Minnesota Has No Statute That Reduces Your Future Damages to Present Value

Ask a Minnesota practitioner where future damages get reduced to present value and you will usually get a confident answer that turns out to be about some other state. There is a widely held assumption that a Minnesota court takes the jury’s future-damages number after trial, applies a discount rate, and enters judgment on the reduced figure.

That is not what happens, because there is no statute that says to do it.

Is there a Minnesota statute governing future damages and present value?

Not in chapter 604, and not anywhere that performs a post-verdict discount.

Minn. Stat. § 604.07 does not exist. The Revisor’s entry for it reads: “MS 1986 [Repealed, 1988 c 503 s 5].” