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Guide · 18 min read

The Department of Labor and Industry Can Order Double Back Pay; Your Own Lawsuit Gets Mandatory Attorney Fees — and the Two Routes Do Not Cover the Same Statutes

Minn. Stat. § 177.27 gives the commissioner of labor and industry investigation powers, a compliance order that becomes final in 15 days, and a remedy of back pay plus an equal amount as liquidated damages. Minn. Stat. § 181.171 and § 177.27, subd. 8, are two separate private actions reaching two different lists of sections, and only one of them carries liquidated damages. Neither route stops the two-year clock in § 541.07(5).

Nothing on this page is advice about your job, and no article can be. If you want your own facts looked at, a Minnesota employment attorney can do that — and several of the deadlines described on this site are short enough that waiting is itself a decision.

In this guide
  1. Who the Department is, and how much of employment law it administers
  2. What the commissioner can do before anything is decided
  3. The compliance order, and the fifteen days of silence that make it final
  4. What the order costs the employer
  5. Two private actions, two different lists
  6. Choosing one route does not give up the other
  7. Construction work has its own layer
  8. Neither route stops the clock
  9. Currency
  10. What this page does not do

Who the Department is, and how much of employment law it administers

The agency that takes wage complaints is not a general employment agency, and its jurisdiction is set by statute rather than by practice. Minn. Stat. § 177.26, subd. 1, creates “[t]he Division of Labor Standards in the Department of Labor and Industry,” “supervised and controlled by the commissioner of labor and industry.” Subdivision 2 is one sentence, and it is a wide one: “The Division of Labor Standards shall administer this chapter and chapters 181, 181A, and 184.”

That is the minimum wage and overtime chapter, the wage-payment and employment-practices chapter, the child labor chapter, and the employment agencies chapter. It is not the Human Rights Act, and it is not unemployment insurance — which agency hears which claim is mapped on courts, agencies, and who decides what.

What the commissioner can do before anything is decided

Three subdivisions of Minn. Stat. § 177.27 operate before any order issues.

Subdivision 1 is the inspection power. The commissioner “may enter during reasonable office hours or upon request and inspect the place of business or employment of any employer of employees working in the state, to examine and inspect books, registers, payrolls, and other records of any employer that in any way relate to wages, hours, and other conditions of employment of any employees.” The commissioner may transcribe any of it, “may question the employer, employees, and other persons to ascertain compliance with any of the sections listed in subdivision 4,” and “may investigate wage claims or complaints by an employee against an employer if the failure to pay a wage may violate Minnesota law or an order or rule of the department.”

Subdivision 2 is the production power, and it is expensive to ignore. The commissioner may require an employer “to submit to the commissioner photocopies, certified copies, or, if necessary, the originals of records that relate to employment or employment status which the commissioner deems necessary or appropriate,” including “full and correct statements in writing, including sworn statements by the employer.” Paragraph (b): “Employers and persons requested by the commissioner to produce records shall respond within the time and in the manner specified by the commissioner.” Paragraph (d): “The commissioner may fine the employer up to $10,000 for each failure to submit or deliver records as required by this section. This penalty is in addition to any penalties provided under section 177.32, subdivision 1.”

Subdivision 3 decides what happens when the records are not there:

If the records maintained by the employer do not provide sufficient information to determine the exact amount of back wages due an employee, the commissioner may make a determination of wages due based on available evidence.

The same sentence appears at Minn. Stat. § 177.30(d). It is not a small provision: the recordkeeping duty in § 177.30(a) is the employer’s, and § 177.27, subd. 3, tells the commissioner to proceed on what exists rather than stopping. Note the limit too — both sentences are addressed to the commissioner. Neither says anything about what an employee must prove in the employee’s own lawsuit.

The compliance order, and the fifteen days of silence that make it final

Subdivision 4 is the center of the administrative route. The commissioner “may issue an order requiring an employer to comply with” a long enumerated list of sections, which as posted runs:

sections 177.21 to 177.435, 177.50, 179.86, 181.02, 181.03, 181.031, 181.032, 181.10, 181.101, 181.11, 181.13, 181.14, 181.145, 181.15, 181.165, 181.172, paragraph (a) or (d), 181.214 to 181.217, 181.275, subdivision 2a, 181.635, 181.64, 181.722, 181.723, 181.79, 181.85 to 181.89, 181.939 to 181.943, 181.9445 to 181.9448, 181.987, 181.991, 268B.09, subdivisions 1 to 6, and 268B.14, subdivision 3, with any rule promulgated under section 177.28, 181.213, or 181.215.

