Minnesota Banned Noncompetes and Left Employment NDAs Almost Entirely Alone. The Limits That Exist Are Federal, and Narrower Than People Think.

Minnesota abolished employee noncompete agreements in 2023. It’s one of a small number of states to do it outright, and the statute is short, blunt, and famous after the fact. So you’d figure a legislature willing to void every employee noncompete in the state also did something about the confidentiality and non-disparagement clauses sitting two paragraphs below the noncompete in the same severance agreement.

It didn’t.

Run a keyword search of the current Minnesota Statutes for “nondisparagement” and the Revisor’s search engine returns “No Documents Found.” Search for the phrase “nondisclosure agreement” and it shows up in exactly four sections of the entire code: one about pharmacy benefit managers, one about campus sexual misconduct, and two in chapter 181. Neither chapter 181 section prohibits anything. One exists to say that a nondisclosure agreement is not a noncompete. The other regulates how settlement money is characterized and takes the NDA’s existence for granted.

That’s the whole of Minnesota’s statutory law on employment NDAs. The real constraints come from federal statutes, and every one of them is narrower than its reputation. The most useful limit in a Minnesota severance negotiation isn’t an NDA statute at all. It’s a fifteen-day rescission right that’s been sitting in the Human Rights Act since 1984, and it applies only if the release was signed before a charge was filed.

Does Minnesota have a law banning NDAs in harassment settlements?

No. It has one sentence, and that sentence is about money, not silence.

Minn. Stat. § 181.141, titled “SEXUAL HARASSMENT OR ABUSE SETTLEMENT; PAYMENT AS SEVERANCE OR WAGES PROHIBITED,” reads in full:

In a sexual harassment or abuse settlement between an employer and an employee, when there is a financial settlement provided, the financial settlement cannot be provided as wages or severance pay to the employee regardless of whether the settlement includes a nondisclosure agreement.

Read the operative clause twice. The statute doesn’t prohibit the nondisclosure agreement. It assumes one may be there, sets it aside as irrelevant, and prohibits something else entirely: paying the settlement out as wages or severance.

Where it came from explains the drafting. Section 181.141 was enacted as section 11 of article 1 of Laws 2023, chapter 64 — H.F. No. 1938, the 2023 tax act — and article 1 of that act is captioned “INDIVIDUAL INCOME AND CORPORATE FRANCHISE TAXES.” The sections on either side of it amend the film production credit and the composite-return statute. The session law provides that “This section is effective the day following final enactment.”

So Minnesota’s only statute that uses “sexual harassment” and “nondisclosure agreement” in the same breath is a tax provision about payroll characterization. It has real consequences. A settlement characterized as wages is subject to withholding, feeds the employee’s wage record, and can affect unemployment and benefit calculations. But it isn’t an NDA restriction, and if you treat it like one in a negotiation, it won’t survive the first response letter.

Then what does Minnesota law say about non-disparagement clauses?

Nothing. A keyword search of the current statutes turns up no section containing the word “nondisparagement.” The related word “disparaging” appears twice, in a viatical settlement advertising statute and in a definition in the maltreatment-reporting chapter. And “disparage” appears three times, and none of them is about employment.

So a non-disparagement clause in a Minnesota employment agreement is an ordinary contract term. It’s enforced or not under ordinary contract principles, with no statute aimed at it.

The one place the legislature has acted against NDAs tells you something, because it’s so narrow. Minn. Stat. § 135A.15, subd. 2, paragraphs (b) and (c), governing campus sexual misconduct policies at postsecondary institutions, provides:

(b) None of the rights given to a student by the policy required by subdivision 1 may be made contingent upon the victim entering into a nondisclosure agreement or other contract restricting the victim’s ability to discuss information in connection with a sexual misconduct complaint, investigation, or hearing.

(c) A nondisclosure agreement or other contract restricting the victim’s ability to discuss information in connection with a sexual misconduct complaint, investigation, or hearing may not be used as a condition of financial aid or remedial action.

That’s a genuine, enforceable Minnesota limit on nondisclosure agreements. It protects students. There’s no employment version.

Didn’t the 2023 noncompete ban sweep in NDAs?

Just the opposite. It carved them out by name.

Minn. Stat. § 181.988, subd. 1, paragraph (a), after defining “covenant not to compete,” adds:

A covenant not to compete does not include a nondisclosure agreement, or agreement designed to protect trade secrets or confidential information. A covenant not to compete does not include a nonsolicitation agreement, or agreement restricting the ability to use client or contact lists, or solicit customers of the employer.

