Topic

Bringing a claim

Which body decides, which deadline applies, what a case costs, and what each statute can award.

Gooseberry River — The gorge above Lake Superior. Photo: Dave Madgett Photograph: Rocky river gorge with fall color near Gooseberry Falls.

23 guides

The guides

Just fired
Misconduct Your Employer Discovers After Firing You Does Not Erase the Claim — It Cuts Off Reinstatement and Front Pay and Stops the Back-Pay Clock on the Day of Discovery
McKennon v. Nashville Banner Publishing Co. holds that after-acquired evidence of employee wrongdoing is no defense to liability under the ADEA, and that the employer must first prove the wrongdoing would in fact have caused a discharge. What it does is limit the remedy. Whether a Minnesota court applies the same limits to a Human Rights Act or Whistleblower Act claim was not decided by any decision retrieved for this page.
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Just fired
Minnesota Makes the Employer Prove You Could Have Earned the Money — the Duty to Mitigate Is a Defense the Employer Carries, Not an Element You Have to Disprove
Zeller v. Prior Lake Public Schools puts the burden of proving mitigation on the party whose wrongful act caused the breach. Schisler and Feges set out when refusing an offered job does and does not reduce damages. The Human Rights Act's remedy sections do not use the word at all, and Minnesota's unemployment statute handles the overlap between back pay and benefits in its own subdivision.
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Just fired
The Employer's Favorite Arguments Have Names — and in Minnesota Some of Them Are Adopted Law, Some Are Federal Doctrines No Retrieved Minnesota Decision Has Taken Up
Stray remarks and the reduction-in-force "additional showing" are Minnesota rules, stated in published Minnesota decisions. The same-actor inference and the honest-belief rule are argued in Minnesota courtrooms, and no published Minnesota decision retrieved for this page adopts either. This page says which is which and reports what was searched.
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Still employed
A Minnesota Public Employee Is Written Out of the Personnel Record Act — and Chapter 13 Gives a Correction Right the Private Statute Does Not
Minn. Stat. § 181.960, subd. 3, excludes a state agency, statewide system, or political subdivision from the definition of 'employer,' so the seven-working-day file request and the five-page rebuttal in §§ 181.961 and 181.962 do not reach a government employer. Minn. Stat. § 13.04, subd. 4, puts a 30-day duty on the responsible authority to correct the data or say it is correct, with an appeal to the commissioner of administration within 60 days. Minn. Stat. § 13.43, subd. 2, then makes a long list of personnel data public, and a 2025 amendment removed the city and county population thresholds from its public-official rule.
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Bringing a claim
Every Minnesota Employment Deadline in One Table — and Not One of Them Is the Same Number
One year for the Human Rights Act, six for a whistleblower report, two for wages, forty-five days for an unemployment appeal, fifteen working days for the termination-reason letter. Each row here is quoted from the statute or the decision that sets it.
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Bringing a claim
A Minnesota Discrimination Claim Is Usually Lost on the Calendar, Not the Merits
The Minnesota Human Rights Act gives one year from the occurrence of the practice — not two. The federal charge deadline is a separate deadline on a separate clock, and neither filing automatically preserves the other claim.
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Bringing a claim
Minnesota Proves a Discrimination Case With a 1973 Federal Framework It Adopted in 1978 — and in 1988 It Refused the Federal Escape Hatch That Goes With It
The Minnesota Human Rights Act states a prohibition and supplies no method of proof. The method comes from Sigurdson v. Isanti County: direct evidence, or a prima facie case, a legitimate reason, and pretext. Anderson v. Hunter, Keith, Marshall & Co. then rejected the mixed-motive 'same decision' analysis that federal law later wrote into Title VII and that the Supreme Court applied to the ADEA in Gross.
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Bringing a claim
Conciliation Court Is a Division of the District Court, Not a Lesser One — and Its $20,000 Ceiling and Eleven Exclusions Decide Which Employment Claims Fit
Minn. Stat. ch. 491A establishes a conciliation court division in every county with jurisdiction over civil claims up to $20,000. The filing fee is $65, there is no jury and no court reporter, and eleven categories of claim are excluded by statute — including defamation and injunctive relief.
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Bringing a claim
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).
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Bringing a claim
Filing a Charge With the Department of Human Rights Does Not Hand Your Case to the Department
Minn. Stat. § 363A.28 gives the commissioner a screening duty, a probable-cause deadline, and a duty to attempt conciliation. It does not give you a lawyer, and every deadline that can end the claim still runs against you.
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Bringing a claim
Conciliation and Mediation Are Two Different Things at the Department of Human Rights — and Only One of Them Is the Commissioner's Own Statutory Duty
Minn. Stat. § 363A.28, subd. 8, makes conciliation something the commissioner must attempt; subd. 5 makes mediation something both sides must be offered. Each stops a different clock, chapter 363A never defines a conciliation agreement, and signing one ends the 15-day right to rescind.
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Bringing a claim
The EEOC Charge and the Department of Human Rights Charge Are Two Filings, and Neither Statute Says That Making One Makes the Other
Title VII's 300-day window is not a gift for living in Minnesota — 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e)(1) ties it to having 'initially instituted proceedings with a State or local agency.' Section 2000e-5(c) then bars the federal charge for 60 days after state proceedings commence. Chapter 363A never mentions the EEOC, and the phrase 'work sharing agreement' appears in it exactly once.
