Minnesota enacted its genetic-testing employment statute in 2001 — seven years before Congress passed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. Because it came first, it is not a state gloss on GINA. It is a different statute with a different shape, and the differences run in both directions.
Minnesota’s statute reaches every employer in the state, with no size floor, and lets an employee sue directly for up to treble damages and fees. GINA reaches only employers with fifteen or more employees, requires an EEOC charge first, and caps damages. That much is the familiar advantage.
GINA also protects a wider category of information than Minnesota does. Minnesota’s “protected genetic information” is information about a genetic test — the individual’s or a blood relative’s. GINA’s “genetic information” adds family medical history and requests for genetic services. An employer that asks whether your mother had Huntington’s disease has plainly touched GINA. Whether it has touched § 181.974 depends on whether it asked about a test.
Neither statute is the bigger one. A Minnesota employee with a genetic-discrimination problem has to read both.
Which employers does § 181.974 cover?
All of them, including government. Subdivision 1(b): “‘Employer’ means any person having one or more employees in Minnesota, and includes the state and any political subdivisions of the state.”
That is not boilerplate. Under Minn. Stat. § 645.27, “[t]he state is not bound by the passage of a law unless named therein, or unless the words of the act are so plain, clear, and unmistakable as to leave no doubt as to the intention of the legislature.” In Nichols v. State, 858 N.W.2d 773 (Minn. 2015), the supreme court held that §§ 181.64 and 181.65 did not waive sovereign immunity, and it listed § 181.974, subd. 1(b), among “at least 14 provisions within the chapter containing the statutes at issue here” in which “the Legislature has named the State.” 858 N.W.2d at 777. Section 181.974 is on the right side of that line. Sections 181.64 and 181.65 are on the wrong side — the subject of Minnesota’s false-statements-inducing-employment statute.
Compare federal coverage. GINA borrows Title VII’s definition: “employer” under 42 U.S.C. § 2000ff(2)(B)(i) means “an employer (as defined in section 2000e(b) of this title),” and § 2000e(b) means “a person engaged in an industry affecting commerce who has fifteen or more employees for each working day in each of twenty or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year, and any agent of such a person” — subject to two exclusions the section then states. A fourteen-person Minnesota company is outside GINA entirely and squarely inside § 181.974.
One limit on the Minnesota side. Subdivision 1(c) defines “employee” as “a person who performs services for hire in Minnesota for an employer, but does not include independent contractors.” That exclusion is explicit, and it matters most for subdivision 2(b), which is written in terms of “a current or prospective employee.” The prohibitions in subdivision 2(a) are written in terms of “a person” and “the employment of any person,” not “an employee” — a drafting asymmetry that no decision construing this statute was located to resolve.
What does the statute actually prohibit?
Two things by employers, and one thing by everyone else. Subdivision 2(a):
No employer or employment agency shall directly or indirectly:
(1) administer a genetic test or request, require, or collect protected genetic information regarding a person as a condition of employment; or
(2) affect the terms or conditions of employment or terminate the employment of any person based on protected genetic information.
Note that the qualifiers differ. Clause (1) is tied to “a condition of employment.” Clause (2) is not — it reaches any adverse effect on terms or conditions of employment that is based on protected genetic information, regardless of how the employer came by it. An employer who learns of an employee’s test result from a coworker and reassigns her is nowhere near clause (1) and squarely inside clause (2).
Whether “as a condition of employment” in clause (1) qualifies “administer a genetic test” as well as “collect protected genetic information” is a real question on the face of the sentence, and it decides whether a genuinely voluntary employer-sponsored screening is inside or outside the prohibition. Treat it as unsettled.
Subdivision 2(b) is the sleeper: “No person shall provide or interpret for any employer or employment agency protected genetic information on a current or prospective employee.” That reaches the laboratory, the third-party administrator, the occupational-medicine clinic, and the consultant — none of whom is the employer. And because the remedy in subdivision 3 runs to “[a]ny person aggrieved by a violation of this section,” the vendor is a defendant, not just a witness.
What counts as a “genetic test” — and what about metabolites?
A metabolic panel is outside the statute if the employer did not intend it to reveal a mutation. A result that reveals one is inside it anyway. Subdivision 1(a) defines “genetic test” as “the analysis of human DNA, RNA, chromosomes, proteins, or certain metabolites in order to detect disease-related genotypes or mutations,” then adds three sentences that do real work:
Tests for metabolites fall within the definition of genetic test when an excess or deficiency of the metabolites indicates the presence of a mutation or mutations. Administration of metabolic tests by an employer or employment agency that are not intended to reveal the presence of a mutation does not violate this section, regardless of the results of the tests. Test results revealing a mutation are, however, subject to this section.