That sentence is why employers rewrote their agreements instead of throwing them out. How the ban works, and what employers moved to in its place, is covered in the Minnesota noncompete ban guide and in what replaced the noncompete. No point repeating it here.

One feature of § 181.988 does carry over to NDA fights, and people regularly read too much into it. Subdivision 3 prohibits an employer from requiring an employee who primarily resides and works in Minnesota to litigate outside Minnesota or to give up “the substantive protection of Minnesota law with respect to a controversy arising in Minnesota,” and makes an offending provision “voidable at any time by the employee.” But paragraph (e) of the same subdivision says: “This subdivision applies only to claims arising under this section.” A Delaware forum clause in a confidentiality agreement isn’t automatically voidable under § 181.988 just because the signer works in Minneapolis. The subdivision reaches claims under § 181.988.

What does the federal Speak Out Act actually do?

Less than the name suggests, and the limit is built into how it works, not buried in a technicality.

The Speak Out Act, Pub. L. 117-224, is codified at 42 U.S.C. ch. 164. The operative provision, 42 U.S.C. § 19403(a), reads:

With respect to a sexual assault dispute or sexual harassment dispute, no nondisclosure clause or nondisparagement clause agreed to before the dispute arises shall be judicially enforceable in instances in which conduct is alleged to have violated Federal, Tribal, or State law.

“Agreed to before the dispute arises.” The Act voids pre-dispute clauses: the confidentiality and non-disparagement language in an onboarding packet, an employee handbook acknowledgment, or an employment agreement signed on day one. It doesn’t reach the NDA in a settlement agreement signed to resolve a harassment claim that has already arisen. That’s the single most common misreading of the statute, and it’s the difference between the two documents a harassment claimant is most likely to be handed.

Inside that limit, the definitions are broad. Under 42 U.S.C. § 19402(1), a “nondisclosure clause” is a provision “that requires the parties to the contract or agreement not to disclose or discuss conduct, the existence of a settlement involving conduct, or information covered by the terms and conditions of the contract or agreement.” Under § 19402(2), a “nondisparagement clause” is one requiring a party “not to make a negative statement about another party that relates to the contract, agreement, claim, or case.”

Three more provisions matter in practice:

• § 19403(d): “Nothing in this chapter shall prohibit an employer and an employee from protecting trade secrets or proprietary information.” The Act doesn’t disarm a legitimate trade-secret clause.
• § 19403(b): states may enforce their own laws on these clauses as long as those laws are “at least as protective of the right of an individual to speak freely.” Minnesota hasn’t legislated in that space, so in Minnesota the federal floor is also the ceiling.
• § 19404: the chapter “shall apply with respect to a claim that is filed under Federal, State, or Tribal law on or after December 7, 2022.” What triggers it is the date the claim was filed, not the date the clause was signed.

The Speak Out Act has a companion, enacted nine months earlier, built the same pre-dispute way. The Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, Pub. L. 117-90, codified at 9 U.S.C. ch. 4, provides in § 402(a) that “at the election of the person alleging” a sexual harassment or sexual assault dispute, “no predispute arbitration agreement or predispute joint-action waiver shall be valid or enforceable” as to such a case. A “predispute arbitration agreement” is defined in § 401(1) as “any agreement to arbitrate a dispute that had not yet arisen at the time of the making of the agreement.” Section 402(b) hands the applicability question to a court “rather than an arbitrator,” “irrespective of whether the agreement purports to delegate such determinations to an arbitrator” — which kills the delegation-clause argument before anyone makes it. The Act applies to any dispute or claim arising or accruing on or after March 3, 2022.

Put the two statutes together and you get a clean rule: in a sexual harassment or assault case, what the employee signed before anything happened is unenforceable; what the employee signs to settle is not.

Can an NDA stop me from talking to a government agency?

No, and there are at least three separate federal reasons why. None of them works by voiding the clause. Each one works by penalty, immunity, or a rule against enforcement, which is why the offending language stays in circulation.

The Defend Trade Secrets Act immunity. Under 18 U.S.C. § 1833(b)(1), an individual “shall not be held criminally or civilly liable under any Federal or State trade secret law” for disclosing a trade secret that is made “(i) in confidence to a Federal, State, or local government official, either directly or indirectly, or to an attorney; and (ii) solely for the purpose of reporting or investigating a suspected violation of law,” or that “is made in a complaint or other document filed in a lawsuit or other proceeding, if such filing is made under seal.” Section 1833(b)(2) also lets an employee suing for retaliation give the trade secret to their own attorney and use it in the case, as long as the filing is under seal and the secret isn’t otherwise disclosed except by court order.

