The Minnesota Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal from Medtronic PLC in a lawsuit filed by a shareholder who said he was financially injured by the company's decision last year to move its legal headquarters to Ireland.

The medical device maker was dealt a surprising legal setback in January when a three-member panel of appeals judges reinstated a long-running lawsuit against Medtronic. The lawsuit claimed that some shareholders were directly harmed by capital-gains taxes and a dilution of their stock after Medtronic's "inversion" to its new Dublin headquarters in January 2015.

Medtronic appealed the decision. The company asked the Supreme Court to rule that shareholders like plaintiff Kenneth Steiner didn't have the legal standing to bring such a case, because they didn't first present their complaints to Medtronic's board for an independent investigation.

Attorneys for Steiner argued that such a procedure wasn't applicable in an inversion like Medtronic's, because the corporation benefited from a business move that negatively affected its stockholders. That would make the shareholders' claims "direct," and not "derivative."

The trial court had dismissed the shareholders' claims initially because they were derivative, but the appellate court reversed that decision.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments about whether Steiner's claims are direct or derivative.

If it rules that Steiner's claims were direct, the case could go back to trial court for decisions on the merits of his arguments and a potential decision on class-action status.

Joe Carlson • 612-673-4779