Read the structure: a safe harbor for the act of testing, keyed to intent, paired with no safe harbor at all for the data. Run an ordinary metabolic panel for an ordinary reason and the test is lawful. If a result nonetheless reveals a mutation, that result is protected genetic information, and subdivision 2(a)(2) applies to any use of it.
GINA draws the line differently. Under 42 U.S.C. § 2000ff(7)(B), “[t]he term ‘genetic test’ does not mean an analysis of proteins or metabolites that does not detect genotypes, mutations, or chromosomal changes” — a test keyed to what the analysis detects, not to what the employer intended. An employer running the same panel can be inside Minnesota’s exclusion and outside GINA’s, or the reverse.
Does § 181.974 have exceptions?
None. GINA has six. This is the sharpest structural difference between the two statutes and the one most likely to catch a compliance program built around federal law.
Section 2000ff-1(b) makes it unlawful for a GINA employer to request, require, or purchase genetic information, “except” in six enumerated situations: (1) inadvertent requests for family medical history; (2) health or genetic services offered by the employer, including a wellness program, with the employee’s prior written authorization and the results firewalled from the employer except in aggregate; (3) family medical history requested to comply with FMLA or state family-leave certification requirements; (4) purchase of commercially and publicly available documents containing family medical history, excluding medical databases and court records; (5) genetic monitoring of the biological effects of toxic substances in the workplace, on written notice and the conditions listed in the subparagraphs; and (6) DNA analysis by a forensic laboratory or for human-remains identification, limited to quality-control identification markers.
Section 181.974 contains no comparable list. Whatever room a Minnesota employer has comes entirely from the operative phrases in subdivision 2 — “as a condition of employment” and “based on protected genetic information” — not from a safe harbor. A wellness-program design that satisfies GINA’s paragraph (b)(2) checklist has satisfied nothing under Minnesota law; it has to be tested against the prohibition itself.
The contrast with how the Legislature builds a testing regime when it wants to is instructive. Minnesota’s drug and alcohol testing statutes, §§ 181.950–181.954, run to detailed procedural requirements — written policy, notice, confirmatory testing, the right to explain a positive result. See drug and alcohol testing of Minnesota employees. Section 181.974 is one page long and does none of that. It is a prohibition, not a protocol.
What can a plaintiff recover?
Discretionary treble damages, punitive damages, fees, and equitable relief — with no floor. Subdivision 3:
Any person aggrieved by a violation of this section may bring a civil action, in which the court may award:
(1) up to three times the actual damages suffered due to the violation;
(2) punitive damages;
(3) reasonable costs and attorney fees; and
(4) injunctive or other equitable relief as the court may deem appropriate.
Two cautions, because this remedy is easy to overstate.
First, there is no statutory-damages minimum. Clause (1) is a multiplier on “the actual damages suffered due to the violation,” and it is capped, not mandatory — “up to three times.” A plaintiff who cannot prove actual damages has nothing to multiply. This is not an Illinois-BIPA-style per-violation claim; contrast the liquidated-damages structure Minnesota does not have.
Second, “punitive damages” in clause (2) does not escape chapter 549. Under Minn. Stat. § 549.191, “[u]pon commencement of a civil action, the complaint must not seek punitive damages,” and a party must move to amend, supported by affidavits, with the court finding prima facie evidence before permission is granted. Section 549.20, subd. 1(a), sets the standard: punitive damages “shall be allowed in civil actions only upon clear and convincing evidence that the acts of the defendant show deliberate disregard for the rights or safety of others.” Against a corporate employer, § 549.20, subd. 2, adds the four routes by which punitive damages may be imposed for an agent’s act. Pleading punitive damages in the original complaint under § 181.974 is an error, not a strategy.
What the statute does deliver, and GINA does not, is a direct route to court. GINA channels claims through Title VII’s machinery — 42 U.S.C. § 2000ff-6(a)(1) adopts the “powers, procedures, and remedies” of §§ 2000e-4 to 2000e-6 and 2000e-8 to 2000e-10 — and caps compensatory and punitive damages combined under 42 U.S.C. § 1981a(b)(3) at $50,000, $100,000, $200,000, or $300,000 per complaining party depending on employer size. Section 181.974 has no charge requirement, no right-to-sue letter, and no cap.
On limitations, note only that the choice between the six-year period in Minn. Stat. § 541.05, subd. 1(2), for “a liability created by statute” and the two-year period in § 541.07(2) for an action “upon a statute for a penalty or forfeiture” turns on how a treble-damages-plus-punitives remedy is characterized. That same tension is worked through for a neighboring chapter 181 statute in the § 181.64 article. Do not let it get close.
What about genetic information held by an insurer or a clinic?
Different statutes, and one of them has no private action at all. Minnesota regulates genetic information in at least three places, and the remedies are not uniform.