The part employers miss is § 1833(b)(3). Paragraph (A) requires that “An employer shall provide notice of the immunity set forth in this subsection in any contract or agreement with an employee that governs the use of a trade secret or other confidential information.” Paragraph (B) permits a cross-reference to a policy document instead. Paragraph (C) supplies the consequence:

If an employer does not comply with the notice requirement in subparagraph (A), the employer may not be awarded exemplary damages or attorney fees under subparagraph (C) or (D) of section 1836(b)(3) in an action against an employee to whom notice was not provided.

Be careful what you take from that. Leaving out the notice doesn’t make the confidentiality agreement unenforceable. It strips the employer of exemplary damages and fees in a later trade-secret suit against that employee. And § 1833(b)(4) defines “employee” to include “any individual performing work as a contractor or consultant for an employer,” so contractor agreements are inside the requirement. The notice duty applies to agreements “entered into or updated after” May 11, 2016. Look for it in any confidentiality agreement signed since then, because when it’s missing, the consequence runs against the employer.

The SEC whistleblower rule. 17 C.F.R. § 240.21F-17(a) provides:

No person may take any action to impede an individual from communicating directly with the Commission staff about a possible securities law violation, including enforcing, or threatening to enforce, a confidentiality agreement … with respect to such communications.

The prohibition reaches the act of enforcing, not just the clause. Sending a demand letter that invokes an NDA against someone who talked to the SEC is itself the violation.

The age-discrimination waiver rule. 29 U.S.C. § 626(f)(4), part of the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act amendments to the ADEA, states: “No waiver agreement may affect the Commission’s rights and responsibilities to enforce this chapter. No waiver may be used to justify interfering with the protected right of an employee to file a charge or participate in an investigation or proceeding conducted by the Commission.”

What about the National Labor Relations Act?

The statute’s text is stable. The agency law built on it isn’t, and that matters when you’re deciding what to argue.

29 U.S.C. § 157 gives employees “the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection . . . .” (The section goes on to a separate right to refrain from those activities, which isn’t at issue here.) Section 158(a)(1) makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer “to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 157 of this title.”

Whether a particular confidentiality or non-disparagement clause in a severance agreement interferes with § 157 rights is decided by the National Labor Relations Board in the first instance, and the Board’s position on that question has changed with its membership more than once. In McLaren Macomb, 372 NLRB No. 58, slip op. at 1 (2023), the Board overruled its 2020 decisions in Baylor University Medical Center and IGT, found the non-disparagement and confidentiality provisions of a severance agreement offered to employees unlawful, and said the earlier test failed to recognize that “unlawful provisions in a severance agreement proffered to employees have a reasonable tendency to interfere with, restrain, or coerce the exercise of employee rights under Section 7 of the Act.” In April 2026 the Board applied McLaren Macomb again, though two of the three members on the panel said they “would be open to reconsideration of that precedent in a future appropriate proceeding”. Prime Communications, LP, 374 NLRB No. 88, slip op. at 1 n.1 (2026). What the statute does tell you is the coverage limit, and that limit decides a great many severance negotiations and it often gets overlooked: 29 U.S.C. § 152(3) defines “employee” to exclude, among others, “any individual having the status of an independent contractor, or any individual employed as a supervisor.” A departing manager with hiring and firing authority is generally outside the Act. So is a contractor. Whatever the Board’s current doctrine is, it doesn’t reach them.

The fifteen-day window nobody uses

This is the provision that does the most work in a real Minnesota severance negotiation, and it’s been on the books since 1984.

Minn. Stat. § 363A.31, subd. 2, “Rescission of waiver,” provides:

A waiver or release of rights or remedies secured by this chapter which purports to apply to claims arising out of acts or practices prior to, or concurrent with, the execution of the waiver or release may be rescinded within 15 calendar days of its execution, except that a waiver or release given in settlement of a claim filed with the department or with another administrative agency or judicial body is valid and final upon execution. A waiving or releasing party shall be informed in writing of the right to rescind the waiver or release. 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 delivery is by mail, the statute requires that the rescission be postmarked within the 15-day period, properly addressed to the waived or released party, and “sent by certified mail return receipt requested.”

Four things come straight out of the text.