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Bringing a claim
In a Minnesota Civil Case, ADR Is the Default and the Court Orders It — Minn. Gen. R. Prac. 114 Names Ten Processes and Mediation Is One of Them
Minn. Stat. § 484.76 directed the supreme court to require nonbinding ADR in all civil cases except for good cause. Rule 114 carries that out: it defines the processes, it lets the court pick one when the parties cannot agree, and Rules 114.07 and 114.08 set out exactly how far the confidentiality goes.
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Bringing a claim
Most Minnesota Employment Statutes Never Say the Word Jury — Where They Are Silent, the Answer Comes From the Constitution and Rule 38.01
Minn. Stat. § 363A.33, subd. 6, gives either side in a Human Rights Act civil action a jury. Search the Whistleblower Act's remedy section, the workers' compensation retaliation statute, the state OSHA retaliation section, the unemployment appeal statute, the wage statutes, and the Minnesota arbitration act for the word and you get nothing — six sections and a whole chapter, zero occurrences. Where a jury still decides, the source is the Minnesota Constitution or a court rule, not the statute you are suing under.
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Bringing a claim
Your Minnesota Employer Has Seven Working Days to Hand You Your Personnel File, Free
Minn. Stat. §§ 181.960 to 181.966 give an employee — including one separated for less than a year — the right to the personnel record on written request, at no charge, and bar the employer from later using what it left out.
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Bringing a claim
No Minnesota Employment Statute Requires a Demand Letter Before Suit — Two Sections Attach a Consequence to Sending One, and Chapter 541 Says Nothing at All About Tolling Agreements
The Human Rights Act, the Whistleblower Act, and the chapter 181 pay sections each authorize a civil action without a pre-suit demand. What a written demand actually does is start the 24-hour clock in Minn. Stat. § 181.13 and the preverdict interest in Minn. Stat. § 549.09 — and the only limitations period an agreement suspends by statute is the one in Minn. Stat. § 572.39.
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Bringing a claim
"The Minnesota Whistleblower Deadline Is Two Years" Is Wrong for the Report Claim — It Is Six, and the Supreme Court Overruled the Decision That Said Two
The Whistleblower Act contains no limitations period. Chapter 541 supplies one, and in Ford v. Minneapolis Public Schools the Minnesota Supreme Court held that a claim under Minn. Stat. § 181.932, subd. 1(1), is 'upon a liability created by statute' and runs six years. It did not decide the period for the refusal clause, and neither has any decision since.
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Bringing a claim
The Federal Whistleblower Deadlines Are Counted in Days — Thirty of Them for a Safety Complaint
A Minnesota employee who reported something may hold federal rights alongside the state Whistleblower Act, and the federal windows are far shorter: thirty days for an OSHA safety complaint, 180 days for Sarbanes-Oxley, six months for a labor-board charge. Each window here is quoted from the statute that sets it.
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Bringing a claim
A Minnesota Whistleblower Claim Goes Straight to District Court — No Agency, No Charge, No Right-to-Sue Letter — and It Is Commenced by Service, Not by Filing
Minn. Stat. § 181.935(a) creates a civil action and no administrative step before it; the Department of Labor and Industry's compliance-order power in § 177.27, subd. 4, does not reach §§ 181.931 to 181.935. This page walks the machinery a claim passes through, from the pre-suit records request to the jury demand, and links the pages that carry each piece.
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Bringing a claim
The Human Rights Act's Damages Provision Does Not Start With Back Pay — It Starts With Compensatory Damages Up to Three Times Actual Damages, and Back Pay Is an Optional Add-On to Reinstatement
Minn. Stat. § 363A.33, subd. 8, makes treble compensatory damages mandatory on a finding of an unfair discriminatory practice and a civil penalty to the state mandatory on a finding of a violation of sections 363A.08 to 363A.19. Back pay appears one subdivision later, attached to reinstatement, in a sentence built on the word 'may.'
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Bringing a claim
An arbitration clause moves your claim to a different forum; it does not delete the claim — and Minnesota's own attempt to void these clauses was held preempted in 1995
9 U.S.C. § 2 and Minn. Stat. § 572B.06(a) both make an arbitration agreement enforceable except on grounds that would revoke any contract. The Minnesota Supreme Court held in Johnson v. Piper Jaffray that the Federal Arbitration Act preempts the Human Rights Act's voiding provision. What survives the clause is the substance of the claim, the remedies the arbitrator may award, and — since 2022 — an employee's election to take a sexual harassment or sexual assault dispute to court anyway.
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Bringing a claim
Minnesota's Employment Fee-Shifting Statutes Mostly Run One Direction — and Rule 68 Shifts Costs and Disbursements, Not the Other Side's Attorney Fees
Five of the seven fee provisions that reach Minnesota employment claims name who pays and who is paid. Two say 'prevailing party.' Minn. R. Civ. P. 68 attaches a consequence to refusing an offer, and the consequence it imposes under Rule 68.03(b) is costs and disbursements — the plaintiff's applicable attorney fees 'shall not be affected by this provision.'
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Background
Seven Different Bodies Decide Minnesota Employment Cases, and Only Two of Them Are Courts You Sue In
A discrimination charge, a wage claim, an unemployment appeal, a whistleblower suit, and a workers' compensation retaliation claim start in five different places under five different statutes. This is the map: what each forum decides, what starts it, and which guide carries the detail.
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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.

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