Perspectives: Minnesota leave law recalls sports firing cases

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The long awaited implementation of the Minnesota Paid Family Medical Leave Program (PFMLP), Minn. Stat. § 181.941 is finally going into effect this month. Enacted in 2023, similar to measures in a dozen other states, it provides time off from work for personal illness and family-related issues.

Known by some as the mini-FMLA, it complements the federal law enacted in 1993 that allows some employees to take time off for personal and family health and child-related reasons.

The measure actually is more like the FMLA on steroids. Its many features, which have been described ad infinitum elsewhere, include:

• Applicability to all employees, regardless of number of employees, unlike the 50-employee federal threshold.
• Up to 12 weeks of partially paid medical leave and 23 weeks of family leave, unlike unpaid FMLA status.
• Maximum total leave of 20 weeks per year, unlike the 12-week FMLA maximum.
• Partial wage replacement for employes on leave for qualifying medical or family reasons.
• Anti-retaliation and job protection for employees during leave and returning from leave.
• Funded equally by employer and employee wage deductions of up to 0.44% each.
• May be coordinated with Federal FMLA.

The new Minnesota leave law is likely to generate its share of litigation.

As the news law goes into effect here, it recalls an old tale of a baseball manager at the turn of the last century who might have benefited from it here.

The onset of the Minnesota leave program coinciding with the apocryphal “hot stove” period of baseball in the cold winter a month or so before spring training starts in a warmer climate, provides on opportune occasion to review that case, as well as more recent cases of sports team leaders leaving their jobs involuntarily.

Initial imbroglio

One of the early legal imbroglios in the national pastime took place here in Minnesota more than a century ago, involving an ailing baseball manager who could have benefited from the FMLA or PFMLA had they been in effect at that time.

In Egan v. Winnipeg Baseball Club, 96 Minn. 345, 104 N.W 947 (1905), a baseball manager sued his team, the Winnipeg Maroons, for unpaid salary after he was fired in the middle of the season after his team won two championships of the Northern League, a consortium of low minor league teams centered in the Dakotas and Canada. The claimant was Edward (Ned ) Egan, a 27 year-old St. Paul native and skillful infielder and manager at the minor league level. He guided his teams to eight league titles in 14 years before and after his mid-season discharge, earning Egan the nicknames “The Connie Mack of the Minors,” a reference to the longtime major league team owner and manager, and “King of the Bushes,” a reference to the term “bush leagues” describing low-tier minor league baseball.

“A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.”

UCLA legendary basketball coach, John Wooden (1910-2010)

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“Working people shouldn’t be afraid to lose our livelihoods simply because we need time off to care for ourselves and our families.”

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler (1970 – ____)

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“Family medical leave has always had the support of a majority of the people from every part of the country, from every walk of life.”

President Bill Clinton (Feb. 5, 1993)

Egan’s case was unusual because the defendant ballclub was not even located in Minnesota, but was based north of the border in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Although not specified in the ruling, the case was brought here apparently because the ousted manager lived here.

The player-manager was ousted with 2½ months left in the season, ostensibly because he was too sick to continue managing. The state Supreme Court affirmed a jury verdict for the manager, noting that the contract was “something more than the ordinary contract for personal services.” The court exhibited familiarity with baseball terminology in reaching this conclusion, observing that the terms in the contract proscribing the team from giving the manager a “release” was equivalent “in baseball circles” to barring a “discharge.”

Had the FMLA , or its more expansive PFMLP version been in effect, the manager might have taken a leave of absence, averting discharge and avoiding litigation. But it was not to be, and, instead, the case became Minnesota’s first baseball litigation before the state Supreme Court.

Egan, the victorious litigant, went back to his trade as a player and manager, never reaching the majors but carving out a solid career in the “bushes” prior to his death in 1918 by suicide.

Coach cases

Terminations of other coaches in Minnesota have triggered considerable litigation — but no suicides — in another sport, basketball.