For three of those the order is mandatory on a repeat violation: “The commissioner shall issue an order requiring an employer to comply with sections 177.41 to 177.435, 181.165, or 181.987 if the violation is repeated,” and the subdivision defines “repeated” for itself — a violation is repeated “if at any time during the two years that preceded the date of violation, the commissioner issued an order to the employer for violation of sections 177.41 to 177.435, 181.165, or 181.987 and the order is final or the commissioner and the employer have entered into a settlement agreement that required the employer to pay back wages.”

Service and objection are the part that decides cases without a hearing:

The department shall serve the order upon the employer or the employer’s authorized representative in person or by certified mail at the employer’s place of business. An employer who wishes to contest the order must file written notice of objection to the order with the commissioner within 15 calendar days after being served with the order. A contested case proceeding must then be held in accordance with sections 14.57 to 14.69 or 181.165. If, within 15 calendar days after being served with the order, the employer fails to file a written notice of objection with the commissioner, the order becomes a final order of the commissioner.

The subdivision closes by extending its own reach: “For the purposes of this subdivision, an employer includes a contractor that has assumed a subcontractor’s liability within the meaning of section 181.165.”

After a contested case, review is by certiorari, not by a new lawsuit. Minn. Stat. § 14.63 provides that “[a]ny person aggrieved by a final decision in a contested case is entitled to judicial review of the decision under the provisions of sections 14.63 to 14.68, but nothing in sections 14.63 to 14.68 shall be deemed to prevent resort to other means of review, redress, relief, or trial de novo provided by law,” and that a petition for a writ of certiorari “must be filed with the court of appeals and served on all parties to the contested case not more than 30 days after the party receives the final decision and order of the agency.” Minn. Stat. § 14.69 sets the scope: the court “may affirm the decision of the agency or remand the case for further proceedings; or it may reverse or modify the decision if the substantial rights of the petitioners may have been prejudiced because the administrative finding, inferences, conclusion, or decisions are: (a) in violation of constitutional provisions; or (b) in excess of the statutory authority or jurisdiction of the agency; or (c) made upon unlawful procedure; or (d) affected by other error of law; or (e) unsupported by substantial evidence in view of the entire record as submitted; or (f) arbitrary or capricious.”

A separate section, Minn. Stat. § 177.29, is sometimes cited as the appeal route from a wage order and is not. Its whole operative text is: “A person aggrieved by an administrative rule issued under section 177.28 may appeal in accordance with chapter 14.” That reaches a rule, not an order.

One naming note for anyone reading these sections in 2026: the Revisor prints a note on both § 14.63 and § 14.69 that “[t]he Office of Administrative Hearings has been renamed the Court of Administrative Hearings. This terminology change will be implemented in the 2026 Statutes. Laws 2025, chapter 39, article 2, sections 17 and 68.”

What the order costs the employer

Subdivision 7 is the longest remedial provision in Minnesota’s wage statutes, and almost nothing that summarizes it reports more than one clause. It opens with equitable relief:

If an employer is found by the commissioner to have violated a section identified in subdivision 4, or any rule adopted under section 177.28, 181.213, or 181.215, and the commissioner issues an order to comply, the commissioner shall order the employer to cease and desist from engaging in the violative practice and to take such affirmative steps that in the judgment of the commissioner will effectuate the purposes of the section or rule violated.

Then the money:

In addition to remedies, damages, and penalties provided for in the violated section, 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.

Read the opening clause. The liquidated damages are “[i]n addition to remedies, damages, and penalties provided for in the violated section” — so where the violated section carries its own penalty, such as the average-daily-earnings penalty in § 181.13(a), the subdivision does not displace it.

