Minnesota's Genetic-Testing Statute Reaches an Employer With One Employee and Allows Treble Damages — GINA Starts at Fifteen and Has No Disparate-Impact Claim at All

The Minnesota section is three subdivisions long and it is the stronger one

Minnesota wrote its genetic-testing statute in 2001, seven years before Congress wrote GINA, and it is shorter, broader at the bottom, and more generous at the end.

Minn. Stat. § 181.974, subd. 2, in full:

(a) No employer or employment agency shall directly or indirectly:

(1) administer a genetic test or request, require, or collect protected genetic information regarding a person as a condition of employment; or

(2) affect the terms or conditions of employment or terminate the employment of any person based on protected genetic information.

(b) No person shall provide or interpret for any employer or employment agency protected genetic information on a current or prospective employee.

Paragraph (b) is unusual and easy to skip. It is not addressed to the employer. It prohibits the laboratory, the counselor, the physician, or the vendor from supplying or interpreting the information for the employer at all, and the prohibition does not depend on the employer having asked as a condition of employment.

Two definitions do the rest of the work. Subdivision 1(b) defines “employer” as “any person having one or more employees in Minnesota, and includes the state and any political subdivisions of the state.” Subdivision 1(c) defines “employee” as “a person who performs services for hire in Minnesota for an employer, but does not include independent contractors.” Whether a particular worker actually is an independent contractor is a separate question with its own statute — see misclassified as a contractor.

Subdivision 1(d) defines the protected material:

“Protected genetic information” means:

(1) information about a person’s genetic test; or

(2) information about a genetic test of a blood relative of a person.

And subdivision 1(a) defines the test itself as “the analysis of human DNA, RNA, chromosomes, proteins, or certain metabolites in order to detect disease-related genotypes or mutations,” with a paragraph aimed at a specific evasion: “Tests for metabolites fall within the definition of genetic test when an excess or deficiency of the metabolites indicates the presence of a mutation or mutations. Administration of metabolic tests by an employer or employment agency that are not intended to reveal the presence of a mutation does not violate this section, regardless of the results of the tests. Test results revealing a mutation are, however, subject to this section.”

Read the last sentence with the one before it. A metabolic test not intended to reveal a mutation is outside the section — but a result that reveals one is inside it. Intent controls the administration of the test; the result controls the information.

The remedy is subdivision 3:

Any person aggrieved by a violation of this section may bring a civil action, in which the court may award:

(1) up to three times the actual damages suffered due to the violation;

(2) punitive damages;

(3) reasonable costs and attorney fees; and

(4) injunctive or other equitable relief as the court may deem appropriate.

Treble damages and punitive damages, both, in a three-subdivision section reaching an employer with one employee.

What the section does not contain is worth stating as precisely. A text search of § 181.974 as the revisor publishes it returns no occurrence of “retaliat,” none of “reprisal,” and none of “discharge,” so the section carries no anti-retaliation clause of its own. The same search returns no occurrence of “limitation,” none of “years,” and none of “notice”: the section states no filing period and no notice requirement. And § 181.974 does not appear in the list of sections in Minn. Stat. § 177.27, subd. 4, so there is no compliance-order route at the Department of Labor and Industry. The action in subd. 3 is what the section gives. Where the periods for other Minnesota employment claims come from is collected in every Minnesota employment deadline in one table.

GINA reaches fewer employers and answers fewer questions

The federal Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act’s employment title borrows Title VII’s employer.

42 U.S.C. § 2000ff(2)(B) defines “employer” for the title to mean, first, “an employer (as defined in section 2000e(b) of this title),” along with state employees covered by § 2000e-16c(a), congressional and executive-branch employing offices, and federal employees. Section 2000e(b) is the fifteen-employee definition: “a person engaged in an industry affecting commerce who has fifteen or more employees for each working day in each of twenty or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year.”

The substantive prohibition is 42 U.S.C. § 2000ff-1(b), and it is written as a ban with six exceptions:

It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to request, require, or purchase genetic information with respect to an employee or a family member of the employee except—

(1) where an employer inadvertently requests or requires family medical history of the employee or family member of the employee;

The other five are health or genetic services offered by the employer on four stated conditions including “prior, knowing, voluntary, and written authorization” and aggregate-only reporting to the employer; a request “to comply with the certification provisions of section 2613 of title 29 or such requirements under State family and medical leave laws”; a purchase of “documents that are commercially and publicly available (including newspapers, magazines, periodicals, and books, but not including medical databases or court records) that include family medical history”; genetic monitoring of the biological effects of workplace toxic substances on five conditions; and DNA analysis by a forensic laboratory or for human-remains identification, used only for quality-control contamination detection.

