Attorney General Ellison prevails at Supreme Court and may litigate its wage theft allegations against Madison Equities

Supreme Court reinstates the Attorney General’s wage theft claims against downtown St. Paul landowner Madison Equities, which it can now at last pursue in district court

Ruling holds that limitation period for the AG to bring wage theft claims was tolled during 3-year period Madison Equities litigated over the Attorney General’s civil investigative demands, which were previously upheld by the Supreme Court

January 14, 2026 (SAINT PAUL) — On January 7, the Minnesota Supreme Court held in an opinion that the Attorney General’s wage theft claims against St. Paul landowner Madison Equities were not time barred and can be pursued against the company in Ramsey County district court.  Specifically, the Supreme Court held that the applicable statute of limitation for the Attorney General’s wage theft claims against Madison Equities was tolled—meaning it was paused—from November 11, 2019 (i.e., the date Madison Equities commenced litigation challenging the Office’s civil investigative demand (CID) into the company’s practices) until July 20, 2022 (i.e., the date Madison Equities complied with the CID by providing the evidence sought).  The Attorney General’s lawsuit will now return to Ramsey County district court where it will finally be litigated on the merits.

“I’m pleased with the Supreme Court’s decision, which will put an end to the subjects of investigations like Madison Equities trying to run out the clock on their liability for violations of the law by engaging in lengthy legal challenges to my Office’s broad investigative authority,” Attorney General Ellison said.  “Now we can finally get to the work of litigating and getting justice for Madison Equities victims who were not paid earned overtime, and for the one brave worker who was retaliated against simply for coming forward about the practices.”

In its lawsuit, the Attorney General’s Office alleged that Madison Equities had hired workers to provide security-officer duties at seven different properties in downtown Saint Paul. The workers were centrally supervised from Madison Equities’ downtown Saint Paul office and were subject to Madison Equities’ employee handbook. However, when Madison Equities needed officers to work more than 48 hours in a week, instead of paying workers overtime, it put officers on the payroll of one of two subsidiary companies and routinely issued the workers two different paychecks, both at the workers’ regular rate of pay with no overtime wages.

The lawsuit also alleges that Madison Equities sought to punish Chris Lewis, a former security officer who was the first person to come to the Attorney General’s Office with allegations. Mr. Lewis had moved on to a different job and publicized that the Attorney General’s Office had initiated an investigation into Madison Equities’ overtime practices. In response, Madison Equities sued Mr. Lewis for defamation, even though it had already received the Attorney General’s CID and knew that Mr. Lewis’ statements were truthful.  In its lawsuit, the Attorney General seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, payment of unpaid overtime and liquidated damages to victims and/or restitution or disgorgement, civil penalties, and its costs and reasonable attorneys’ fees.

Procedural history of Attorney General’s investigation and lawsuit against Madison Equities 

In October 2019, Attorney General Ellison’s Office served a CID on Madison Equities and certain subsidiaries that it had reason to believe were involved in the alleged overtime evasion scheme. Madison Equities moved to quash the investigation and asked the Ramsey County district court to prevent the Office from investigating it in any way. The Office responded by requesting the court to compel Madison Equities to comply with the CID.

The district court agreed with the Attorney General, upholding the CID in its entirety. Madison Equities appealed, and the Minnesota Court of Appeals departed from Minnesota’s longstanding precedent and significantly narrowed the Attorney General’s statutory investigative authority by limiting the Office’s investigation to the specific parameters of the complaints it received. 

The Attorney General sought and received review of the decision by the Minnesota Supreme Court, arguing that the Court of Appeals wrongly narrowed both the scope of the specific investigation into Madison Equities and also provided future investigatory targets with a roadmap to avoid scrutiny of potentially illegal conduct. The Attorney General prevailed at the Minnesota Supreme Court and prevailed again in the district court on the issues that remained related to the Office’s investigation.

Shortly thereafter, the Attorney General filed a lawsuit against Madison Equities alleging that its overtime evasion scheme constituted wage theft that violated Minnesota’s Fair Labor Standards Act, as well as engaged in unlawful retaliation against a worker that reported this wage theft scheme to the Office.  Madison Equities brought a motion to dismiss in Ramsey County district court.  The district court dismissed the Attorney General’s lawsuit in its entirety, holding that the statute of limitations had expired on its wage theft claim during the time period that litigation over the civil investigative demand was occurring.  The district court also dismissed the retaliation claim, by accepting Madison Equities’ erroneous argument that it could not retaliate against a former employee.  The Office appealed and the Court of Appeals reversed the district court’s retaliation decision and remanded that claim back to the district court.  The Court of Appeals, however, affirmed the district court’s statute of limitation ruling.  As a result, the Office sought further review from the Minnesota Supreme Court, which in last week’s decision has reversed the court of appeals holding and remanded the Attorney General’s wage theft claim back to Ramsey County district court to be litigated.

Filing a complaint as a worker 

Workers who worked, or are currently working, at Madison Equities’ properties or for Madison Equities-linked companies and have worked more than 48 hours per week but did not receive overtime wages are encouraged to file a complaint online with the Attorney General’s Office. The office can also be reached at (651) 296-3353 (Metro area) or (800) 657-3787 (Greater Minnesota). All workers can find information about their rights as a worker by visiting the Office’s online publications on wage theft, women’s economic security, and independent contractor misclassification.