Minnesota: Employee’s Retaliatory Discharge Action Re: Potential Future Injuries Cannot Proceed to Trial

A Minnesota trial court appropriately dismissed a civil action filed by a former employee against her former employer which alleged, inter alia, that it terminated her employment because it feared she might file a workers’ compensation claim for an injury that had not yet occurred. The appellate court held the former employee had not engaged in protected conduct. The employee worked for the employer as a “cell member,” a job that required her to lift objects weighing 30 pounds or more. In February 2015, she sought medical attention for severe pain in her hands, back, and neck, including numbness in her hands and arms. Her doctor gave her a ten-pound lifting restriction. The employer terminated her, indicating it had concerns that it had work within her medical limitations. She filed suit, alleging various violations of Minnesota discrimination law. She also contended that her retaliatory discharge claim was based on injuries she might sustain in the future because of her lifting restriction. The court acknowledged that the MWCA covered the future filing for benefits; it did not, however, cover future injuries. Because the employee’s proposed MWCA-retaliation claim was based on injuries she might sustain in the future, the court concluded that she had not engaged in a protected activity.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is the co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See McBee v. Team Indus., 2018 Minn. App. LEXIS 71 (Jan. 16, 2018)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 104.07.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law