Subsection (a) is the discrimination clause: it is unlawful “to fail or refuse to hire, or to discharge, any employee, or otherwise to discriminate against any employee with respect to the compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment of the employee, because of genetic information with respect to the employee,” and to limit, segregate, or classify employees because of it. Subsection (c) closes the loop on the six exceptions: information lawfully acquired under any of them “may not be used in violation of paragraph (1) or (2) of subsection (a) or treated or disclosed in a manner that violates section 2000ff–5.”

The third exception is the one an employee is most likely to meet in an ordinary year. Certification for FMLA leave to care for a family member routinely surfaces family medical history, and § 2000ff-1(b)(3) says that acquisition is permitted — while § 2000ff-1(c) says it still may not be used to discriminate. The certification provisions that exception points at are covered in FMLA basics for Minnesota employees.

Confidentiality is 42 U.S.C. § 2000ff-5(a): genetic information in an employer’s possession “shall be maintained on separate forms and in separate medical files and be treated as a confidential medical record of the employee or member.” Subsection (b) then permits disclosure in six circumstances only — to the employee at the employee’s written request; to an occupational or other health researcher under the federal human-subjects regulations; in response to a court order, with a duty to tell the employee where the order was secured without the employee’s knowledge; to government officials investigating compliance; in connection with FMLA certification; and to a public health agency, limited to family-manifestation information, about “a contagious disease that presents an imminent hazard of death or life-threatening illness,” with notice to the employee.

Remedies run through Title VII. Section 2000ff-6(a)(1) makes the powers, procedures, and remedies of Title VII’s enforcement sections “the powers, procedures, and remedies this chapter provides,” and paragraph (a)(3) adds those of 42 U.S.C. § 1981a “including the limitations contained in subsection (b)(3) of such section 1981a” — that is, the statutory caps. Subsection (f) supplies the anti-retaliation rule Minnesota’s section lacks: “No person shall discriminate against any individual because such individual has opposed any act or practice made unlawful by this chapter or because such individual made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under this chapter.” Running through Title VII means running through the EEOC first — see filing with the EEOC and the MDHR.

And then the limit that has no Minnesota counterpart. 42 U.S.C. § 2000ff-7(a):

Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, “disparate impact”, as that term is used in section 2000e–2(k) of this title, on the basis of genetic information does not establish a cause of action under this Act.

Subsection (b) directed that a Genetic Nondiscrimination Study Commission “shall be established” six years after May 21, 2008, “to review the developing science of genetics and to make recommendations to Congress regarding whether to provide a disparate impact cause of action under this Act.” This page reports what the subsection says and does not report what became of the commission, which is not established by any source retrieved here.

Medical examinations: the line is the offer

The federal rule sorts every medical question by when it is asked.

42 U.S.C. § 12112(d)(2):

(A) Prohibited examination or inquiry

Except as provided in paragraph (3), a covered entity shall not conduct a medical examination or make inquiries of a job applicant as to whether such applicant is an individual with a disability or as to the nature or severity of such disability.

(B) Acceptable inquiry

A covered entity may make preemployment inquiries into the ability of an applicant to perform job-related functions.

Paragraph (3) permits an examination “after an offer of employment has been made . . . and prior to the commencement of the employment duties,” and permits conditioning the offer on the results, if three things are true: “all entering employees are subjected to such an examination regardless of disability”; the information “is collected and maintained on separate forms and in separate medical files and is treated as a confidential medical record,” with three stated exceptions for supervisors informed of restrictions and accommodations, first aid and safety personnel where the disability might require emergency treatment, and government compliance investigators; and “the results of such examination are used only in accordance with this subchapter.”

For a current employee, paragraph (4)(A) sets a standard rather than a timing rule: a covered entity “shall not require a medical examination and shall not make inquiries of an employee as to whether such employee is an individual with a disability or as to the nature or severity of the disability, unless such examination or inquiry is shown to be job-related and consistent with business necessity.” Paragraph (4)(B) permits “voluntary medical examinations, including voluntary medical histories, which are part of an employee health program available to employees at that work site,” and inquiries “into the ability of an employee to perform job-related functions.” The ADA’s employer is the same fifteen the Title VII threshold uses: “who has 15 or more employees for each working day in each of 20 or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year.” 42 U.S.C. § 12111(5)(A).