1. The window runs from execution, not from when you got the agreement. Fifteen calendar days, not business days.
2. It’s gone once a charge or case is on file. A release “given in settlement of a claim filed with the department or with another administrative agency or judicial body is valid and final upon execution.” The severance agreement handed to an employee on their last day is squarely inside the rescission right. The settlement agreement resolving a filed Department of Human Rights charge isn’t.
3. The employer has to tell the employee about it in writing. The statute states that duty flatly and doesn’t, in its own text, say what happens if the employer fails to do it. That’s an open question on the face of the section, and this article doesn’t resolve it.
4. The delivery mechanics are formal. Hand delivery, electronic delivery with the recipient’s consent, or certified mail return receipt requested, postmarked inside the window. An email sent without consent to an address on the signature block isn’t what the statute describes.

Subdivision 1 of the same section is the companion rule, and it voids something else entirely:

Any provision, whether oral or written, of a lease, contract, or other agreement or instrument which purports to be a waiver by an individual of any right or remedy provided in this chapter is contrary to public policy and void if the waiver or release purports to waive claims arising out of acts or practices which occur after the execution of the waiver or release.

Prospective waivers of Human Rights Act claims are void. Retrospective ones are valid but rescindable for fifteen days. The Revisor of Statutes appends an official note to the section recording that subdivision 1, formerly § 363.031, “was found preempted by federal law with regard to arbitration agreements in Johnson v. Piper Jaffray, Inc., 530 N.W.2d 790 (Minn. 1995).” That preemption ruling is specific to arbitration agreements and the Federal Arbitration Act. It isn’t a general repeal of subdivision 1. The charge-filing deadlines that a rescission puts back in play are covered in Minnesota Human Rights Act deadlines.

Two clocks, and they don’t line up

An employee over 40 signing a severance agreement in Minnesota is usually inside two separate statutory schemes at once, with different clocks and different consequences.

The ADEA scheme also prohibits waiving “rights or claims that may arise after the date the waiver is executed” (§ 626(f)(1)(C)) and requires consideration “in addition to anything of value to which the individual already is entitled” (§ 626(f)(1)(D)). A severance agreement that recycles accrued vacation as its consideration has a problem under the second one.

Can a non-disparagement clause override the employer’s own disclosure duties?

Two Minnesota statutes put affirmative duties on employers, and a mutual non-disparagement clause sits awkwardly next to both.

Minn. Stat. § 181.933, subd. 1 provides that an employee who has been involuntarily terminated “may, within 15 working days following such termination, request in writing that the employer inform the employee of the reason for the termination,” and that “Within ten working days following receipt of such request, an employer shall inform the terminated employee in writing of the truthful reason for the termination.” Subdivision 2 then immunizes that statement: “No communication of the statement furnished by the employer to the employee under subdivision 1 may be made the subject of any action for libel, slander, or defamation by the employee against the employer.”

Two deadlines, both counted in working days, and both frequently missed: fifteen working days for the employee to ask, ten working days for the employer to answer.

Minn. Stat. § 181.967, subd. 2 limits reference-based claims. No action may be maintained against an employer for disclosing the categories of information listed in subdivisions 3 to 5 “unless the employee or former employee demonstrates by clear and convincing evidence that: (1) the information was false and defamatory; and (2) the employer knew or should have known the information was false and acted with malicious intent to injure the current or former employee.”

The protected categories aren’t unlimited. Under subdivision 3, paragraph (a), the protection attaches to dates of employment, compensation and wage history, job description and duties, training and education provided, and documented acts of violence, theft, harassment, or illegal conduct that resulted in discipline or resignation, and that last category requires written disclosure and a contemporaneous copy mailed to the employee’s last known address. Paragraph (b) extends the protection to written evaluations, disciplinary warnings from the preceding five years, and written reasons for separation, but only “With the written authorization of the current or former employee,” and again with a copy to the employee. Paragraph (c) prohibits the receiving employer or agency from passing written information along without the employee’s written authorization.

Here’s why that matters at the bargaining table. A neutral-reference clause is worth having, but it’s a contract promise layered on top of a statutory scheme that already immunizes a good deal of what an employer is likely to say. The defamation exposure that survives § 181.967 is narrow, and a separate Minnesota theory works outside it. See compelled self-publication defamation.

