Minnesota State Fair employee’s case led to new law expanding definition of disability

Minnesotans with intermittent health concerns such as diabetes or epilepsy now have protection from discrimination under the state’s Human Rights Act, and it all began with one woman’s claim against the State Agricultural Society, which runs the State Fair.

The 2024 Legislature extended the Human Rights Act (HRA) to cover physical impairments that can be episodic or go into remission but when active limit major life activities.

“In Minnesota, we do not want people with a disability to be discriminated against,” Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero said about an update that was supported by her agency and the Minnesota Council on Disability.

The roots of the change can be traced to a U.S. District Court lawsuit filed by Josianne Mell in April 2021 against the State Agricultural Society as the fair’s operator. Mell first started working for the State Fair in 1983 as a seasonal employee in parking operations.

By 2002, she was employed full time in fair administration. By 2016, she was in accounts receivable and had received positive annual job reviews, according to court documents.

But in late 2019, she was diagnosed with cancer and took medical leave for surgery, chemotherapy and recovery in January 2020. When she attempted to return to her finance position with the fair in June, she learned she had been reassigned as a floating laborer and told to report to the greenhouse for gardening and weeding, court documents said.

As she continued to recover from cancer, Mell worked most days in the greenhouse, often in temperatures in excess of 90 degrees.

Eventually, her work hours were trimmed so she was no longer a full-time employee and her employment was terminated in October, according to her lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court.

Six months after she was let go, she filed the lawsuit alleging illegal disability discrimination under the state’s Human Rights Act. She also alleged discrimination under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA).

Mell’s lawsuit claimed she was entitled to return to her desk job upon completion of her medical leave. But the State Fair countered that her FMLA leave had expired and Mell was unable to perform her job at that time.

Judge Eric Tostrud allowed the federal claim to proceed. Ross Stadheim, who represented Mell, said she reached a confidential settlement with the State Fair on that portion of the lawsuit in October 2022. The settlement bars her from talking about the case, he said.

Mell’s lawsuit had also alleged the State Fair violated the HRA by failing to provide her reasonable accommodation for her disability. Tostrud dismissed that portion of the case, saying her condition didn’t qualify as disability under the HRA, which defined a disabled person as one who has a “physical, sensory, or mental impairment which materially limits one or more major life activities.”

Until now, Lucero said the state law failed to recognize that transient conditions can be difficult to manage even in remission. “When we get stuck on: ‘Are you technically disabled under the law,’ I think we are missing the fact that we are humans, we are families,” Lucero said.

The definition of disability now includes “an impairment that is episodic or in remission and would materially limit a major life activity when active.”

The potential impact is vast as the Minnesota Department of Health estimates that about four in 10 people will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their life.

The updated definition also matches the federal standard under the Americans with Disabilities Act, Lucero said. The federal act doesn’t apply to employers with fewer than 15 employees; but the state law does.