Minnesota's Accommodation Duty Turns on 15 Employees and a Job You Can Do — Not on Whether You Are "On Disability"

The number that decides whether the duty exists at all

Minnesota’s accommodation duty is one subdivision of one section, and it is the only part of that section that counts heads. Minn. Stat. § 363A.08, subd. 6(a), in full:

Except when based on a bona fide occupational qualification, it is an unfair employment practice for an employer with a number of part-time or full-time employees for each working day in each of 20 or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year equal to or greater than 25 effective July 1, 1992, and equal to or greater than 15 effective July 1, 1994, an employment agency, or a labor organization, not to provide a reasonable accommodation for a job applicant or qualified employee with a disability unless the employer, agency, or organization can demonstrate that the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the business, agency, or organization. “Reasonable accommodation” means steps which must be taken to accommodate the known physical or mental limitations of a qualified individual with a disability. To determine the appropriate reasonable accommodation the employer, agency, or organization shall initiate an informal, interactive process with the individual with a disability in need of the accommodation. This process should identify the limitations resulting from the disability and any potential reasonable accommodations that could overcome those limitations. “Reasonable accommodation” may include but is not limited to, nor does it necessarily require: (1) making facilities readily accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities; and (2) job restructuring, modified work schedules, reassignment to a vacant position, acquisition or modification of equipment or devices, and the provision of aides on a temporary or periodic basis.

The Legislature wrote the threshold as two dated tiers and never cleaned them up: 25 employees from July 1, 1992, and 15 from July 1, 1994. The operative number today is 15, and it is counted the federal way — employees on each working day in each of 20 or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year.

That floor belongs to subdivision 6 and travels no further. Section 363A.03, subd. 16, defines “employer” for the whole chapter as “a person who has one or more employees,” and § 363A.08, subd. 2 — which makes it an unfair employment practice for an employer to “discharge an employee” because of disability, among thirteen other grounds — carries no headcount qualifier. So a Minnesota employer with four employees may not fire someone because of a disability, and owes no accommodation duty under subdivision 6. Two different rules, two different reaches, same section. Firing generally is covered on was my firing illegal.

Two categories of work sit outside § 363A.08 entirely. Under § 363A.20, subd. 1, the section “shall not apply to the employment of any individual: (1) by the individual’s parent, grandparent, spouse, child, or grandchild; or (2) in the domestic service of any person.”

“Disability” is a definition, not a determination

Minn. Stat. § 363A.03, subd. 12, in full:

“Disability” means any condition or characteristic that renders a person a disabled person. A disabled person is any person who (1) has a physical, sensory, or mental impairment which materially limits one or more major life activities; (2) has a record of such an impairment; (3) is regarded as having such an impairment; or (4) has an impairment that is episodic or in remission and would materially limit a major life activity when active.

Clause (4) is new. Laws 2024, ch. 105, § 2, added it, and the Revisor’s Recent History panel for § 363A.03 records the amendment as “2024 Subd. 12 Amended 2024 c 105 s 2.” The 2023 edition of the subdivision ended at clause (3): “A disabled person is any person who (1) has a physical, sensory, or mental impairment which materially limits one or more major life activities; (2) has a record of such an impairment; or (3) is regarded as having such an impairment.” A condition that flares and subsides — the kind an employer is most likely to describe as “you seemed fine last month” — is now named in the definition and measured by what it does when active.

Read what the definition does not say. A case-insensitive search of chapter 363A as the Revisor publishes it returns zero occurrences of “Social Security,” zero of “disability rating,” zero of “doctor,” and zero of “medical certification.” The word “physician” appears twice in the entire chapter — once in § 363A.20, subd. 8(a)(4), about the duration of fringe-benefit disability payments, and once in § 363A.50, about organ transplants — and neither occurrence conditions the accommodation duty on a note. The definition is functional: an impairment, a major life activity, and whether the first materially limits the second.

Minnesota’s verb is also not the federal verb. Minnesota says an impairment that “materially limits” a major life activity. The ADA says one that “substantially limits.” 42 U.S.C. § 12102(1)(A). The federal statute then instructs that its definition “shall be construed in favor of broad coverage of individuals under this chapter, to the maximum extent permitted by the terms of this chapter,” § 12102(4)(A), and that “[a]n impairment that is episodic or in remission is a disability if it would substantially limit a major life activity when active,” § 12102(4)(D). Minnesota’s 2024 clause (4) tracks that federal rule.