Minnesota reaches the same result through a prohibition and an exemption rather than through one subsection.

Minn. Stat. § 363A.08, subd. 4(a)(1), makes it an unfair employment practice, “[e]xcept when based on a bona fide occupational qualification,” and “before a person is employed by an employer or admitted to membership in a labor organization,” to

require or request the person to furnish information that pertains to race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity, marital status, status with regard to public assistance, familial status, disability, sexual orientation, or age; or, subject to section 363A.20, to require or request a person to undergo physical examination …

outside two narrow stated purposes — national security, where the information about national origin is required by a government, and compliance with the Public Contracts Act or another law requiring the information or examination. Clause (2) reaches the same information where a person, “for purposes of making a job decision,” seeks and obtains “information from any source” that pertains to one of the listed characteristics, and clause (3) reaches a notice or advertisement disclosing a preference based on one of them. Paragraph (b) tells the applicant what that is worth: “Any individual who is required to provide information that is prohibited by this subdivision is an aggrieved party under sections 363A.06, subdivision 4, and 363A.28, subdivisions 1 to 9.” Those closing words are the ones the 2026 technical-corrections act amends, and the currency section below reads the change in the session law’s own markup.

Minn. Stat. § 363A.20, subd. 8(a)(1), is the exemption the prohibition is subject to:

It is not an unfair employment practice for an employer, employment agency, or labor organization:

(1) to require or request a person to undergo physical examination, which may include a medical history, for the purpose of determining the person’s capability to perform available employment, provided:

(i) that an offer of employment has been made on condition that the person meets the physical or mental requirements of the job, except that a law enforcement agency filling a peace officer position or part-time peace officer position may require or request an applicant to undergo psychological evaluation before a job offer is made provided that the psychological evaluation is for those job-related abilities set forth by the Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training for psychological evaluations and is otherwise lawful;

(ii) that the examination tests only for essential job-related abilities;

(iii) that the examination except for examinations authorized under chapter 176 is required of all persons conditionally offered employment for the same position regardless of disability; and

(iv) that the information obtained regarding the medical condition or history of the applicant is collected and maintained on separate forms and in separate medical files and is treated as a confidential medical record …

with the same three narrow disclosure exceptions the ADA uses and one more — “information may be released for purposes mandated by local, state, or federal law.”

Two further paragraphs of § 363A.20, subd. 8, are rarely quoted, and the second of them favors the employee. Paragraph (a)(2) permits an employer, “with the consent of the employee, after employment has commenced,” to obtain additional medical information for a list of purposes that ends in a catch-all — assessing continuing ability to perform the job, health insurance eligibility, purposes mandated by law, assessing the need to reasonably accommodate, second-injury-fund eligibility under chapter 176, drug and alcohol testing under §§ 181.950 to 181.957, “or other legitimate business reason not otherwise prohibited by law.” What limits it is the consent requirement in the opening words of the clause, not the list.

Paragraph (c) is a notice obligation almost nobody knows exists:

If any health care records or medical information adversely affects any hiring, firing, or promotional decision concerning an applicant or employee, the employer must notify the affected party of that information within ten days of the final decision.

Ten days, running from the final decision, triggered by the information having adversely affected it. The accommodation duty that a medical restriction sets in motion is treated separately in reasonable accommodation at work, and drug and alcohol testing runs on its own chapter-181 scheme in drug and alcohol testing at work.

The employer pays for the examination it requires

Minn. Stat. § 181.61, in full:

It is unlawful for any employer to require any employee or applicant for employment to pay the cost of a medical examination or the cost of furnishing any records required by the employer as a condition of employment, except certificates of attending physicians in connection with the administration of an employee’s pension and disability benefit plan or citizenship papers or birth records.

The definitions are in § 181.60 and they are old and wide. “Employer” reaches “any individual, partnership, association, corporation, legal representative, trustee, receiver, trustee in bankruptcy, and any common carrier by rail, motor, water, air or express company doing business in or operating within the state.” “Employee” is “any person who may be permitted, required, or directed by any employer . . . in consideration of direct or indirect gain or profit, to engage in any employment.” Neither counts employees.

Section 181.62 is the enforcement, and it is one line: “Any employer who violates any of the provisions of sections 181.60 to 181.62 is guilty of a misdemeanor.” Those three sections state no private civil action, and they do not appear in the compliance-order list in Minn. Stat. § 177.27, subd. 4.

Where the records end up

Three statutes put medical information in a different file from the rest of the employment record, and one keeps it out of the record an employee can demand.

