A Brainerd manufacturer of ice fishing shelters and RV trailers will pay $115,000 to a former employee after state investigators concluded the company fired the worker while they were on disability leave receiving cancer treatment. The Minnesota Department of Human Rights found that Timberland Inc., doing business as Glacier Ice House, violated state law by discriminating against and retaliating against the employee because of their disability.
According to KIMT, the employee took disability leave in 2023 to undergo cancer treatment, and the company ended their job during that leave, which it characterized as part of widespread company layoffs. State investigators, however, found that Glacier Ice House allowed other workers without disabilities to move into open positions while offering no equivalent opportunity to the employee who was out on leave. Per the agency's findings, company leaders also mentioned the employee's medical condition as a factor in the termination decision.
Minnesota Department of Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero framed the case in blunt terms. “No Minnesotan should have to choose between fighting cancer and fighting for their job,” Lucero said, according to the station's report. She added that the worker “was met with discrimination instead of dignity.”
What the Settlement Requires
Under the settlement, the employee will receive a monetary payment of $115,000. Glacier Ice House also must strengthen its training and policies related to employees with disabilities, and the company will provide twice-annual reports to the state agency documenting its compliance. The Minnesota Department of Human Rights will monitor the company for three years, the same length of oversight period the agency attached to a separate March 2026 settlement with rideshare company Lyft, in which drivers were found to have refused service to a blind student traveling with a guide dog, according to Access Press.
Glacier Ice House operates its main manufacturing facility at 11287 Ash Ave in Brainerd, according to the company's own materials, producing wheel-house ice fishing shelters and RV trailers distributed through dealerships across the Upper Midwest and Canada. That puts the case squarely in Crow Wing County's manufacturing base, where the settlement now stands as a warning to employers about how layoffs are scrutinized when they coincide with a worker's medical leave.
Legal Backdrop for Disability Protections
The Minnesota Human Rights Act prohibits employers from discriminating against employees because of a disability and from retaliating against employees for taking disability leave. The law traces back to 1967, when it was first passed as the Minnesota State Act Against Discrimination, and lawmakers expanded it in 1973 to explicitly prohibit employment discrimination against people with disabilities, according to background compiled by MNopedia.
More recently, Governor Tim Walz signed omnibus legislation in May 2024 amending the Human Rights Act to explicitly recognize episodic impairments and conditions in remission, including cancer, as protected disabilities under state law, according to Jackson Lewis. Those 2024 updates also established that juries, rather than judges, determine all damages in state discrimination cases and clarified that statutory treble damages can apply to emotional distress claims in addition to economic losses, expanding the financial exposure employers face in these disputes.
Disability Discrimination's Share of State Complaints
Disability discrimination accounted for more than 40 percent of charges filed with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights last year, per the KIMT report. The Minnesota Council on Disability estimates that about one in five people in the state has a disability, and more than one million Minnesotans live with a disability, according to the same account. Statewide, the department's biannual legislative report covering the first half of 2025 found employment discrimination made up 56.4% of all civil rights charges filed, with reprisal or retaliation claims representing another 19.6% of employment filings, the agency logged 462 new charges during that six-month period.
Workers who believe they have experienced unlawful workplace discrimination or retaliation must file a charge within a strict one-year statute of limitations from the date of the alleged act, per the Minnesota Human Rights Act's filing rules. Adding to the complexity, Minnesotans filing complaints with the state agency must now also file separately and independently with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to preserve federal claims, since automatic cross-filing between the two agencies ended as of October 1, 2025.
How Investigators Build Their Case
Minnesota's status as a single-party consent state for audio recording, under Minnesota Statutes Section 626A.02, allows employees to legally record workplace conversations without an employer's consent as long as the employee is part of the conversation. That legal framework helps explain why recorded workplace discussions often serve as pivotal evidence in state discrimination investigations, since investigators can rely on leadership conversations discussing an employee's medical condition when building a case.
It remains unclear whether Glacier Ice House will make broader structural changes to its human resources management during the three-year monitoring period, or how other manufacturers in Crow Wing County are adjusting supervisor training in response to Minnesota's evolving civil rights protections. Lucero has led the Minnesota Department of Human Rights since her initial appointment by Governor Walz in January 2019 and her reappointment in November 2022, overseeing the agency's investigations across employment, housing, and public services statewide.
