has an obligation to perform service in a uniformed service shall not be denied initial employment, reemployment, retention in employment, promotion, or any benefit of employment by an employer on the basis of that membership, application for membership, performance of service, application for service, or obligation.

Section 4311(c)(1) sets the causation standard: the employer is treated as having violated subsection (a) if the person’s service or obligation “is a motivating factor in the employer’s action, unless the employer can prove that the action would have been taken in the absence of” it. The rest of the federal scheme is outside what this page covers.

What these sections have in common, and what they do not

Every absence on this page is protected against a penalty, and almost none is paid. Section 204C.04 forbids a “deduction from salary or wages”; §§ 202A.19 and 202A.135 forbid a deduction “other than” one for the actual time absent; § 204B.195 lets the employer offset what the appointing authority pays; § 181.9412 says the leave need not be paid; §§ 181.946, 181.947, and 181.948 all say “without pay.” Section 593.50 says nothing about pay at all — it protects employment, not wages, and its civil action is for wages lost as a result of the violation, not for the days in court.

The notice rules do not match either. Twenty days’ written notice with a certification for election-judge service; ten days’ written notice for a caucus and for a party committee meeting or convention; reasonable prior notice for a foreseeable school conference; notice “as practicable” for family casualty leave; nothing at all in the voting or jury sections.

If you were fired after one of these absences, the discharge analysis is separate from the leave analysis — see was my firing illegal — and the written reason you are entitled to request is on the termination reason letter.

Currency

The Revisor currently publishes the 2025 Minnesota Statutes edition. The History lines read: § 593.50, “1977 c 286 s 20; 1984 c 628 art 3 s 11; 1986 c 444; 2024 c 123 art 13 s 6”; § 204C.04, “1981 c 29 art 5 s 4; 1988 c 578 art 1 s 3; 1991 c 245 s 1; 1995 c 20 s 1; 2000 c 260 s 27; 2010 c 201 s 34; 2015 c 70 art 1 s 33; 2016 c 162 s 6; 2023 c 62 art 4 s 90”; § 204B.195, “1983 c 126 s 2; 1986 c 444; 1991 c 237 s 3”; § 202A.19, “1973 c 349 s 2; 1975 c 5 s 10; 1975 c 321 s 1; 1981 c 29 art 7 s 38; 1983 c 168 s 2; 1986 c 444; 1996 c 395 s 9; 1Sp2001 c 10 art 18 s 9”; § 202A.135, “1980 c 400 s 1; 1981 c 29 art 7 s 38; 1986 c 444”; § 181.9412, “1990 c 577 s 3; 1992 c 438 s 2; 1996 c 341 s 1; 1996 c 408 art 11 s 4; 1999 c 205 art 5 s 21; 2002 c 380 art 5 s 1; 2024 c 80 art 5 s 7”; § 181.940, “1987 c 359 s 1; 1990 c 577 s 1; 1991 c 268 s 1; 2014 c 239 art 3 s 1; 2023 c 53 art 11 s 28,29”; § 181.945, “1990 c 536 s 2; 2023 c 53 art 11 s 34”; § 181.946, “1997 c 20 s 1”; § 181.947, “2006 c 273 s 3”; § 181.948, “2006 c 273 s 4”; § 192.34, “(2429) 1921 c 506 s 35; 1978 c 478 s 8; 1986 c 444”; § 211B.076, “2023 c 62 art 4 s 128; 2024 c 112 art 2 s 62”; § 181.941, “1987 c 359 s 2; 1990 c 577 s 2; 2014 c 239 art 3 s 2; 2023 c 53 art 11 s 30; 2024 c 110 art 2 s 10.”

Checked against the Revisor’s table of Minnesota Statutes affected by the 2026 Regular Session, queried one exact section at a time, none of §§ 593.50, 204C.04, 203B.081, 204B.195, 211B.076, 202A.19, 202A.135, 181.939, 181.9412, 181.940, 181.941, 181.942, 181.944, 181.945, 181.946, 181.947, 181.948, 177.27, 192.34, 192.261, or 142E.01 was amended, new, or repealed in the 2026 regular session. Sections 202A.135, 204B.195, and 192.34 return “No Records Found” for the whole 1994-to-present range the table covers, and their History lines end in 1986, 1991, and 1986 respectively.

One discrepancy in the Revisor’s own tables is worth recording. The History line for § 181.9412 ends with “2024 c 80 art 5 s 7,” but the Table 2 query for that exact section returns only three rows — two 1996 amendments and the 2002 addition of subdivision 1a — and the Recent History panel likewise stops at 2002. Comparing editions shows what the 2024 act did: the 2023 edition of subdivision 2 read “child care services as defined in section 119B.011, subdivision 7,” and carried a History line ending at 2002; the current subdivision reads “section 142E.01, subdivision 7,” and the History line adds “2024 c 80 art 5 s 7.” The amendment was a renumbering of the cross-reference. This page quotes the section as the Revisor currently publishes it and cites the History line rather than the table.

This page describes the machinery. Whether a particular absence falls inside a particular section, and whether a particular employer’s response was a penalty within the meaning of one of them, are questions about specific facts and documents, and applying these sections to them is not what this page does.