Qualified, essential functions, and where the burden sits

The duty runs to a “job applicant or qualified employee with a disability.” Section 363A.03, subd. 36, supplies the test and then assigns the burden:

“Qualified disabled person” means:

(1) with respect to employment, a disabled person who, with reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential functions required of all applicants for the job in question …

For the purposes of this subdivision, “disability” excludes any condition resulting from alcohol or drug abuse which prevents a person from performing the essential functions of the job in question or constitutes a direct threat to property or the safety of others.

If a respondent contends that the person is not a qualified disabled person, the burden is on the respondent to prove that it was reasonable to conclude the disabled person, with reasonable accommodation, could not have met the requirements of the job or that the selected person was demonstrably better able to perform the job.

Three words in clause (1) do most of the work. With reasonable accommodation — the accommodation is inside the test, not a favor granted after you pass it. The federal definition is broader on this exact point: 42 U.S.C. § 12111(8) says “with or without reasonable accommodation.” The Minnesota Supreme Court set the two texts side by side in McBee v. Team Industries, Inc., 925 N.W.2d 222 (Minn. 2019) — quotations here are to the court’s slip opinion in No. A17-0060, filed March 27, 2019 — and treated federal precedent on “essential functions” as persuasive because the two statutes track each other there. McBee, slip op. at 15–16.

Minnesota does not define “essential functions,” so McBee borrowed the federal formulation: “essential functions” are “the fundamental job duties of the employment position,” and the concept “does not include the marginal functions of the position.” Id. at 16 (quoting 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(n)(1) (2018)). The court then listed the factors it would consider:

(1) the employer’s judgment as to which functions are essential; (2) written job descriptions prepared before advertising or interviewing applicants for the job; (3) the amount of time spent on the job performing the function; (4) the consequences of not requiring the incumbent to perform the function; and (5) the current work experience of incumbents in similar jobs.

Id. (quoting Moritz v. Frontier Airlines, Inc., 147 F.3d 784, 787 (8th Cir. 1998)).

McBee is worth knowing because of how ordinary the dispute was. A die-cast operator came back with a ten-pound lifting restriction. Her employer said the job required changing ram tips and shoveling scrap out of the pit under the machine, both of which sometimes exceed ten pounds. The employer’s own shift lead testified that an operator could work the shift with the restriction, that ram-tip changes happened two to three times a week, and that helping with them was part of his job; another operator testified that she had never been turned down when she asked for help. The supreme court held those facts created a genuine dispute for trial: “The selection of shovels, the weight of a loaded shovel, and the reasonable length of an operator’s cleaning time are fact issues that we are in no position to resolve on this record.” McBee, slip op. at 18.

One question McBee expressly reserved. In a footnote the court wrote: “We need not, and do not, decide whether an employer can impose an ‘essential’ requirement that an employee be able to lift a certain amount of weight without directly tying that requirement to specific functions of the job.” Id. at 19 n.6. A blanket “must lift 50 pounds” line in a job description is therefore an assumption the court declined to test, not a rule it approved.

The interactive process: the court said no, then the Legislature said yes

This is the part of Minnesota accommodation law most likely to be described to you incorrectly, including by people quoting a real Minnesota Supreme Court case.

In 2019 the court held, in the first syllabus point of McBee:

An interactive process between an employer and an employee seeking accommodation for a disability is not required by the Minnesota Human Rights Act, Minn. Stat. §§ 363A.01–.44 (2018).

McBee, slip op. at 2. The reasoning was structural. The statute then read that it was an unfair employment practice “not to make reasonable accommodation to the known disability of a qualified disabled person … unless the employer … can demonstrate that the accommodation would impose an undue hardship.” Id. at 13 (quoting Minn. Stat. § 363A.08, subd. 6(a)). The court held that “[t]he word ‘unless’ functions to make undue hardship an exception to the rule that qualified employees must be reasonably accommodated,” so that any interactive-process analysis lived inside the exception rather than in the duty. Id. It added a warning in a footnote: “in many cases, an employer may avoid communicating with an employee seeking accommodation at its own peril. As a practical matter, thorough communication may be the only way to determine whether the employee could be reasonably accommodated—and for the employer to avoid liability.” Id. at 14 n.4.

The court also identified precisely what Minnesota was missing. It quoted the federal regulation defining the interactive process, 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(o)(3) (2018) — “To determine the appropriate reasonable accommodation it may be necessary for the covered entity to initiate an informal, interactive process with the individual with a disability in need of the accommodation. This process should identify the precise limitations resulting from the disability and potential reasonable accommodations that could overcome those limitations” — and then observed: “Here, McBee does not point to a state law similar to the federal regulation. Because the Minnesota Human Rights Act and the federal regulation are dissimilar in this regard, we decline to follow federal precedent on this issue.” Id. at 10–11.

