Most Minnesota employment lawyers have never filed a claim under Minn. Stat. § 181.64. It was enacted in 1913, it has generated a handful of reported decisions in more than a century, and it is not in the list of chapter 181 sections that § 181.171 routes to district court. It also produced a $1.9 million jury verdict against Seagate.
The statute makes it unlawful to induce someone to move for a job by lying about the job, and § 181.65 gives the person who moved a private action for “all damages sustained” plus reasonable attorney fees taxed as costs. There is no cap, no exhaustion requirement, and no administrative gate.
There are also three hard limits, and one of them — relocation — reads on the statute’s own text as an element of the claim rather than a damages theory. No decision holds it, and a defendant will argue the other way. Getting those limits right is the difference between an unusually good claim and a motion to dismiss.
What does § 181.64 actually prohibit?
Four things have to line up: a covered actor, a change of place, a knowingly false representation, and a subject matter drawn from a closed list.
The section provides that it is unlawful for “any person, partnership, company, corporation, association, or organization of any kind, doing business in this state, directly or through any agent or attorney,”
to induce, influence, persuade, or engage any person to change from one place to another in this state, or to change from any place in any state, territory, or country 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, the compensation therefor, the sanitary conditions relating to or surrounding it, or failure to state in any advertisement, proposal, or contract for the employment that there is a strike or lockout at the place of the proposed employment, when in fact such strike or lockout then actually exists in such employment at such place.
Read the geography first. The prohibited inducement is one that causes a person “to change from one place to another in this state, or to change from any place in any state, territory, or country to any place in this state,” in order to work in any branch of labor. A change of place is built into the prohibition. This is a relocation statute. A candidate who is lied to and takes the job across town without moving does not obviously fit the text, and a candidate lured out of Minnesota is outside it entirely — the destination has to be a place in Minnesota.
Then read the subject matter. The false representation has to concern one of four things: the kind or character of the work; the compensation for it; the sanitary conditions relating to or surrounding it; or an undisclosed strike or lockout at the place of the proposed employment. That list is closed. Representations about topics outside it are not reached by this section, whatever else they may support at common law.
The section closes by defining its own output: “Any such unlawful acts shall be deemed a false advertisement or misrepresentation for the purposes of this section and section 181.65.”
Does the statute give a private lawsuit, or just a crime?
Both. Section 181.65 is titled “PENALTIES,” and it does two entirely separate things in a single paragraph.
The first sentence is criminal: “Any person, firm, association, or corporation violating any provision of section 181.64 and this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.”
The second is a civil cause of action, and it is the operative one:
Any person who shall be influenced, induced, or persuaded to enter or change employment or change a place of employment through or by means of any of the things prohibited in section 181.64, shall have a right of action for the recovery of all damages sustained in consequence of the false or deceptive representations, false advertising, or false pretenses used to induce the person to enter into or change a place of employment, against any person, firm, association, or corporation directly or indirectly causing such damage; and, in addition to all such actual damages such person may have sustained, shall have the right to recover such reasonable attorney fees as the court shall fix, to be taxed as costs in any judgment recovered.
Three features are worth marking. The damages are actual — “all damages sustained” and “all such actual damages.” There is no statutory minimum, no doubling, no trebling, and no punitive provision in the section. The fee award is separate from and additional to damages, fixed by the court and taxed as costs. And the defendant class in § 181.65 is written more broadly than the actor class in § 181.64: liability runs against anyone “directly or indirectly causing such damage.”
Note also a textual gap. Section 181.65’s trigger — a person “influenced, induced, or persuaded to enter or change employment or change a place of employment” — is phrased more loosely than § 181.64’s relocation element. But the trigger is keyed to “any of the things prohibited in section 181.64,” so § 181.64’s elements still gate the claim. A plaintiff who did not change place should expect that argument.
The Minnesota Supreme Court has framed a claim under these sections as one “in tort.” Nichols v. State, 858 N.W.2d 773, 774 (Minn. 2015) (stating the issue as “whether the State of Minnesota may be sued in tort under Minn.Stat. §§ 181.64 and 181.65”). That characterization matters for the limitations question below.
What does “knowingly false” require?
Actual knowledge that the representation is false. Recklessness is not enough, and that is a real narrowing relative to common-law fraud.
Vaidyanathan v. Seagate US LLC, 691 F.3d 972 (8th Cir. 2012), is the leading decision construing that phrase. A yield engineer at Texas Instruments was recruited to Minnesota for a research-and-development yield engineering position on Seagate’s solid-state drive program; he moved his family from Texas in early 2008 and, on arriving, found the technology was not developed enough to require a yield engineer. He was terminated in December 2008 and sued under § 181.64. A jury awarded $1.9 million and the district court added attorney fees.