Four more powers follow in the same subdivision:

  • Reinstatement. “The commissioner may also order reinstatement and any other appropriate relief to the aggrieved parties.”
  • A repeat or willful penalty. An employer “found by the commissioner to have repeatedly or willfully violated a section or sections identified in subdivision 4 shall be subject to an additional civil penalty of up to $10,000 for each violation for each employee,” with “the appropriateness of such penalty to the size of the employer’s business and the gravity of the violation” to be considered.
  • Cost reimbursement, with a hardship valve. The commissioner “may order the employer to reimburse the department and the attorney general for all appropriate litigation and hearing costs expended in preparation for and in conducting the contested case proceeding, unless payment of costs would impose extreme financial hardship on the employer,” in which case the commissioner “may order the employer to pay a percentage of the total costs that will not cause extreme financial hardship.” Those costs “include but are not limited to the costs of services rendered by the attorney general, private attorneys if engaged by the department, administrative law judges, court reporters, and expert witnesses as well as the cost of transcripts.”
  • Interest and escrow. “Interest shall accrue on, and be added to, the unpaid balance of a commissioner’s order from the date the order is signed by the commissioner until it is paid, at an annual rate provided in section 549.09, subdivision 1, paragraph (c). The commissioner may establish escrow accounts for purposes of distributing remedies and damages.”

Subdivision 5 supplies the enforcement tools. The commissioner “may bring an action in the district court where an employer resides or where the commissioner maintains an office to enforce or require compliance with orders issued under subdivision 4,” and “[i]n addition to any other remedy provided by law,” may apply in the same courts “for an order enjoining and restraining violations of any statute or rule listed in subdivision 4.”

Subdivision 11 is the part employers notice. On issuing an order to comply, the commissioner “shall provide” both the order and its resolution “made through settlement or other final disposition” to “a licensing or regulatory authority of one or more state agencies or agencies of a political subdivision to which the employer is subject” and to “a public contracting authority with which the employer is party to a public contract.” The commissioner shall also provide the data “to the employer’s employees whose interests are affected by the order, including an explanation of how the order was resolved.” Data provided under the subdivision “is subject to section 13.39,” and a receiving licensing agency or contracting authority “is subject to chapter 13 and must protect not public data received under this subdivision from unlawful disclosure.”

Two private actions, two different lists

Minnesota has two separate statutes letting an employee sue over pay without going to the Department first, and the most common error is treating them as one.

Minn. Stat. § 177.27, subd. 8 Minn. Stat. § 181.171
Sections it reaches “sections 177.21 to 177.44 and 181.165” “sections 181.02, 181.03, 181.031, 181.032, 181.08, 181.09, 181.10, 181.101, 181.11, 181.13, 181.14, 181.145, 181.15, 181.722, and 181.723”
What that is, in plain terms minimum wage, overtime, breaks, meal breaks, payroll cards, recordkeeping, prevailing wage, and construction-contractor liability the wage-payment chapter: paydays, earnings statements and the start-of-employment notice, final paychecks, commissions, and the instrument the wages are paid in
Where “directly to district court”; venue under subd. 9 in the county of violation, the respondent’s residence or principal place of business, “or any other court of competent jurisdiction” “directly to district court”; venue under subd. 2 on the same terms
Core recovery “the full amount of the wages, gratuities, and overtime compensation, less any amount the employer or contractor is able to establish was actually paid to the employee and for an additional equal amount as liquidated damages “the civil penalties or damages provided for in the section violated,” plus “compensatory damages and other appropriate relief including but not limited to injunctive relief”
Other relief “the employee may seek damages and other appropriate relief provided by subdivision 7 and otherwise provided by law” injunctive relief is named expressly
Attorney fees Mandatory, subd. 10: the court “shall order” costs, disbursements, witness fees, and attorney fees Mandatory, subd. 3: the court “shall order” costs, disbursements, witness fees, and attorney fees
A defense the statute forecloses “An agreement between the employee and the employer to work for less than the applicable wage is not a defense to the action.” none stated in the section
Who may sue “The action may be brought by one or more employees,” subd. 9 “A person,” subd. 1

The claim: "Any unpaid-wage case in Minnesota gets you double damages."

It does not, and which statute the shortfall violates decides it. Liquidated damages in this area come from two places, and neither is § 181.171. Minn. Stat. § 177.27, subd. 7, gives the commissioner power to order "an additional equal amount as liquidated damages," and that route does reach the chapter 181 pay sections because they are on the subd. 4 list. Minn. Stat. § 177.27, subd. 8, gives an employee liquidated damages in a private action, but the sections it names are "sections 177.21 to 177.44 and 181.165" — the minimum wage and overtime chapter and the construction-contractor section, not § 181.032, not § 181.101, and not § 181.13. Section 181.171 contains no liquidated-damages provision at all; its remedies are the violated section's own penalties or damages, plus compensatory damages and other appropriate relief, plus mandatory fees. An employee suing over a late final paycheck under § 181.13 is on the § 181.171 route, and the doubling that section does not supply comes, if at all, from § 181.13(a)'s own average-daily-earnings penalty.