Wage talk is separately protected, and the protection has teeth

Minn. Stat. § 181.172, paragraph (a), prohibits an employer from requiring “nondisclosure by an employee of his or her wages as a condition of employment,” from requiring “an employee to sign a waiver or other document which purports to deny an employee the right to disclose the employee’s wages,” and from taking “any adverse employment action against an employee for disclosing the employee’s own wages or discussing another employee’s wages which have been disclosed voluntarily.”

The carve-outs in paragraph (b) are real: nothing in the section creates a duty to disclose wages, permits disclosure of proprietary information, trade secret information, or privileged material without the employer’s written consent, diminishes existing NLRA rights, or permits an employee to disclose other employees’ wage information to a competitor.

Two enforcement features are easy to miss. Paragraph (c): “An employer that provides an employee handbook to its employees must include in the handbook notice of employee rights and remedies under this section.” Paragraph (e): “An employee may bring a civil action against an employer for a violation of paragraph (a) or (d),” and on a finding of violation “the court may order reinstatement, back pay, restoration of lost service credit, if appropriate, and the expungement of any related adverse records of an employee who was the subject of the violation.” Paragraph (d) separately prohibits retaliation.

A blanket confidentiality clause that sweeps in “compensation” runs straight into paragraph (a)(2).

Reading a Minnesota severance agreement

1. Date the dispute, not the document. The Speak Out Act and the arbitration statute both turn on whether the clause was agreed to before the dispute arose. Pin that date down first.
2. Look for the § 1833(b)(3) immunity notice. If a confidentiality agreement governing trade secrets or confidential information doesn’t contain it, and was entered into or updated after May 11, 2016, the employer has forfeited exemplary damages and fees against that employee under § 1833(b)(3)(C).
3. Find the rescission notice. Section 363A.31, subd. 2 requires the employee to “be informed in writing of the right to rescind.” If it isn’t in the packet, raise it before signing, not after.
4. Count both clocks. Fifteen calendar days to rescind Human Rights Act claims; at least seven days to revoke the ADEA waiver, and 21 or 45 days to consider it before signing.
5. Check what “confidential information” is defined to include. If it reaches wages, § 181.172(a)(2) is in play.
6. Check the carve-out language for talking to agencies. The federal rules don’t require the clause to say so, but a clause that doesn’t say so is a clause an employer may still try to enforce.
7. Decide whether § 181.933 has been triggered. Fifteen working days from termination to make the written request; ten working days for the employer to answer in writing.
8. Check whether a whistleblower claim is in the release. It’s a separate statutory cause of action with its own elements, and general release language routinely gives it away without anyone putting a price on it.

Why the gap is there

The gap isn’t a drafting accident. Minnesota banned noncompetes because a noncompete restricts where a person may work, and the legislature made a call about labor mobility. An NDA restricts what a person may say, and legislating in that direction runs into trade secrets, settlement finality, and the strong policy in favor of settling disputes. The federal statutes that do reach NDAs are built to respect the same line: the Speak Out Act voids the clause signed before anything happened and leaves the settlement clause alone; the DTSA immunizes the disclosure and penalizes the missing notice instead of voiding the contract; the SEC rule prohibits the act of enforcing, not the existence of the term.

So in Minnesota, your leverage over an NDA is contractual, not statutory. You use it in the negotiation before you sign, or in the fifteen days after, or not at all.

Madgett Law, LLC reviews severance and settlement agreements for Minnesota employees, including the confidentiality, non-disparagement, and release terms, and represents employees in Human Rights Act, whistleblower, and wage claims. If you’ve been handed a severance agreement with a deadline on it, know that the clocks in it start running from signature. Send us a message or call 612-470-6529.