Minn. Stat. § 72A.139, the “Genetic Discrimination Act,” bars a health plan company from requiring or requesting a genetic test of an individual or a blood relative, from inquiring whether one was taken or refused, and from taking a test, a refusal, or a result into account in any underwriting decision. Subd. 3(1)–(4). For life insurers and fraternal benefit societies it adds written informed consent, a notification duty, and a requirement that the insurer pay for any test it requires. Subds. 5–7. But subdivision 8 is the whole enforcement provision: “A violation of this section is subject to the investigative and enforcement authority of the commissioner, who shall enforce this section.” No private action.
Minn. Stat. § 13.386 governs the collection, storage, use, and dissemination of genetic information and is one of the rare chapter 13 sections reaching private parties. Its interaction with the rest of the Data Practices Act is covered in Minnesota’s three privacy regimes, and clinical records are treated in medical records and privacy in Minnesota.
The practical upshot for an employee: § 181.974 is the one of the three with real teeth, and it is the one nobody cites.
Madgett Law, LLC represents Minnesota employees in genetic-information, medical-privacy, and employment-testing disputes, and advises employers on whether a screening, wellness, or occupational-health program is inside the statute. If an employer or a testing vendor asked for genetic information, or acted on a result, send us a message or call 612-470-6529.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 181.974, subd. 1(a) (definition of “genetic test”; the metabolite sentences), subd. 1(b) (“employer” means “any person having one or more employees in Minnesota, and includes the state and any political subdivisions of the state”), subd. 1(c) (“employee” excluding independent contractors), subd. 1(d)(1)–(2) (definition of “protected genetic information”), subd. 2(a)(1)–(2) (prohibitions on employers and employment agencies), subd. 2(b) (prohibition on any person providing or interpreting protected genetic information), and subd. 3(1)–(4) (civil action; up to three times actual damages, punitive damages, reasonable costs and attorney fees, injunctive or other equitable relief); history line 2001 c 154 s 1; 1Sp2001 c 9 art 13 s 20. Minn. Stat. § 72A.139, subd. 1 (short title, “Genetic Discrimination Act”), subd. 3(1)–(4) (prohibited underwriting acts by health plan companies), subds. 5–7 (informed consent, notification, and payment duties applicable to life insurers and fraternal benefit societies per subd. 4), and subd. 8 (enforcement vested in the commissioner). Minn. Stat. § 645.27 (state not bound unless named). Minn. Stat. § 549.191 (complaint must not seek punitive damages; motion to amend with affidavits; prima facie showing). Minn. Stat. § 549.20, subd. 1(a) (clear and convincing evidence of deliberate disregard) and subd. 2 (four bases for punitive damages against a master or principal). Minn. Stat. § 541.05, subd. 1(2), and § 541.07(2) (competing limitations characterizations). Minn. Stat. §§ 181.950–181.954 (drug and alcohol testing, cited for structural contrast only). All Minnesota statutory text from the Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes, 2025 Minnesota Statutes; § 181.974 carried no 2026 currency banner when pulled on 2026-08-10. Federal: 42 U.S.C. § 2000ff(2)(B)(i) (GINA “employer”), § 2000ff(4)(A)–(C) and (6) (GINA “genetic information,” including family manifestation and genetic services), § 2000ff(7)(A)–(B) (GINA “genetic test” and the proteins-and-metabolites exception); 42 U.S.C. § 2000ff-1(a)(1)–(2) (prohibited practices) and § 2000ff-1(b)(1)–(6) (the six exceptions to the acquisition bar); 42 U.S.C. § 2000ff-6(a)(1)–(3) (remedies and enforcement; incorporation of Title VII powers, procedures, and remedies, and of § 1981a including its subsection (b)(3) limitations); 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(b) (fifteen-employee threshold); 42 U.S.C. § 1981a(b)(3)(A)–(D) (the four damages caps) — all from the Office of the Law Revision Counsel, uscode.house.gov, text stated there as in effect August 9, 2026. Case law: Nichols v. State, 858 N.W.2d 773 (Minn. 2015), at 774 (issue presented; holding that §§ 181.64 and 181.65 do not waive sovereign immunity) and 777 (the list of “at least 14 provisions within the chapter” naming the State, including § 181.974, subd. 1(b)), read from the Caselaw Access Project archive at static.case.law.
Two points are flagged as unresolved rather than answered: whether “as a condition of employment” in subd. 2(a)(1) qualifies “administer a genetic test,” and which limitations period governs a § 181.974 claim. No Minnesota appellate decision construing § 181.974 itself was located; Nichols cites the section in a list and does not interpret it.
This article is general legal information about Minnesota and federal law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. Coverage under either statute depends on facts this article cannot know, including the employer’s size, what was asked for, and what was done with the answer. No outcome is promised or implied.