Two sections carry their own doubling outside both routes and are worth knowing exist. Minn. Stat. § 181.79, subd. 2, makes an employer who takes an unlawful deduction “liable in a civil action brought by the employee for twice the amount of the deduction or credit taken” — described on deductions from your pay — and Minn. Stat. § 181.03, subd. 3, makes an employer who violates that section “liable in a civil action brought by the employee for twice the amount in dispute.”

Choosing one route does not give up the other

Three provisions say so, from three directions.

Minn. Stat. § 181.03, subd. 4: “The use of an enforcement provision in this section shall not preclude the use of any other enforcement provision provided by law.” Subdivision 5 adds: “Nothing in this section shall be construed to limit the application of other state or federal laws.”

Minn. Stat. § 181.101(a), describing the commissioner’s own demand procedure, closes with: “This section does not prevent an employee from prosecuting a claim for wages.”

Minn. Stat. § 181.165, subd. 3(c), after directing that construction wage claims “shall be brought consistent with section 541.07, clause (5),” adds: “The provisions of this section do not diminish, impair, or otherwise infringe on any other right of an employee to bring an action or file a complaint against any employer.”

And raising any of it is protected. Minn. Stat. § 181.03, subd. 6, prohibits retaliation “for asserting rights or remedies under this section, sections 177.21 to 177.44, 181.01 to 181.723, or 181.79, including, but not limited to, filing a complaint with the department or telling the employer of the employee’s intention to file a complaint,” with a civil penalty “of not less than $700 nor more than $3,000 per violation.” Minn. Stat. § 177.32, subd. 2, is the criminal counterpart: an employer “shall be fined not less than $700 nor more than $3,000 if convicted of discharging or otherwise discriminating against any employee because” the employee complained to the employer or the department that wages were not paid in accordance with §§ 177.21 to 177.435, instituted or will institute a proceeding, or “has testified or will testify in any proceeding.”

Construction work has its own layer

Minn. Stat. § 181.165 is on both the § 177.27, subd. 4, compliance-order list and inside the § 177.27, subd. 8, private action, and it changes who can be made to pay.

Under subd. 2(a), a contractor entering into a construction contract “shall assume and is liable for any unpaid wages, fringe benefits, penalties, and resulting liquidated damages owed to a claimant or third party acting on the claimant’s behalf by a subcontractor at any tier acting under, by, or for the contractor or its subcontractors for the claimant’s performance of labor.” Under subd. 2(b), “[a] contractor or any other person shall not evade or commit any act that negates the requirements of this section. No agreement by an employee or subcontractor to indemnify a contractor or otherwise release or transfer liability assigned to a contractor under this section shall be valid. However, if a contractor has satisfied unpaid wage claims of an employee and incurred fees and costs in doing so, such contractor may then pursue actual and liquidated damages from any subcontractor who caused the contractor to incur those damages.” Under subd. 2(c), a contractor “shall not evade liability under this section by claiming that a person is an independent contractor rather than an employee of a subcontractor unless the person meets the criteria required by section 181.723, subdivision 4.”

Under subd. 3(a), the claim can be brought by someone else: an employee “may designate any person, organization, or collective bargaining agent authorized to file a complaint with the commissioner or in court pursuant to this section to make a wage claim on the claimant’s behalf.” Under subd. 3(b), “[i]n the case of an action against a subcontractor, the contractor shall be jointly and severally liable for any unpaid wages, benefits, penalties, and any other remedies available pursuant to this section.”

Whether the person doing the work is an employee at all is the prior question, and it is on misclassified as a contractor.

Neither route stops the clock

Minn. Stat. § 541.07(5) gives two years for an action “for the recovery of wages or overtime or damages, fees, or penalties accruing under any federal or state law respecting the payment of wages or overtime or damages, fees, or penalties,” and three years “if the employer fails to submit payroll records by a specified date upon request of the Department of Labor and Industry or if the nonpayment is willful and not the result of mistake or inadvertence.” The clause defines its own terms: “wages” means “all remuneration for services or employment, including commissions and bonuses and the cash value of all remuneration in any medium other than cash, where the relationship of master and servant exists,” and “damages” means “single, double, or treble damages, accorded by any statutory cause of action whatsoever.”

Notice which of the two three-year triggers belongs to the administrative route: a failure to submit payroll records “upon request of the Department of Labor and Industry” is exactly the conduct § 177.27, subd. 2, fines at up to $10,000. An employer that stonewalls the Department on records extends the civil limitations period against itself by a year, by the terms of a different chapter.

The claim: "The complaint is pending with the state, so the deadline to sue is on hold."

No section retrieved for this page says that. The words "toll" and "suspend" appear nowhere in Minn. Stat. §§ 541.07, 177.27, 181.171, 181.101, 181.03, or 177.32 as the Revisor posts them, and the only one of those six that uses "limitation" at all is § 541.07, which uses it to set the period and, in two clauses that do not reach wages, to fix when a period begins — never to pause one that is running. Compare the Human Rights Act, which does the opposite expressly: Minn. Stat. § 363A.28, subd. 3(b), suspends its one-year period while a potential charging party and respondent "are voluntarily engaged in a dispute resolution process." That the legislature wrote such a provision in chapter 363A and not in these six sections is a difference in the texts. This is a report of the words searched in the sections named, not a claim about every provision of Minnesota law, and this page does not say what a court would do with the question.

Every deadline on one page: every Minnesota employment deadline in one table. What a private action costs to run, and who pays, is on what a case actually costs.

Currency

The Revisor publishes the 2025 edition of Minnesota Statutes. Table 2 was queried per exact section on September 11, 2026, and each row’s own Session column was read.

Section 177.27’s History line ends “2024 c 110 art 2 s 2-4; 2024 c 127 art 10 s 1-5; art 11 s 1; 1Sp2025 c 6 art 5 s 6,” and the 43 rows Table 2 returns for it are worth stating at the subdivision level because a section-level answer would hide the point: the only 2025 row is to subdivision 5, and there is no 2026 row at all. The subdivisions this page quotes most closely — subd. 4, subd. 7, subd. 8, subd. 10, and subd. 11 — were last touched in 2024 (subds. 4 and 7, Laws 2024, ch. 127, art. 11, § 1, and art. 10, §§ 4–5, and Laws 2024, ch. 110, art. 2, §§ 3–4), 2023 (subds. 8 and 10, Laws 2023, ch. 53, art. 10, §§ 3 and 5), and 2019 (subd. 11, new at Laws 2019, 1st Spec. Sess., ch. 7, art. 3, § 4).

Section 181.171’s History line ends “2024 c 127 art 10 s 6,” and Table 2 shows the subd. 1 list last amended by that section, with no 2025 or 2026 action. Section 177.26’s ends “2023 c 53 art 1 s 4,5”; § 177.29’s ends “1984 c 628 art 4 s 1”; § 177.30’s ends “2024 c 110 art 2 s 5”; § 177.32’s ends “1Sp2019 c 7 art 3 s 6”; § 181.03’s ends “2023 c 53 art 11 s 21”; § 541.07’s ends “2000 c 471 s 2.” None of those returns a 2025 or 2026 Table 2 row.

Section 181.101 is the one section named on this page whose posted text lags a live session law: the Revisor’s page carries the banner “181.101 has been amended by Chapter 106, Article 15, Section 5.” Reading that act, the amendment reaches only paragraph (b), the firefighter and first-responder provision; the sentence quoted above from paragraph (a) is reproduced in the session law unmarked.

Sections 14.63 and 14.69 were read on the Revisor’s pages, each carrying the note that Laws 2025, ch. 39, art. 2, §§ 17 and 68, renamed the Office of Administrative Hearings the Court of Administrative Hearings, “implemented in the 2026 Statutes.”

No case is cited on this page. No CourtListener search was run for it.

What this page does not do

This page compares two enforcement routes. It does not choose one, and it does not say which sections a particular shortfall violates — that is the question the comparison turns on, and it is answered by the documents and the dates rather than by this page. It also does not describe how the Department handles a complaint in practice; everything above comes from the statute, and no agency publication was used. The substantive rules the routes enforce are elsewhere: paydays and the earnings statement, the final paycheck, deductions, minimum wage, and breaks and overtime.

