Please visit my author page at amazon.com
Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, et al, v. City of Minneapolis. MN preemption of city ordinance
In 2016, the City of Minneapolis adopted the Sick and Safe Time Ordinance, under which workers who work within the city at least 80 hours per year accrue one hour of sick and safe time for every 30 hour worked. The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce sued for a declaratory judgment that the ordinance was invalid.
The district court denied a temporary injunction on the grounds that the ordinance was preempted by state law. It did, however, temporarily enjoin the ordinance being enforced against employers resident outside the city. Both parties appealed, and the Minnesota Court of Appeals affirmed in 2017.
On remand, the district court granted summary judgments, holding essentially as it had previously: The ordinance was valid as to Minneapolis employers, but invalid for employers outside the city. Both parties again appealed. The Minnesota Court of Appeals, in a 2019 decision, affirmed in part and reversed in part. The appeals court held that the ordinance was not preempted by state law, and that it could be enforced against employers outside the city. The plaintiff petitioned for review, and the Minnesota Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
The high court first addressed the preemption argument, and noted that there are three ways in which an ordinance might be preempted by state law: express preemption, conflict preemption, and field preemption.
The plaintiff first argued that the ordinance conflicted with Minn. Stat. 181.9413, the state statute governing sick leave. However, the Supreme Court held that there was no conflict.
The court then turned to whether state law occupied the field and thus impliedly preempted local ordinances. But the court could not find any legislative intent in the statute to occupy the field entirely. The court noted that the state statute applied only to employers who already provided sick time, and regulated the practice. Unlike the city ordinance, the statute did not require sick leave. The court also noted that there were no administrative rules covering the subject, since such rules would show an intent to occupy the field.
For these reasons, the court held that the statute was not preempted. It then turned to the issue of extraterritoriality. Only two prior cases had addressed that issue. In one case, the court had invalidated a Duluth ordinance regulating storage of explosives within a mile of the city limits. But it had upheld a Minneapolis ordinance regulating all milk sold in the city, even if produced elsewhere.
The court turned to the City Council's findings, in which the council had expressed concern about persons working in the city while ill. It held that, like in the milk case, the ordinance was in accordance with that purpose. For these reasons, the Supreme Court, in an opinion penned by Justice Hudson, upheld the ordinance.
Justice Anderson, along with Chief Justice Gildea, dissented. The dissent pointed to a number of hypotheticals in which employers outside the city would be improper. But the majority pointed to more common real-world examples, such as janitors at a Minneapolis stadium, who worked only there, but were employed by a company located outside of the city limits.
No. A18-0771(Minn. June 10, 2020).
Please see the original opinion for the court's exact language.
Advertisement:
Richard P. Clem is an attorney and continuing legal education (CLE) provider in Minnesota. He has been in private practice in the Twin Cities for 25 years. He has a J.D., cum laude, from Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul and a B.A. in History from the University of Minnesota. His reported cases include: Asociacion Nacional de Pescadores a Pequena Escala o Artesanales de Colombia v. Dow Quimica de Colombia, 988 F.2d 559, rehearing denied, 5 F.3d 530 (5th Cir. 1993), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 1041 (1994); LaMott v. Apple Valley Health Care Center, 465 N.W.2d 585 (Minn. Ct. App. 1991); Abo el Ela v. State, 468 N.W.2d 580 (Minn. Ct. App. 1991).
For more information about attorney Clem, please visit
his website.
For more information about his low-cost CLE programs, please visit his CLE page.
Return to index of case summaries
Copyright 2020, Richard P. Clem.
Attorney Richard P. Clem is responsible for the content of this page.
Richard P. Clem, Attorney
PO Box 14957
Minneapolis, MN 55414
USA
Phone: +1-612-378-7751
e-mail: clem.law@usa.net
Minnesota Attorney Registration Number 0192648
Please visit my author page at amazon.com