Under Minnesota personnel file law, any employee of an employer with at least one worker can submit a written request to review their personnel record, receive a free copy, challenge inaccurate entries, and sue if the employer refuses or retaliates. The rules sit in Minnesota Statutes sections 181.960 through 181.965, and they set firm deadlines: seven working days if the records are kept in Minnesota, fourteen if they’re stored out of state.1Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 181 – Section 181.961 Review of Personnel Record by Employee
What Your Employer Has to Show You
The statute defines a personnel record broadly. It covers your job application, wage and salary history, deduction and withholding authorizations, fringe benefit information, leave records, job titles, promotion and transfer dates, attendance records, performance evaluations, compensation changes, retirement records, and any notice of commendation, warning, discipline, or termination.2Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 181 – Section 181.960 Definitions
What Your Employer Can Withhold
The law also lists categories that don’t count as part of the personnel record, and your employer has no duty to hand these over:
- Written references, including letters others provided to your employer
- Records tied to an active investigation of criminal or civil violations, or of conduct the employer could be liable for
- Employer test results, though you can see a cumulative score for a section or the whole test
- Internal planning documents about reorganization, future compensation, promotions, or job assignments
- A supervisor’s private notes, so long as they’re kept solely by the author and not shared
- Coworker statements about your performance or misconduct that would reveal the writer’s identity
- Medical reports and records
- Information about other people whose disclosure would invade their privacy
- Material not discoverable in workers’ compensation, grievance, or judicial proceedings
The investigation exclusion is the one employees hit most often. Those records stay off-limits during the investigation, but once it wraps up, any criminal proceedings end, and the employer uses the findings to take a negative action against you, the records shift into the accessible file.2Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 181 – Section 181.960 Definitions
How to Request the File
Put the request in writing. The statute doesn’t prescribe a form, but a written request is what starts the clock and preserves your rights. Once the employer receives it, the deadlines apply:
- Seven working days if the records are kept in Minnesota
- Fourteen working days if the records are kept outside Minnesota
Current employees review the file at the workplace or a reasonably nearby location during the employer’s normal business hours. The employer doesn’t have to let you do this on the clock and can require a company representative to sit in on the review. After you’ve looked at the file, a separate written request gets you a copy at no charge.1Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 181 – Section 181.961 Review of Personnel Record by Employee
Former employees have a simpler path. The employer can satisfy the review requirement by mailing a copy, and no fee is allowed there either.
How Often You Can Ask
Current employees are entitled to one review every six months. Former employees get one review per year for as long as the employer keeps the record.1Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 181 – Section 181.961 Review of Personnel Record by Employee That post-employment access right is easy to forget and useful when a background check, unemployment claim, or reference dispute crops up later.
Fixing Wrong Information in Your File
If something in the record is inaccurate, you submit a written request identifying the specific entry and the change you want. The employer then decides whether to correct or remove it.3Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 181 – Section 181.962 Removal or Revision of Information
If the employer refuses, you can write a position statement of up to five pages explaining your side. That statement stays attached to the disputed information for as long as it remains in the file, and the employer has to include a copy any time the disputed information is disclosed to a third party. So a reference check, an unemployment hearing, or a subpoenaed record production carries your rebuttal along with the employer’s version. That changes how the material reads.
When Employers Can’t Use Records They Hid
Minnesota gives this right real teeth. If your employer leaves something out of the file it produces, the employer can’t turn around and use that omitted information against you in an administrative, judicial, or quasi-judicial proceeding.4Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 181 – Section 181.963 Use of Omitted Personnel Record
There’s one narrow exception. If the omission was unintentional and the employer gives you a reasonable chance to review the missing material before using it, the information can come in. The employer carries the burden of showing the omission wasn’t deliberate. So withholding damaging documents at the review stage and pulling them out later is a losing strategy.
Retaliation Is Illegal
Your employer cannot fire, discipline, threaten, or otherwise retaliate against you for exercising any right in sections 181.960 through 181.965.5Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 181 – Section 181.964 Retaliation Prohibited That protection covers the file request itself, the dispute process, the position statement, and any civil action you bring under the law.
What You Can Recover in Court
The remedies split into two tracks, and the difference matters when you’re deciding whether a claim is worth pursuing.6Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 181 – Section 181.965 Remedies
- For access violations under sections 181.960 through 181.963, you can sue to compel compliance and recover actual damages plus court costs.
- For retaliation under section 181.964, you can recover actual damages, back pay, reinstatement or other equitable relief, and reasonable attorney fees.
Attorney fees are available only in retaliation cases. An employee who was denied a file review might win court-ordered access and some actual damages while still paying their own lawyer. An employee who was fired for asking can recover fees on top of back pay and reinstatement. The statute doesn’t create criminal penalties on either track.
Records That Live Outside the Personnel File
A few things you might expect to find in your file aren’t there, by design. Medical records are excluded from the statutory definition, and federal law separately requires employers to keep health information, disability accommodation records, workers’ compensation medical records, and genetic information in confidential files kept apart from the general personnel record.7U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Enforcement Guidance on Disability-Related Inquiries and Medical Examinations of Employees under the ADA8U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Fact Sheet: Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act
Form I-9 records are usually stored separately too. USCIS recommends keeping them out of the general personnel file because federal inspectors can demand to see them on three business days’ notice, and mixing them in exposes unrelated records during an audit.9U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Retention and Storage If you need copies of those documents, ask for them specifically rather than assuming a personnel file request will produce them.