Two years later the Legislature supplied the state law. Laws 2021, 1st Spec. Sess., ch. 11, art. 3, § 13, amended § 363A.08, subd. 6, and among its changes inserted this sentence, which the Revisor’s session-law text marks as new:

To determine the appropriate reasonable accommodation the employer, agency, or organization shall initiate an informal, interactive process with the individual with a disability in need of the accommodation. This process should identify the limitations resulting from the disability and any potential reasonable accommodations that could overcome those limitations.

Set that against the regulation McBee said had no state counterpart. The Legislature took the federal sentence and made two changes that matter: “it may be necessary for the covered entity to initiate” became “the employer, agency, or organization shall initiate,” and “the precise limitations” became “the limitations.” The permissive federal phrasing came out; a mandatory verb went in.

The same section made three other changes to subdivision 6(a). The duty “not to make reasonable accommodation to the known disability of a qualified disabled person or job applicant” became a duty “not to provide a reasonable accommodation for a job applicant or qualified employee with a disability”; the phrase “qualified disabled person” in the definition of reasonable accommodation became “qualified individual with a disability”; and in the illustrative list, “making facilities readily accessible to and usable by disabled persons” became “usable by individuals with disabilities.”

Section 13 of that article carries no effective-date clause of its own, so Minn. Stat. § 645.02 supplies the date. Its two defaults differ:

Each act, except one making appropriations, enacted finally at any session of the legislature takes effect on August 1 next following its final enactment, unless a different date is specified in the act. …

An 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.

Laws 2021, 1st Spec. Sess., ch. 11, is an act having appropriation items — its title recites that it is “appropriating money for courts, public safety, sentencing guidelines, corrections, human rights,” among other agencies, and its article 1 is titled “APPROPRIATIONS.” The second default therefore governs. The governor approved the chapter on June 30, 2021, and it was filed with the secretary of state the same day, so the first day of July next following its final enactment was July 1, 2021. The Revisor has published the amended text of subdivision 6(a) in the 2021, 2022, and current editions of Minnesota Statutes; the 2020 edition does not contain the interactive-process sentence.

Undue hardship is the employer’s exception, and it has named factors

Once the duty attaches, the statute puts the escape hatch on the employer’s side. Section 363A.08, subd. 6(b):

In determining whether an accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the operation of a business or organization, factors to be considered include:

(1) the overall size of the business or organization with respect to number of employees or members and the number and type of facilities;

(2) the type of the operation, including the composition and structure of the work force, and the number of employees at the location where the employment would occur;

(3) the nature and cost of the needed accommodation;

(4) the reasonable ability to finance the accommodation at each site of business; and

(5) documented good faith efforts to explore less restrictive or less expensive alternatives, including consultation with the disabled person or with knowledgeable disabled persons or organizations.

A prospective employer need not pay for an accommodation for a job applicant if it is available from an alternative source without cost to the employer or applicant.

Factor (5) is the one that repays reading twice. The employer’s own record of what it tried — and whether it talked to the person — is a listed factor in its own defense. McBee read the structure the same way: undue hardship is “an exception to the rule that qualified employees must be reasonably accommodated,” and “demonstration that an accommodation would pose an undue hardship is unnecessary unless the employer is first obligated to make the accommodation.” McBee, slip op. at 12–13.

Minnesota’s subdivision does not define “undue hardship” in words; it lists factors and stops. The federal statute does define it: “The term ‘undue hardship’ means an action requiring significant difficulty or expense, when considered in light of the factors set forth in subparagraph (B).” 42 U.S.C. § 12111(10)(A). The federal factors at § 12111(10)(B) are four rather than five and include “the overall financial resources of the covered entity” and “the geographic separateness, administrative, or fiscal relationship of the facility or facilities in question to the covered entity.”

The federal overlay is broader in one place and narrower in another

Under 42 U.S.C. § 12112(b)(5), “discriminate against a qualified individual on the basis of disability” includes:

(A) not making reasonable accommodations to the known physical or mental limitations of an otherwise qualified individual with a disability who is an applicant or employee, unless such covered entity can demonstrate that the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the operation of the business of such covered entity; or

(B) denying employment opportunities to a job applicant or employee who is an otherwise qualified individual with a disability, if such denial is based on the need of such covered entity to make reasonable accommodation to the physical or mental impairments of the employee or applicant.