Section 363A.20, subd. 8(a)(1)(iv), and 42 U.S.C. § 12112(d)(3)(B) both require separate forms and separate medical files, treated as a confidential medical record. Section 2000ff-5(a) says the same for genetic information, and adds that an employer is in compliance with its maintenance requirement where the information “is maintained with and treated as a confidential medical record under section 12112(d)(3)(B).”

The Minnesota personnel-record statute then takes those files out of what an employee may demand. Minn. Stat. § 181.960, subd. 4, defines “personnel record” and excludes, at clause (10), “medical reports and records, including reports and records that are available to the employee from a health care services provider pursuant to sections 144.291 to 144.298.” The seven-working-day file request in § 181.961 does not produce them; the statute points the employee at the health care provider instead. The rest of that mechanism is in your personnel file is free discovery.

The clocks are not the same

A claim under § 363A.08, subd. 4, is a claim of an unfair discriminatory practice and runs on the Human Rights Act’s period. Minn. Stat. § 363A.28, subd. 3(a):

A claim of an unfair discriminatory practice must be brought as a civil action pursuant to section 363A.33, subdivision 1, filed in a charge with a local commission pursuant to section 363A.07, subdivision 3, or filed in a charge with the commissioner within one year after the occurrence of the practice.

Paragraphs (b) and (c) of the same subdivision suspend that year in two situations; how they run is in discrimination claims are lost on the calendar.

A GINA claim runs on Title VII’s procedures by way of 42 U.S.C. § 2000ff-6(a)(1), and an ADA claim by way of 42 U.S.C. § 12117(a), which makes “[t]he powers, remedies, and procedures set forth in sections 2000e–4, 2000e–5, 2000e–6, 2000e–8, and 2000e–9 of this title” the powers, remedies, and procedures of the ADA’s employment title. Section 181.974 states no period at all, and § 181.61 states none either. How those periods interact, and which of them is measured from what, is worked through in discrimination claims are lost on the calendar and in every Minnesota employment deadline in one table.

Currency

The revisor currently publishes the 2025 Minnesota Statutes edition. The History lines read: § 181.974, “2001 c 154 s 1; 1Sp2001 c 9 art 13 s 20”; § 181.60, “1951 c 201 s 1”; § 181.61, “1951 c 201 s 2; 1Sp2001 c 9 art 15 s 32”; § 181.62, “1951 c 201 s 3”; § 363A.20, “1955 c 516 s 4; . . . 2004 c 206 s 52; 2024 c 105 s 11”; § 181.960, “1989 c 349 s 1; 1994 c 595 s 1; 2007 c 147 art 10 s 15; 2024 c 127 art 9 s 4.”

The revisor’s table of Minnesota Statutes affected by the 2026 Regular Session was queried one exact section at a time and every returned row read on its Session column. Sections 181.974, 181.960, 363A.20, 363A.28, and 177.27 show no 2026 action; §§ 181.60, 181.61, and 181.62 return “No Records Found” across the whole range the table covers.

Section 363A.08 does show a 2026 action, and the posted text does not yet carry it. The table returns one 2026 row for that section: subdivision 4, amended by Laws 2026, chapter 88, article 1, section 196. The revisor’s page for § 363A.08 carries the corresponding notice. Reading that section in the session law’s strike-and-insert markup, the amendment touches one sentence — paragraph (b), where the words “sections 363A.06, subdivision 4, and” are struck and the word “section” is inserted in their place, leaving the cross-reference to § 363A.28, subdivisions 1 to 9, standing alone. The prohibitions in paragraph (a), which are what this page quotes, are not altered. Laws 2026, chapter 88, is the revisor’s technical-corrections act — its title recites that it is an act “relating to legislative enactments; making miscellaneous technical corrections to laws and statutes; correcting erroneous, obsolete, and omitted text and references; removing redundant, conflicting, and superseded provisions” — and the title contains no appropriation. Section 196 carries no effective-date clause of its own; the next line in the act is section 197. This page quotes paragraph (a) as the revisor currently publishes it and states paragraph (b)’s amendment from the session law rather than from the posted text.

The federal sections were retrieved from the Legal Information Institute on September 11, 2026. The GINA sections quoted here all carry the same credit, “Pub. L. 110–233, title II, . . . May 21, 2008.”

This page describes the machinery. Whether a particular test is a genetic test, whether a particular question sought information pertaining to disability, whether a particular examination tested only for essential job-related abilities, and whether particular information adversely affected a decision are questions about a specific record, and applying these statutes to them is not what this page does.