Legal Memorandum: Employee's Right to Recover Damages in MN

Issue: Does a person influenced to change employment have a right to recover damages sustained as a consequence of the employer’s false or deceptive representations, false advertising, or false pretenses in Minnesota?

Minn. Stat. § 181.64 provides that

[i]t shall be unlawful for any person, partnership, company, corporation, association, or organization of any kind, doing business in this state, . . . to induce, influence, persuade, or engage any person to change . . . from any place in any state . . . to any place in this state, to work in any branch of labor through or by means of knowingly false representations, whether spoken, written, or advertised in printed form, concerning the kind or character of such work .

. . . 

Id. § 181.64 (2012).  A person influenced, induced, or persuaded to change employment or change her/his place of employment by means of the proscribed conduct has a right of action to recover all actual damages sustained as a consequence of the employer’s false or deceptive representations, false advertising, or false pretenses used to induce his/her to change her place of employment, plus reasonable attorneys’ fees.  Id. § 181.65. 

Although § 181.64 does not define “person,” in other employment-related statutes “person” is defined to include the State.  See, e.g., Minn. Stat. § 363.01 (Minnesota Human Rights Act (MHRA) definitions).  The MHRA definition of “person” as including “the state and its departments, agencies and political subdivisions” is discussed in Dewars v. City of Princeton, No. C4-95-488 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 19, 1995), emphasizing in that case that, “[f]or public policy reasons, governmental bodies as employers should not be immune from the requirements of fair employment practices.”  Id. at *3. 

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