Subparagraph (B) has no direct Minnesota counterpart in § 363A.08, subd. 6: refusing to hire because accommodating would be necessary is separately named as discrimination in the federal statute.

The federal list of what an accommodation “may include” is longer than Minnesota’s. Section 12111(9):

(A) making existing facilities used by employees readily accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities; and

(B) job restructuring, part-time or modified work schedules, reassignment to a vacant position, acquisition or modification of equipment or devices, appropriate adjustment or modifications of examinations, training materials or policies, the provision of qualified readers or interpreters, and other similar accommodations for individuals with disabilities.

Minnesota’s parallel list in subdivision 6(a) omits part-time schedules, examination and training-material modifications, and readers and interpreters — and it is prefaced by “may include but is not limited to, nor does it necessarily require,” which cuts in both directions.

The ADA’s employer threshold is the same 15 Minnesota uses, counted the same way: a person “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.” § 12111(5)(A). The federal Act excludes the United States, a corporation wholly owned by the federal government, an Indian tribe, and certain private membership clubs. § 12111(5)(B).

The safety defense, and who has to prove it

Minn. Stat. § 363A.25 supplies a defense and immediately assigns it:

It is a defense to a complaint or action brought under the employment provisions of this chapter that the person bringing the complaint or action has a disability which in the circumstances and even with reasonable accommodation, as defined in section 363A.08, subdivision 6, poses a serious threat to the health or safety of the disabled person or others. The burden of proving this defense is upon the respondent.

McBee applied it and showed what it takes. The employer there relied on the employee’s own frightened statement that she might be paralyzed. The supreme court said an employer “may satisfy the standard by establishing that it relied on competent medical advice,” and that the employee’s “admittedly ‘very shook up,’ ‘very emotional,’ ‘crying’ statement that she could be paralyzed just by ‘looking up’ is not competent medical advice.” McBee, slip op. at 20. Her own neurosurgeon had disclaimed the dramatic version.

Asking is separately protected — and how you ask decides whether it counts

Minn. Stat. § 363A.15 makes reprisal its own unfair discriminatory practice. It reaches any listed actor who intentionally engages in reprisal against a person because that person:

(1) opposed a practice forbidden under this chapter or has filed a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under this chapter; or

(2) associated with a person or group of persons who are disabled or who are of different race, color, creed, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, or national origin.

And it defines the term with a list:

A reprisal includes, but is not limited to, any form of intimidation, retaliation, or harassment. It is a reprisal for an employer to do any of the following with respect to an individual because that individual has engaged in the activities listed in clause (1) or (2): refuse to hire the individual; depart from any customary employment practice; transfer or assign the individual to a lesser position in terms of wages, hours, job classification, job security, or other employment status; or inform another employer that the individual has engaged in the activities listed in clause (1) or (2).

Two features are easy to miss: the reprisal must be intentional, and “depart from any customary employment practice” is on the list of named reprisals.

The Minnesota Supreme Court has drawn a sharp line about what makes a request protected in the first place. In Hoover v. Norwest Private Mortgage Banking, 632 N.W.2d 534 (Minn. 2001), an employee with fibromyalgia repeatedly asked for loan-processing support. The court wrote:

Standing alone, a request for assistance in performing one’s job may not constitute protected activity, but when the employee specifically ties a request for work assistance to a disability, the employee engages in protected activity under the MHRA.

Hoover, 632 N.W.2d at 548. The same tie does double duty on the accommodation claim itself: Hoover held that to maintain one, the employee “is required to establish that Norwest knew of her disability and failed to make a reasonable accommodation for that disability,” id. at 547, and that the record’s evidence of repeated conversations connecting her need for help to her condition created a genuine issue on the employer’s knowledge, id. at 548. (Hoover was decided under the pre-recodification numbering — it cites Minn. Stat. § 363.03, subd. 1(6), and § 363.01, subd. 36(1) (2000). The History line for § 363A.08 records the recodification as “2001 c 194 s 2.”)

Religion: the chapter names it, and writes no accommodation duty for it

Chapter 363A protects religion and creed. Section 363A.08, subd. 2, makes it an unfair employment practice for an employer to refuse to hire, discharge, or discriminate in the terms of employment “because of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity, marital status, status with regard to public assistance, familial status, membership or activity in a local commission, disability, sexual orientation, or age.” A case-insensitive search of the chapter as the Revisor publishes it returns 36 occurrences of “religion,” 22 of “religious,” and 33 of “creed.”