Sources: Minn. Stat. § 181.141 (full text, quoted; the operative clause “the financial settlement cannot be provided as wages or severance pay to the employee regardless of whether the settlement includes a nondisclosure agreement”; history line “2023 c 64 art 1 s 11”). Minn. Stat. § 181.988, subd. 1, para. (a) (the sentence “A covenant not to compete does not include a nondisclosure agreement, or agreement designed to protect trade secrets or confidential information,” and the following nonsolicitation sentence); subd. 3, paras. (a), (b), and (e) (choice of law and venue; “This subdivision applies only to claims arising under this section”). Minn. Stat. § 181.172, paras. (a)(1)–(3), (b)(1)–(4), (c), (d), and (e) (wage disclosure protection, carve-outs, handbook notice, anti-retaliation, and civil action with reinstatement, back pay, service credit, and expungement). Minn. Stat. § 181.933, subds. 1 and 2 (15 working days to request, 10 working days to respond in writing with “the truthful reason for the termination”; bar on libel, slander, or defamation actions on that statement). Minn. Stat. § 181.967, subd. 2 (clear-and-convincing standard, falsity plus knowledge plus malicious intent) and subd. 3, paras. (a), (b), and (c) (the five categories disclosable without authorization, the three categories requiring written authorization, the contemporaneous-copy requirements, and the bar on redisclosure). Minn. Stat. § 363A.31, subd. 1 (prospective waivers “contrary to public policy and void”) and subd. 2 (15 calendar days to rescind; the filed-claim exception; the written-notice requirement; the hand, consented-electronic, and certified-mail-return-receipt delivery methods; the postmark requirement), together with the Revisor’s official note recording Johnson v. Piper Jaffray, Inc., 530 N.W.2d 790 (Minn. 1995). Minn. Stat. § 135A.15, subd. 2, paras. (b) and (c) (campus sexual misconduct nondisclosure limits). All Minnesota statutory text from the Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes, revisor.mn.gov, 2025 edition, 2026-08-21. The § 135A.15 page carries a 2026 currency banner; the banner and Laws 2026, chapter 88 identify the amended provision as subdivision 1, not subdivision 2. Sections 181.141, 181.172, 181.933, 181.967, 181.988, and 363A.31 were not amended in the 2026 Regular Session.

Laws 2023, chapter 64 (H.F. No. 1938), article 1, section 11, revisor.mn.gov/laws/2023/0/Session+Law/Chapter/64/ — relied on for the enactment of § 181.141 within the article captioned “INDIVIDUAL INCOME AND CORPORATE FRANCHISE TAXES” and for the effective-date clause “This section is effective the day following final enactment.”

The statements that no section of the current Minnesota Statutes contains the word “nondisparagement,” and that the phrase “nondisclosure agreement” appears in only four sections (§§ 62W.06, 135A.15, 181.988, and 181.141), are the results of exact-phrase keyword searches of the 2025 statutes run against the Revisor’s document search at revisor.mn.gov/search/doc_result.php on 2026-08-21. The related searches for “disparage” (three sections: §§ 60A.9582, 326B.099, 333.19) and “disparaging” (two sections: §§ 60A.9582, 626.5572) were run the same way.

Federal: 42 U.S.C. §§ 19401–19404 (Speak Out Act, Pub. L. 117-224, Dec. 7, 2022) — § 19402(1) and (2) definitions quoted; § 19403(a) quoted; § 19403(b) and (d) quoted or paraphrased; § 19404 applicability quoted. 9 U.S.C. §§ 401–402 (Pub. L. 117-90, Mar. 3, 2022) — § 401(1) definition and § 402(a)–(b) quoted or paraphrased, with the effective-date note under § 401. 18 U.S.C. § 1833(b)(1)–(5) — immunity, anti-retaliation use, notice requirement, the § 1833(b)(3)(C) forfeiture of exemplary damages and attorney fees, the (b)(3)(D) applicability to agreements entered into or updated after enactment of Pub. L. 114-153 on May 11, 2016, and the (b)(4) definition of “employee” including contractors and consultants. 29 U.S.C. § 157 and § 158(a)(1) quoted; § 152(3) relied on for the exclusion of independent contractors and supervisors from the definition of “employee.” 29 U.S.C. § 626(f)(1)(C)–(H), (f)(2), (f)(3), and (f)(4) relied on and quoted in part. All federal statutory text from the Office of the Law Revision Counsel, uscode.house.gov, 2026-08-21 (each page stating “Text contains those laws in effect on August 20, 2026”). 17 C.F.R. § 240.21F-17(a) quoted, Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, ecfr.gov, 2026-08-21.

National Labor Relations Board: McLaren Macomb, 372 NLRB No. 58, slip op. at 1 (Feb. 21, 2023) (overruling Baylor University Medical Center, 369 NLRB No. 43 (2020), and IGT d/b/a International Game Technology, 370 NLRB No. 50 (2020); proffered severance-agreement provisions); Prime Communications, LP, 374 NLRB No. 88, slip op. at 1 n.1 (Apr. 7, 2026) (applying McLaren Macomb; two members open to reconsideration) (apps.nlrb.gov). Johnson v. Piper Jaffray, Inc. is reported here only as it appears in the Revisor’s official note to § 363A.31; the opinion itself is not relied on for any proposition beyond the note’s description. This is general legal information about Minnesota and federal law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. Every case depends on its own facts. No outcome is promised or implied.