/>iAlthough the meteoric rise in remote work prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic appears to have plateaued and may even be scaling back as employers press return-to-office policies, the reality is that many employees still work, and will continue to work, remotely. As employment law is largely legislated at the state level, the variation in how state laws apply to employers with employees working or reporting into offices in different states can present real challenges. In its April 9, 2025 decision in Kuklenski v. Medtronic USA, Inc., No. 24-1310 (8th Cir. 2025), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit addressed these issues when analyzing whether an employee who did not reside or work in Minnesota could nonetheless bring a claim under the Minnesota Human Rights Act (“MHRA”).
Hired in 1999 by Minnesota-based Medtronic USA, Inc., Ms. Kuklenski never lived in Minnesota during her 20-year tenure with the company. Although Ms. Kuklenski would occasionally travel to Minnesota for work, she stopped making work trips to Minnesota in February 2020 when Medtronic instructed all employees to work remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, when she filed a lawsuit against Medtronic in Minnesota federal court, claiming that its termination of her employment was discriminatory and violated the Minnesota Human Rights Act (“MHRA”), she had not set foot in Minnesota in nearly two years.
Following surgery, Ms. Kuklenski began a three-month medical leave, which she sought to extend by an additional three months. The company declined to hold her position open beyond the initial leave and ultimately terminated her employment. Ms. Kuklenski sued, claiming, among other things, that her termination was in violation of the MHRA.
The MHRA protects employees from workplace discrimination. At the crux of the case is that law’s definition of employee: “an individual who is employed by an employer and who resides or works in this state.” As she never resided in Minnesota, in order to qualify for the MHRA’s protections, Ms. Kuklenski had to show that she “works in” Minnesota. Agreeing with the district court, the Eighth Circuit concluded that the plain meaning of the phrase “works in this state” requires “some degree of physical presence” in Minnesota by a plaintiff.
Unpersuasively, Ms. Kuklenski argued that her contacts with Minnesota, such as regularly communicating with Minnesota clients and her Minnesota-based supervisors, were sufficient to establish that she fell within the MHRA’s statutory definition of employee. But in granting summary judgment in Medtronic’s favor, the court declined to adopt Ms. Kuklenski’s “contact-based” approach, holding that non-physical-presence contacts alone cannot satisfy the “works in this state” requirement. Similarly, the court rejected her argument that virtual work equated to working in the state.
Alternatively, Ms. Kuklenski argued that her past work visits to Minnesota established that she worked in Minnesota for purposes of the MHRA, and she described her absence from the state as a “temporary interruption” in her customary work schedule. Although the court acknowledged that employees who work both in and outside Minnesota could be covered by the MHRA, it disagreed with Ms. Kuklenski’s description of her absences as “temporary” – emphasizing that Ms. Kuklenski was not in Minnesota at all from February 2020 until she was terminated in December 2021. Satisfied that Ms. Kuklenski’s extended nearly two-year absence from the state clearly excluded her from the law’s definition of employee, the court ultimately stopped short of defining “the requirements for how often a person must travel to Minnesota—or how long they must stay there—for purposes of protection under the MHRA.”
The Kuklenski decision offers Minnesota employers a basis to contest claims that fall outside the scope of the MHRA, e.g., where the employee is not covered by the law due to residency or work location history. For employers outside of Minnesota, do you have out-of-state employees? How about remote employees? Do you know which laws apply to each? If not, the Kuklenski decision is an employer-friendly reminder that you should not assume that the same laws will apply to both in-state and out-of-state remote employees.