A search of the same text for accommodation duties returns something different. Every one of them is written for disability: the employment duty at § 363A.08, subd. 6; the housing duty at § 363A.10, subd. 1(2), which defines discrimination for purposes of § 363A.09 to include “a refusal to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services, when accommodations may be necessary to afford a disabled person equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling”; the public-accommodation duty at § 363A.11, subd. 1(2); and the transplant-services duty at § 363A.50. No provision of chapter 363A imposes a duty to accommodate religious observance or practice in employment. The chapter is silent on that, and this page does not fill the silence.

What the chapter does carry on religion are exemptions. Section 363A.20, subd. 2: “The provisions of section 363A.08 shall not apply to a fraternal corporation, association, or society, with respect to qualifications based on religion, when religion is a bona fide occupational qualification for employment.” And § 363A.26 exempts a religious association, corporation, or society not organized for private profit — and an educational institution it operates — from the chapter with respect to, among other things, “limiting admission to or giving preference to persons of the same religion or denomination.” That section then limits itself: “This section shall not apply to secular business activities engaged in by the religious association, religious corporation, religious society, or any institution organized for educational purposes … the conduct of which is unrelated to the religious and educational purposes for which it is organized.”

The federal duty exists and comes from a definition rather than a duty clause. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(j):

The term “religion” includes all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief, unless an employer demonstrates that he is unable to reasonably accommodate to an employee’s or prospective employee’s religious observance or practice without undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business.

Pregnancy runs on a different section with no size floor

If the accommodation you need is for a health condition related to pregnancy or childbirth, Minn. Stat. § 181.939, subd. 2(a), is the operative provision. It begins:

An employer must provide reasonable accommodations to an employee for health conditions related to pregnancy or childbirth upon request, with the advice of a licensed health care provider or certified doula, unless the employer demonstrates that the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the operation of the employer’s business.

That section’s own definition of “employer” reaches an entity with one employee, it forbids an undue-hardship claim for three named accommodations outright, and it contains its own interactive-process sentence. The full treatment is on pregnancy and parenting leave. Section 181.939, subd. 2(b), preserves everything else: nothing in that subdivision “shall be construed to affect any other provision of law relating to sex discrimination or pregnancy or in any way diminish the coverage of pregnancy, childbirth, or health conditions related to pregnancy or childbirth under any other provisions of any other law.”

The clock

A failure to accommodate is a claim of an unfair discriminatory practice, and it runs on the chapter’s one-year 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) describe the two circumstances that suspend the year. The deadline, the suspensions, and the separate federal clock are laid out on discrimination claims are lost on the calendar; the administrative route is on the MDHR charge, step by step. Harassment because of a disability is the same chapter and the same clock but a different provision — see the 2024 amendment untethered harassment from sex.

Currency

The Revisor currently publishes the 2025 Minnesota Statutes edition. The History lines read: § 363A.08, “1955 c 516 s 5; … 2001 c 186 s 1; 2001 c 194 s 2; 2014 c 239 art 4 s 6-9; 1Sp2021 c 11 art 3 s 13; 2023 c 52 art 19 s 52-56”; § 363A.03, “1955 c 516 s 3; … 2023 c 3 s 1; 2023 c 52 art 19 s 46-48; 2024 c 105 s 2-5”; § 363A.15, “1955 c 516 s 5; … 2001 c 194 s 2; 2023 c 52 art 19 s 68”; § 363A.20, “1955 c 516 s 4; … 2004 c 206 s 52; 2024 c 105 s 11”; § 363A.25, “1955 c 516 s 4; … 1998 c 397 art 11 s 3.” The Revisor’s Recent History panel drops the special-session prefix from the 2021 act and shows it as “2021 c 11 art 3 s 13”; the History line carries the correct form.

Checked against the Revisor’s table of Minnesota Statutes affected by the 2026 Regular Session, queried one exact section at a time: § 363A.08 shows one 2026 action — subdivision 4 amended by Laws 2026, ch. 88, art. 1, § 196, which does not touch subdivision 6. Sections 363A.03, 363A.10, 363A.11, 363A.15, 363A.20, 363A.25, 363A.26, 363A.28, 363A.50, 181.939, and 645.02 show no 2026 action.

This page describes the machinery. Whether a particular impairment materially limits a major life activity, whether a particular task is an essential function, and whether a particular accommodation would impose an undue hardship are questions about a specific job and a specific record, and applying these sections to them is not what this page does.