Yvette Ford v. Minneapolis Public Schools

874 N.W.2d 231, 40 I.E.R. Cas. (BNA) 1837, 2016 Minn. LEXIS 3, 2016 WL 229635
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota
DecidedJanuary 20, 2016
DocketA13-1072
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 874 N.W.2d 231 (Yvette Ford v. Minneapolis Public Schools) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Minnesota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Yvette Ford v. Minneapolis Public Schools, 874 N.W.2d 231, 40 I.E.R. Cas. (BNA) 1837, 2016 Minn. LEXIS 3, 2016 WL 229635 (Mich. 2016).

Opinion

OPINION

LILLEHAUG, Justice.

Yvette Ford sued the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) asserting retaliation in violation of the Minnesota Whistleblower Act (MWA). In April 2013, the district court dismissed Ford’s MWA claim on the ground that the statute of limitations had expired. The court of appeals affirmed. Ford v. Minneapolis Pub. Schs., 845 N.W.2d 566 (Minn.App.2014). Ford petitioned for review. We granted Ford’s petition and remanded the matter to the court of appeals for reconsideration in light of Sipe v. STS Manufacturing, Inc., 834 N.W.2d 683 (Minn.2013). After the court of appeals reversed the district court’s original decision, Ford v. Minneapolis Public Schools, 857 N.W.2d 725 (Minn.App.2014), we granted review. The issue before us is what statute of limitations applies to an action brought under Minn. Stat § 181.932, subd. 1(1) (2012), which is part of the MWA. Because we conclude that the limitations period is 6 years, we affirm.

I.

In November 2006, Ford was retained to work for MPS’s English Language Learners (ELL) department. Ford alleges that, during her time with MPS, she made reports to MPS administrators about allegedly unethical and illegal activities in the ELL department.

On April 22, 2008, MPS informed Ford that her position would be “excessed” 1 at the end of the fiscal year. Ford alleges that, in May and June 2008, she made further reports to MPS, detailing financial improprieties, disability discrimination, and retaliation.

Ford’s last day of work in the ELL department was June 30, 2008. She commenced this lawsuit on June 29, 2010.

II.

In Ford’s first appeal, the court of appeals held that the statute of limitations began to run on Ford’s MWA claim on April 22, 2008, when Ford was notified that her position would be eliminated. Ford, 845 N.W.2d at 570. Ford commenced suit on June 29, 2010. If the applicable limitations period is 2 years, as MPS argues, Ford’s claim is untimely. But if the applicable limitations period is 6 years, as Ford argues, Ford’s claim is timely.

It is that issue we decide today. We review de novo the interpretation and application of a statute of limitations. Park Nicollet Clinic v. Hamann, 808 N.W.2d 828, 831 (Minn.2011).

*233 III.

Ford urges that the applicable limitations period is 6 years, as provided by Minn.Stat. § 541.05, subd. 1(2) (2014), which governs actions “upon a liability created by statute, other than those ... where a shorter period is provided by section 541.07.” MPS argues that the applicable limitations period is “provided by” Minn.Stat. § 541.07(1) (2014) because the tort of wrongful discharge is an “other tort resulting in personal injury'” As a result, MPS asserts, Ford’s claim is subject to the 2-year limitations period found in section 541.07(1).

The framework for determining the correct answer to the issue raised here is found in Sipe v. STS Manufacturing, Inc., 834 N.W.2d 683 (Minn.2013). In that case, which concerned a cause of action created by the Drug and Alcohol Testing in the Workplace Act, Minn.Stat. §§ 181.950-.957 (2014), we concluded that section 541.07(1), the 2-year limitations period for “other tort[s] resulting in personal injury,” is “limited to common law causes of action not created by statute.” Sipe, 834 N.W.2d at 686. In so concluding, we noted that “all of the torts specifically enumerated in section 541.07(1) — libel, slander, assault, battery, and false imprisonment — are common law torts.” Id. (citing Minn.Stat. § 645.08(3) (2012), which states that “general words are construed to be restricted in their meaning by preceding particular words”). We went on to say, “each of the actions that we have held is governed by the two-year statute of limitations as an ‘other tort resulting in personal injury’ under section 541.07(1) is a common law action.” Id. at 686-87.

Thus, we must determine whether the cause of action at issue here, a claim for wrongful discharge under subdivision 1(1) of the MWA, was first created at common law or is only a creature of statute.

We have recognized a common law cause of action for a particular form of wrongful discharge: discharge for an employee’s refusal to violate the law. See Phipps v. Clark Oil & Ref. Corp., 408 N.W.2d 569, 571 (Minn.1987). The cause of action recognized by Phipps has its statutory counterpart in subdivision 1(3) of the MWA, which prohibits employment discrimination based on an employee’s refusal to “perform an action that the employee has an objective basis in fact to believe violates” the law. Minn.Stat. § 181.932, subd. 1(3) (2014).

But we have never recognized a common law cause of action for wrongful discharge for an employee’s reporting of violations of the law. And we limited the Phipps wrongful discharge tort in Dukowitz v. Hannon Security Services, 841 N.W.2d 147 (Minn.2014). In Dukomtz, we held that Phipps created a narrow public-policy exception to the employment-at-will rule, thus limiting the common law cause of action to discharges caused by an employee’s good-faith refusal to violate the law. Id. at 150. Dukowitz now precludes the possibility of a common law cause of action for wrongful discharge based on an employee’s reporting of suspected or actual violations of the law.

Reading Sipe, Phipps, and Dukomtz together, it is clear that the cause of action created by section 181.932, subdivision 1(1), has no counterpart in Minnesota common law. It follows that Ford’s claim is “upon a liability created by statute” and that no shorter limitations period “is provided by section 541.07,” Minn.Stat. § 541.05, subd. 1(2), meaning that the statute of limitations is 6 years. Minn.Stat. § 541.05, subd. 1. Ford’s claim that she was wrongfully discharged for reporting a violation of law was timely.

*234 IV.

MPS argues that there are sound policy reasons for a 2-year statute of limitations in employment cases, as acknowledged in Larson v. New Richland Care Center, 538 N.W.2d 915, 921 n. 5 (Minn.App.1995), abrogated on other grounds by Gordon v. Microsoft Corp., 645 N.W.2d 393

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Bluebook (online)
874 N.W.2d 231, 40 I.E.R. Cas. (BNA) 1837, 2016 Minn. LEXIS 3, 2016 WL 229635, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/yvette-ford-v-minneapolis-public-schools-minn-2016.