The Eighth Circuit reversed. The district court had instructed the jury, drawing on Minnesota’s fraud-and-misrepresentation pattern instruction, that a statement is knowingly false if the speaker “knew the representation was false or the person represented that he knew about the facts when he did not know if the facts were true or false.” That second branch — assertion as of one’s own knowledge without knowing — is standard common-law fraud. It is not § 181.64. The court held: “We agree that the phrase ‘knowingly false representations’ is not ambiguous: The plain language of the statute requires that the employer know that the representation is false.” Id. at 977. Because the instructions permitted a verdict on the reckless branch, “[t]his is a basis of liability not comprehended by the language of section 181.64, and thus the instructions as a whole did not fairly and adequately submit the case to the jury.” Id. at 978. The court reversed the judgment and remanded for a new trial, and vacated the orders dismissing the companion promissory estoppel claim and awarding attorney fees.
Two practical takeaways. First, the case has to be built on what the recruiter or hiring manager actually knew at the time — internal messages about program status, not after-the-fact hindsight about how the role turned out. Second, the panel divided; Judge Smith dissented, agreeing that the phrase is unambiguous but reading it differently. Treat the actual-knowledge standard as the governing federal construction, not as an unchallenged one.
Who can be sued — and who cannot?
Private employers doing business in Minnesota, yes. The State of Minnesota, no. Cities and counties: unresolved.
Nichols v. State, 858 N.W.2d 773 (Minn. 2015), arose when a woman living in Ohio responded to an online posting for communications director at the Minnesota Office of the Secretary of State, interviewed in November 2011, and alleged that the posting and statements made at the interview contained knowingly false representations about the duties of the position, made to induce her to resign her Ohio job. She started in January 2012 and her employment ended the following month when her contract was not renewed at the end of her probationary period. She sued in Ramsey County District Court under §§ 181.64 and 181.65.
The supreme court held the State immune. Under Minn. Stat. § 645.27 the State is not bound by a statute unless named in it or unless the words are “so plain, clear, and unmistakable as to leave no doubt” of legislative intent. Section 181.64’s phrase “organization of any kind” was not enough: “We conclude that the broad categories of entities listed in Minn.Stat. §§ 181.64 and 181.65 do not waive the State’s immunity from suit under those provisions.” Id. at 777. The court pointed out that the legislature had named the State expressly in at least 14 other provisions of chapter 181 — including § 181.171, subd. 4 — and concluded: “Given that the Legislature knows how to plainly and clearly waive sovereign immunity, we cannot conclude it did so in sections 181.64 and 181.65 by using a broad, vague term such as ‘organization.’” Id. The holding was stated narrowly: “We simply hold here that the language in Minn.Stat. §§ 181.64 and 181.65 is insufficient to satisfy the specific requirements of section 645.27.” Id. at 779.
Two limits on Nichols should be read carefully before anyone concludes that public employers are off the hook. Footnote 5 states: “We note that Minn.Stat. § 645.27 pertains only to the State’s immunity and is inapplicable to counties, cities, or other forms of government. Our decision here is solely concerned with State immunity.” Id. at 776 n.5. And footnote 1 records that the plaintiff had asserted a waiver under the Tort Claims Act, Minn. Stat. § 3.736, but that “[t]he parties did not address the application of the Tort Claims Act on appeal, however, so we decline to consider it here.” Id. at 774 n.1. Neither the municipal question nor the Tort Claims Act question was decided. Our article on claims against the State under § 3.736 covers that second track.
What the statute does not do
It is not a wrongful-discharge statute, it is not a wage statute, and it does not reach a misrepresentation untethered from a move.
Section 181.64 addresses inducement to enter employment. What the employer does afterward — how it manages, disciplines, or terminates the employee — is governed by other law. A plaintiff whose real complaint is about the termination rather than the recruitment is in the wrong statute and should look to the claims described in our articles on the Minnesota Whistleblower Act and compelled self-publication defamation.
It also sits outside the ordinary chapter 181 enforcement architecture. Section 181.171, subd. 1 lists the sections a private party may bring “directly to district court,” and § 181.64 is not among them. That is not a problem, because § 181.65 supplies its own action — but it means the § 181.171, subd. 3 mandatory fee provision is not the fee hook. The fee hook is § 181.65 itself.
There is one administrative route that practitioners routinely miss. The commissioner of labor and industry’s compliance-order authority under Minn. Stat. § 177.27, subd. 4 expressly includes § 181.64 in its list of sections the commissioner may order an employer to comply with. Where the commissioner issues such an order, § 177.27, subd. 7 directs back pay, gratuities, and compensatory damages “and for an additional equal amount as liquidated damages,” with an additional civil penalty of up to $10,000 for each violation for each employee where the employer “repeatedly or willfully” violated a listed section — remedies the private § 181.65 action does not provide.
How long do you have to sue?
This is genuinely unsettled, and it should be treated as a live issue rather than assumed.