In Chiodo v. Board of Education of Special School District No. 1, 298 Minn. 380, 215 N.W.2d 806 (1974), the Minnesota Supreme Court confronted a recurring issue: the tenure rights of high school coaches. The court held that a coach who had been removed as head of the boys basketball team at Marshall High School in Minneapolis was not entitled to tenure as a “teacher” under the Teacher Tenure Act, Minn. Stat. § 124.12. The court noted that the cases in other jurisdictions exhibited “unanimity in denying tenure to coaches and other similar positions.” 215 N.W.2d 16 808.

The court reaffirmed the Chiodo ruling three years later in Stanb v. Independent School Distr. No. 191, 256 N.W.2d 82 (1977), holding that the Burnsville High School boys basketball coach did not have tenure in his coaching capacity. The coach, therefore, was not entitled to written notice and a hearing under the statute before being fired.

Following the Chiodo and Staug cases, the Legislature enacted Minn. Stat. § 125.121, which permitted terminating a coach for “any reason,” provided that the coach be furnished with notice and reasons for termination and be given a hearing on the reasons for the termination. The new statutory scheme was at issue a decade later in Hahn v. Independent School Dist. No. 378, 386 N.W.2d 789 (Minn. App. 1986). The Court of Appeals followed it prior rulings in holding that nonrenewal of the year-to-year coaching contract of the girls basketball coach in Dawson, Minnesota, did not constitute a “termination” warranting notice and a hearing under the revised Tenure Law.

But the most recent high school basketball coach case to reach the appellate level in Minnesota yielded a victory for the displaced claimant in McGuire v. Bowlin, 932 N.W.2 819 (Minn. 2019).

The lawsuit was brought by the girls basketball coach at Woodbury High School, whose contract was not renewed after a two-year stint there. He claimed defamation after a mother alleged that he swore at practices, touched players inappropriately, flirted with players and favored certain players over others.

Following rejection a parental claim by the Department of Education, his lawsuit was dismissed by the Washington County District Court, and the Court of Appeals affirmed on grounds that he was a “public official.” Under elevated evidentiary standard of New York Times Co. V. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), he failed to show “actual malice,” meaning knowing falsity or reckless disregard of the truth.

Distinguishing a prior appellate court ruling that a public high school teacher in Hopkins was a “public official” for New York Times purposes, Elstrom v. Ind. Sch. Dist. No. 270, 533 N.W.2d 51 (Minn. App. 1995) rev. denied (Minn. July 27, 1995), the court declined to apply the Times doctrine. The decision, written by Justice Natalie Hudson, prior to her ascension to chief justice, felt that because basketball coaching, unlike teaching, was not “fundamental to democracy,” it did not warrant application of the New York Times standard and remanded the lawsuit.

The complaining mother subsequently filed bankruptcy and she the ex-coach reached a $50,000 settlement consisting of monthly payments funded through a life insurance policy.

The firing of the intramural sport director at the University of Minnesota, Clarence Mueller, also sparked litigation. In Mueller v. Regents of the University of Minnesota, 855 F.2d 555 (8th Cir. 1988), the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the discharge on grounds of substantial misuse by Mueller of the university’s name, personnel, and resources for his own private pecuniary gain. Mueller contended that his treatment violated equal protection because the university condoned the use of its identity, personnel, and resources to promote private summer basketball camps operated by its coaches. The Court of Appeals rejected the analogy, noting that these “isolated examples” were incomparable with Mueller’s “prolonged” abuse of his privileges.

Minnesota’s new statute and these cases reflect that leaving a job, whether temporarily due to illness or involuntarily on a permanent basis, can raise legal issues for employees and employers in Minnesota.

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PERSPECTIVE POINTERS

Current tenure of some Minnesota sports coaches

Brad Frost (Gopher Women’s Hockey): 2007

P.J. Fleck (Gopher Football): 2017

Bob Motzko (Gopher Men’s Hockey): 2018

Cheryl Reeve: (Lynx Basketball): 2021

Chris Finch (Timberwolves Basketball): 2021

Kevin O’Connell (Vikings Football): 2022

John Hynes (Wild Hockey): 2023

Dawn Plitzwert (Gopher Women’s Basketball): 2023

Ken Klee (Minnesota Frost Hockey): 2024

Niko Medved (Gophers Men’s Basketball): 2025

Marshall H. Tanick is an attorney with the Twin Cities law firm of Meyer, Njus, Tanick, Linder & Robbins, PA.