How do you appeal a Minnesota unemployment determination, and by when?

The deadline for appealing is listed on the determination itself. Appealing costs nothing: an applicant cannot be charged fees, costs, or disbursements of any kind before an unemployment law judge, the Minnesota Court of Appeals, or the Supreme Court of Minnesota.

How long you have to appeal, and when the clock starts

The 45 days run from the day DEED sent the determination, not the day it reached you and not the day you worked out what it meant. Calendar days means every day, so weekends and holidays sit inside the count.

If the judge decides an appeal was not filed within 45 calendar days after the determination was sent, the judge must issue a decision dismissing it as untimely.

The timed steps, in the order you meet them:

How to file your appeal

An appeal can be filed online by logging in to your account, by fax, or by mail. Fax it to 651-205-4007, or mail it to P.O. Box 4629, St. Paul, MN 55101-4629.

An appeal submitted online or by fax is not considered filed until DEED actually receives it, so the day you send it is not the day that counts against the deadline.

The hearing, and the decision

Once the appeal is in, the chief unemployment law judge sets a time and date and sends notice to you and to any employer, by mail or electronic transmission, not less than 10 calendar days before the hearing date. Hearings are conducted by telephone unless the circumstances of a particular case make it impractical to hold one that way.

The person deciding is a lawyer. Only employees of the department who are attorneys licensed to practice law in Minnesota may serve as the chief unemployment law judge, as a senior unemployment law judge supervising others, or as an unemployment law judge.

In most cases the judge mails a written decision within 20 days of the hearing.

If you disagree with the judge's decision

Any party, or the commissioner, may ask the same judge to reconsider the decision within 45 calendar days of it being sent. By statute the judge must then either affirm the earlier findings of fact, reasons for decision, and decision, issue a decision modifying them, or set them aside and order an additional hearing.

New evidence rarely gets in at this stage. The judge generally will not consider new evidence unless it shows that something submitted at the hearing was false, or unless it is particularly important and you can show a good reason you did not submit it at the appeal hearing.

Minnesota publishes no time limit for a decision on reconsideration. The statute sets out what the judge must issue and attaches no deadline to issuing it, and the only deadline in that passage is the 45 calendar days a party has to file the request.

A decision affirming or modifying the earlier decision, or dismissing the request for reconsideration as untimely, is the final decision on the matter and binds the parties unless judicial review is sought.

That review is the Minnesota Court of Appeals. The petition has to be filed with the court and served on the judge or the commissioner and on every other party within 45 calendar days of the reconsideration decision being sent, and 3 days are added to that period if the decision was mailed. Instructions for filing an unemployment appeal are on the Minnesota Judicial Branch site.

If DEED says you were overpaid

DEED lists the causes of an overpayment as:

• failure to accurately report earnings during your benefit year
• an audit of your account
• a job separation issue
• a correction of base period wages
• an appeal decision that finds you ineligible for benefits you have already been paid
• applicant fraud

Under Minnesota law there is no waiver of overpayments on unemployment insurance, and financial difficulty does not change that.

Recovery starts with the benefits you have coming. Where the overpayment was caused by a failure to report deductible earnings or deductible payments, DEED offsets 100 percent of your weekly benefit amount until the overpayment is totally recovered. For a non-fraud, non-earnings overpayment it offsets 50 percent of the weekly benefit amount instead. If the debt is not repaid, DEED can also intercept a Minnesota state tax refund, lottery winnings, a property tax credit, or a rent credit, and garnish earnings from your employer. A fraud overpayment adds the methods below to those.

Appealing an overpayment does not pause the billing. DEED continues to send monthly billing statements until the overpayment is resolved, whether or not it is under appeal.

Keep the address on your account up to date for at least 4 years after your last request for a benefit payment. An account can be audited long after benefits stop, and if DEED cannot reach you the audit findings are made without your input and you are responsible for any overpayment that results.

Fraud, the penalties, and reporting it

An applicant commits unemployment insurance fraud by knowingly making a false statement or representation, by deliberately failing to disclose material facts, or by knowingly withholding information in order to obtain benefits.

A fraud overpayment is assessed a monetary penalty of 40 percent of the total amount overpaid. Interest is added to any outstanding overpayment or penalty balance at 1.0 percent a month, and an additional administrative penalty of up to 104 weeks of ineligibility may be assessed for false representation or concealment of facts. DEED also says that in some cases there may be criminal penalties.

You are not eligible for unemployment benefits until the week after the fraud overpayment, the penalties, and the interest are paid in full. The penalty cannot be paid down out of future benefits: under federal unemployment statute the 40 percent penalty and interest cannot be offset through unemployment benefits, and under Minnesota law a penalty or interest balance at the start of a week makes you ineligible for benefits that week, so no payment is authorized at all.

Collection on a fraud overpayment can also include:

• intercepting a Minnesota state tax refund, lottery winnings, a property tax credit, or a rent credit
• intercepting an IRS refund through the federal Treasury Offset Program
• garnishment of earnings from your employer
• court-ordered restitution
• referral to the Department of Revenue Collection Division or an outside collection agency, which adds collection costs of 17 percent to the total debt
• a lien against your non-exempt assets, which could have a negative effect on your credit rating
• seizure of funds from your bank account

Reports of unemployment insurance fraud and identity theft go to DEED on its online fraud form. If you learn that an imposter account was opened in your name in Minnesota, report it there and file a report with the U.S. Department of Justice's National Center for Disaster Fraud as well. DEED reviews the account right away and, if needed, takes steps to make sure the imposter can no longer get into it.

A victim of identity theft does not have to pay back money an imposter received in their name, and the employer is not charged for benefits paid because of the fraud.