A Minnesota Discrimination Claim Is Usually Lost on the Calendar, Not the Merits

One year, three doors, one clock

Minnesota discrimination cases are decided by a date far more often than by the facts. The date comes from 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.

Three routes, one deadline. District court, a local human rights commission, and the Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Rights are alternatives, and all three have to happen inside the same twelve months.

Subdivision 4 fixes the start date for policies rather than incidents: “the first application of an unfair discriminatory practice, employment policy, or seniority system to a new person establishes a basis for the filing of a claim by that person.”

What stops the clock, and who has to write the dates down

The one-year period is not absolute. Section 363A.28, subd. 3(b), suspends it:

The running of the one-year limitation period is suspended during the time a potential charging party and respondent are voluntarily engaged in a dispute resolution process involving a claim of unlawful discrimination under this chapter, including arbitration, conciliation, mediation or grievance procedures pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement or statutory, charter, ordinance provisions for a civil service or other employment system or a school board sexual harassment or sexual violence policy.

The same paragraph puts the paperwork burden on the employer. A potential respondent who participates in such a process “shall notify the department and the charging party in writing of the participation in the process and the date the process commenced,” and shall give notice of the ending date as well. Then the sanction: “A respondent who fails to provide this notification is barred from raising the defense that the statute of limitations has run unless one year plus a period of time equal to the suspension period has passed.”

How far that reaches was decided in Peterson v. City of Minneapolis, 892 N.W.2d 824 (Minn. 2017). A police officer complained to the City’s human resources department under a written workplace policy; the City investigated for more than a year and found no discrimination. The supreme court held that the internal process suspended the limitations period, reading the statute’s four examples to mean that

The similarities between the examples suggest that a “dispute resolution process” includes formal processes capable of providing relief to the complainant.

Peterson, 892 N.W.2d at 829. The City’s policy qualified because it had written procedures, an objectively verifiable start and end date, investigators drawn from outside the dispute, and no limit on the relief available.

Paragraph (c) adds the second suspension, for the period under § 363A.331, subd. 2, during which an architectural-barrier civil action may not be brought. Those two are the whole list.

Forty-five days is not a deadline. Ninety days is.

Once a charge is on file, Minn. Stat. § 363A.33, subd. 1, controls when you may go to court, and the numbers are frequently transposed.

• Dismissal — as frivolous or without merit, for failure to provide required information, because further use of department resources is not warranted, or on a no-probable-cause determination — opens 90 days “after receipt of notice.” § 363A.33, subd. 1(1).
• Reaffirmance on reconsideration, or a decision not to reopen a dismissed case, also opens 90 days. § 363A.33, subd. 1(2).
• A charge still sitting there may be taken to court “after 45 days from the filing of a charge” if no hearing has been held under § 363A.29 and there is no conciliation agreement the charging party signed. That clause then adds a second step: “The charging party shall notify the commissioner of an intention to bring a civil action, which shall be commenced within 90 days of giving the notice.” § 363A.33, subd. 1(3).

Clause (3) is where claims disappear. The 45 days is a waiting period, not a filing deadline — the earliest you may sue, not the last day. The deadline is 90 days from the written notice of intent, and the notice comes first.

For clauses (1) and (2), receipt “is presumed to be five days from the date of service by mail of the written notice.”

Choosing a door closes the others

Under § 363A.07, subd. 3, a charging party “has the option of filing a charge either with a local commission or the department,” and “[t]he exercise of such choice in filing a charge with one agency shall preclude the option of filing the same charge with the other agency.”

Going to court ends the administrative case. Under § 363A.33, subd. 3, a charging party who sues must mail a copy of the summons and complaint to the commissioner, and on receipt “the commissioner shall terminate all proceedings in the department relating to the charge.” No charge may be filed or reinstituted afterward “unless the civil action has been dismissed without prejudice.”

And § 363A.04 provides that as to the acts declared unfair by §§ 363A.08 to 363A.19 and § 363A.28, subd. 10, “the administrative procedure herein provided shall, while pending, be exclusive” — while adding that the chapter’s rights and remedies “are in addition to, and shall not preclude, those available at law or in equity.”

The federal clock is a different clock

Title VII runs on its own numbers, in its own office. Under 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e)(1), a charge

shall be filed within one hundred and eighty days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred … except that in a case of an unlawful employment practice with respect to which the person aggrieved has initially instituted proceedings with a State or local agency with authority to grant or seek relief from such practice … such charge shall be filed by or on behalf of the person aggrieved within three hundred days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred, or within thirty days after receiving notice that the State or local agency has terminated the proceedings under the State or local law, whichever is earlier.

Minnesota has such an agency, which is why 300 days is the number people repeat — though the statute ties the longer period to having started the state proceeding, not merely to the agency’s existence. After the EEOC gives notice, § 2000e-5(f)(1) provides that “within ninety days after the giving of such notice a civil action may be brought against the respondent named in the charge”.

Nothing in § 363A.28, subd. 3, suspends the Minnesota one-year period because a charge was filed with the EEOC. The statute names two suspensions and a federal filing is not one of them. Whether a given charge was also filed with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, and on what date, is a question about what the agencies did with the paperwork — answered by the agencies, in writing.

Two more dates on the same calendar

Fifteen calendar days to rescind a release. Under § 363A.31, subd. 2, a waiver or release of chapter 363A rights covering conduct before or concurrent with signing “may be rescinded within 15 calendar days of its execution,” and “[a] waiving or releasing party shall be informed in writing of the right to rescind the waiver or release.” A release given in settlement of a claim already filed with an agency or a court is “valid and final upon execution.” Delivery is prescribed:

To be effective, the rescission must be in writing and delivered to the waived or released party by hand, electronically with the receiving party’s consent, or by mail within the 15-day period. If delivered by mail, the rescission must be:

(1) postmarked within the 15-day period;

(2) properly addressed to the waived or released party; and

(3) sent by certified mail return receipt requested.

One employee is enough to make an employer. Minn. Stat. § 363A.03, subd. 16, defines “employer” as “a person who has one or more employees.” The federal thresholds are higher — see the Minnesota overview.

Fixing the occurrence date is the first piece of work in any chapter 363A matter, and a personnel file request is often how the date gets pinned down. Applying these deadlines to a particular sequence of events is not what this page does.