MINNEAPOLIS (Legal Newsline) – Minneapolis’ law requiring employers to provide sick and safe time is not in conflict with state law and has survived a challenge brought by the state’s Chamber of Commerce.
The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled against the chamber on June 10, affirming a 2016 ordinance that says employees who work in Minneapolis for at least 80 hours a year accrue one hour of sick and safe time for every 30 hours worked in a calendar year – up to 48 hours.
For employers with more than five workers, the leave is paid. Otherwise, it is unpaid.
“(M)unicipalities have ‘wide discretion’ to use their police power to regulate matters of public health,” Justice Natalie Hudson wrote.
“We will not overrule the City’s use of its discretion to implement regulations intended to protect the health of those living and working within Minneapolis based on speculation and hypotheticals.”
The chamber argued the ordinance conflicted with state law and violated the extraterritoriality doctrine. The latter argument won favor with the trial court but has now been reversed.
The Court of Appeals was the first to reverse, ruling the primary purpose was to regulate activity within the geographic boundaries of Minneapolis.
Justice G. Barry Anderson issued a dissent, finding the ordinance reaches beyond the borders of Minneapolis. He wonders about its effects on companies not located in the city but send workers to offices there, like janitorial services.
“The reach of the ordinance is extraordinary,” Anderson wrote.
“This would mean that a St. Louis Park pizza delivery business whose employee drives three minutes into Minneapolis to deliver a pizza, spends one minute handing the pizza to the customer, and three minutes driving out of Minneapolis will accrue leave time under the ordinance if that employee makes as few as three such pizza deliveries each work day.”