Common questions

Should I file a wage complaint with the state or sue in Minnesota?
The statutes do not make you choose, and they do not carry the same remedies. Minn. Stat. § 177.27, subd. 7, directs the commissioner of labor and industry, on issuing a compliance order, to order the employer to pay "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," plus reinstatement and other appropriate relief. A private action under Minn. Stat. § 181.171 carries no liquidated damages but does carry mandatory attorney fees under subd. 3. A private action under Minn. Stat. § 177.27, subd. 8, carries both liquidated damages and mandatory fees under subd. 10, but it reaches only §§ 177.21 to 177.44 and § 181.165. Minn. Stat. § 181.03, subd. 4, provides that "[t]he use of an enforcement provision in this section shall not preclude the use of any other enforcement provision provided by law."
What can the commissioner of labor and industry order an employer to do?
Under Minn. Stat. § 177.27, subd. 7, on finding a violation of a section identified in subd. 4 and issuing an order to comply, the commissioner "shall order the employer to cease and desist from engaging in the violative practice and to take such affirmative steps that in the judgment of the commissioner will effectuate the purposes of the section or rule violated," and shall order back pay, gratuities, and compensatory damages plus an equal amount as liquidated damages. The commissioner "may also order reinstatement and any other appropriate relief," may impose "an additional civil penalty of up to $10,000 for each violation for each employee" on an employer found to have repeatedly or willfully violated a listed section, and may order the employer to reimburse the department and the attorney general for litigation and hearing costs unless that would impose extreme financial hardship. Interest accrues on the unpaid balance of the order at the rate in Minn. Stat. § 549.09, subd. 1(c).
What happens if an employer ignores a Minnesota wage compliance order?
It becomes final. Minn. Stat. § 177.27, subd. 4, requires the department to serve the order on the employer or its authorized representative in person or by certified mail, and provides that an employer wishing to contest it "must file written notice of objection to the order with the commissioner within 15 calendar days after being served with the order." If it does, "[a] contested case proceeding must then be held in accordance with sections 14.57 to 14.69 or 181.165." If it does not, "the order becomes a final order of the commissioner." Subdivision 5 lets the commissioner "bring an action in the district court where an employer resides or where the commissioner maintains an office to enforce or require compliance with orders issued under subdivision 4."
Does filing a wage complaint with the state stop the statute of limitations?
Nothing in the sections retrieved for this page says so. Minn. Stat. § 541.07(5) sets a two-year period for an action "for the recovery of wages or overtime or damages, fees, or penalties accruing under any federal or state law respecting the payment of wages," extended to three years where the employer fails to submit payroll records on the Department's request or the nonpayment "is willful and not the result of mistake or inadvertence." A word search of §§ 541.07, 177.27, 181.171, 181.101, 181.03, and 177.32 as posted returns no use of "toll" or "suspend," and the only section that uses "limitation" is § 541.07 itself, which uses it to set the period and, in two clauses that do not reach wages, to fix when a period begins — never to pause one that is running. This is a report of the words searched in those six sections, not a claim about every provision of Minnesota law.
Can someone else bring a wage claim on my behalf in Minnesota?
For construction work, a statute says so expressly. Minn. Stat. § 181.165, subd. 3(a), provides that in the case of a complaint filed with the commissioner under § 177.27, subd. 1, or a private civil action by an employee under § 177.27, subd. 8, "such employee may designate any person, organization, or collective bargaining agent authorized to file a complaint with the commissioner or in court pursuant to this section to make a wage claim on the claimant's behalf." The same section makes a contractor liable for a subcontractor's unpaid wages: under subd. 2(a), a contractor entering into a construction contract "shall assume and is liable for any unpaid wages, fringe benefits, penalties, and resulting liquidated damages owed to a claimant or third party acting on the claimant's behalf by a subcontractor at any tier," and under subd. 2(b) "[n]o agreement by an employee or subcontractor to indemnify a contractor or otherwise release or transfer liability assigned to a contractor under this section shall be valid. However, if a contractor has satisfied unpaid wage claims of an employee and incurred fees and costs in doing so, such contractor may then pursue actual and liquidated damages from any subcontractor who caused the contractor to incur those damages."

Sources checked September 11, 2026. Citations independently verified against the primary source September 11, 2026.

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