While an increasing number of employers are requiring their remote employees to return to the office, it’s safe to assume that some employees may continue to work remotely. For their employers, it’s important to remember that many employment laws are state-based and may vary by jurisdiction. Examples of employment issues that can be controlled by a state’s or city’s laws include income taxes, leave or paid leave, workers’ compensation, substance testing, marijuana or medical marijuana, and unemployment benefits.
If you have employees working remotely out of state, which laws apply to those remote workers—the laws where they work or the laws where the employer is located? What if an employee works both remotely and on-site? As a recent Minnesota federal court case demonstrates, the answer isn’t always cut and dried.
Remote Employee Fired
Jan Kuklenski began working for Medtronic USA, Inc., a Minnesota-based medical device company, in 1999. Although she never lived in Minnesota, she occasionally traveled to the state for work. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Medtronic directed all employees to work remotely, and she didn’t travel to Minnesota for work any time after February 2020.
In June 2021, she began three months of approved medical leave and requested three more months of leave in early September 2021. Medtronic filled her position in October 2021 and then terminated her employment two months later. At that point, she filed a lawsuit against her former employer, claiming Medtronic violated Minnesota’s employment discrimination law by firing her based on her disability.
Not Enough Physical Presence
Minnesota’s discrimination law applies to “an individual . . . who resides or works in [the] state.”The federal appeals court deciding Kuklenski’s case acknowledged that employees who work both in and outside Minnesota could be covered by the law but observed that it required “some degree of physical presence” in the state by a plaintiff.
Kuklenski first argued that the Minnesota law should apply to her because she visited the state in the past for work. The court rejected that argument because she hadn’t been in the state from February 2020 through her December 2021 termination date.
Next, she contended her frequent communications with supervisors and clients via telephone, through email, and virtually should be sufficient contact to make the Minnesota law applicable to her. Finding that a physical presence in the state was required, the court also rejected her “other contacts” argument and dismissed her disability discrimination lawsuit against Medtronic.
Here’s the Lesson
I’m not saying a court’s interpretation of Minnesota law and a remote worker necessarily applies to Oklahoma employers. Whether you’re dealing with income tax, unemployment, or other state-based employment laws, answers will depend on the particular circumstances of the employee’s remote work and the specific state laws at issue. What the Kuklenski case does, though, is show Oklahoma employers that they shouldn’t automatically assume Oklahoma employment laws apply to out-of-state remote employees. Kuklenski v. Medtronic USA, Inc., No. 24-1310 (8th Cir. 4/9/25).
Charlie Plumb is an attorney in the Tulsa, Oklahoma, office of McAfee & Taft. He can be contacted at charlie.plumb@mcafeetaft.com.