Three candidate provisions compete. Minn. Stat. § 541.05, subd. 1(2) supplies six years for an action “upon a liability created by statute, other than those arising upon a penalty or forfeiture or where a shorter period is provided by section 541.07” — six years unless one of those carve-outs applies. Section 541.07(2) supplies two years for an action “upon a statute for a penalty or forfeiture,” subject to exceptions the clause names. And § 541.07(5) supplies two years for actions “for the recovery of wages or overtime or damages, fees, or penalties accruing under any federal or state law respecting the payment of wages or overtime or damages, fees, or penalties” — extended to three years where the nonpayment was willful or the employer failed to submit payroll records on the department’s request.
Which one applies turns on how a § 181.65 claim is characterized. Nichols framed the question presented as whether the State “may be sued in tort” under the two sections, 858 N.W.2d at 774, which cuts against the penalty characterization for the civil half of § 181.65. The statute’s own title is “PENALTIES,” which cuts the other way. And the damages a relocated worker actually claims — moving costs, a forfeited position, career disruption — are not obviously “wages.” A plaintiff should plead within the shortest arguably applicable period and be prepared to defend the longer one. See generally our overview of Minnesota civil statutes of limitations.
Where this claim is actually worth bringing
The profile is specific: a worker recruited across a state line or across Minnesota, a written record of what the job was represented to be, an internal record showing the employer knew otherwise, and damages that are real because the worker gave something up to come. That is the Vaidyanathan fact pattern, and it is why that case produced a seven-figure verdict before the instruction problem undid it.
What makes it worth pleading alongside common-law misrepresentation is the fee provision. Section 181.65 shifts reasonable attorney fees to the defendant, fixed by the court and taxed as costs, on top of actual damages — one of the entries on the Minnesota attorney fee-shifting map, and the thing that changes the economics of a case otherwise too expensive to try.
Madgett Law, LLC represents Minnesota employees in recruitment-misrepresentation, wage, and retaliation claims, and advises employers on hiring and offer-stage disclosure practices. If you moved for a job that turned out not to be the job you were promised — or you are an employer being told that a recruiting pitch created liability — send us a message or call 612-470-6529.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 181.64 (the covered actors “doing business in this state”; the relocation element; “knowingly false representations”; the four subject matters — kind or character of the work, compensation, sanitary conditions, and an undisclosed strike or lockout; the closing “false advertisement or misrepresentation” sentence). Minn. Stat. § 181.65 (misdemeanor in the first sentence; private right of action for “all damages sustained” and “all such actual damages”; defendants “directly or indirectly causing such damage”; “reasonable attorney fees as the court shall fix, to be taxed as costs in any judgment recovered”). Minn. Stat. § 181.171, subd. 1 (list of chapter 181 sections that may be brought directly to district court — § 181.64 is not among them) and subd. 3 (mandatory fees in a § 181.171 action). Minn. Stat. § 177.27, subd. 4 (commissioner’s compliance-order authority, which expressly lists § 181.64) and subd. 7 (back pay, liquidated damages, and up to $10,000 per violation per employee for repeated or willful violations). Minn. Stat. § 541.05, subd. 1(2) (six years, liability created by statute), § 541.07(2) (two years, statute for a penalty or forfeiture), and § 541.07(5) (two or three years, wage-related actions). All Minnesota statutory text was retrieved from revisor.mn.gov on August 9, 2026 using a direct extractor rather than a summarizer, and each section was checked and found free of any 2026 Regular Session amendment banner. Nichols v. State, 858 N.W.2d 773, 774, 774 n.1, 776 n.5, 777, 779 (Minn. 2015) (the claim framed as one “in tort” and the facts of the plaintiff’s recruitment from Ohio, at 774; the Tort Claims Act argument left undecided, at 774 n.1; § 645.27 inapplicable to counties, cities, and other forms of government, at 776 n.5; no waiver of the State’s immunity in §§ 181.64 and 181.65 and the “knows how to plainly and clearly waive” reasoning, at 777; the narrow statement of the holding, at 779). Vaidyanathan v. Seagate US LLC, 691 F.3d 972, 977, 978 (8th Cir. 2012) (the recruitment and relocation facts, the $1.9 million verdict and fee award; “knowingly false representations” requires that the employer know the representation is false, at 977; the reckless-disregard branch is “a basis of liability not comprehended by the language of section 181.64,” at 978; reversal and remand for a new trial, with Smith, J., dissenting). Both opinions were read in the Caselaw Access Project archive at static.case.law, with reporter volume and page taken from that archive’s structured citation metadata and pin cites located from star-pagination markers in the archived text. This article is general legal information about Minnesota law, not legal advice; reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship, and no result is promised or implied. Whether § 181.64 reaches any particular recruitment, who may be sued, and which limitations period governs all depend on facts this article does not know.