The Minnesota Supreme Court recently held in Brunner v. Post Consumer Brands that an injured employee retains the right to assert a direct claim for medical expenses under the Workers’ Compensation Act—even where those expenses were initially paid by a health insurer who failed to timely intervene. No. A25-0225 (Minn. Aug. 2025). The Court further held that the Workers’ Compensation Court of Appeals (WCCA) erred in reversing the compensation judge’s order, which had extinguished a health insurer’s intervention interest in a workers’ compensation proceeding because the insurer did not timely intervene in the proceedings as required by Minn. Stat. § 176.361, subd. 2.
The Minnesota Supreme Court determined the rule it announced in Johnson v. Concrete Treatments, Inc., 7 N.W.3d 119 (Minn. 2024) was applicable to this case. The Court noted in Johnson that “the plain language of section 176.361 does not limit an employee’s right to seek direct payment of medical expenses, even when a medical provider has failed to intervene to assert a claim in accordance with the statute.” Id. at 127. Further, “even if a medical provider itself is barred from bringing a claim for medical expenses because it sought to intervene after the statutory deadline [or did not intervene at all], the employee’s right to assert a direct claim for those medical expenses endures.” Id. at 130. The Court maintained that nowhere in the statute did the Legislature differentiate between medical providers and health insurers the way the employer and insurer argued.
The Minnesota Supreme Court found the WCCA did in fact err in determining the health insurer’s “potential intervention interest” was not extinguished even though the health insurer did not intervene in the proceeding as required under 176.361, subd. 2. However, while the health insurer’s failure to intervene extinguished its right to pursue an independent claim to recover the amounts it paid for the employee’s medical bills related to her work injury, this conclusion did not mean the employee could not bring a direct claim against the employer for medical expenses.
The Court disagreed with the employer and insurer that this decision renders the intervention requirements of Minn. Stat. 176.361 “essentially meaningless.” Rather, it held that the purpose of the statute was “to avoid tardy intervention…,” and the statute continued to serve that purpose. The Court noted that a potential intervenor who fails to intervene timely may not present evidence at hearing in support of its claim, etc.
What do Johnson and Brunner mean for you? Notices of potential right to intervene should still be utilized. Relying on notices of potential right to intervene will nevertheless allow employers and insurers to seek to extinguish the independent claim of the potential intervenor, and Employers and Insurers can still seek to have the potential intervention interest(s) denied at hearing where an employee does not assert a direct claim. Further, in the case of settlement—where employees typically do not assert a direct claim for potential intervenors—employers and insurers will still likely be able to rely on notices of potential right to intervene and Minn. Stat. 176.361. However, in settlement, consideration should specifically be given to having employees overtly waive their direct claim for medical expenses.
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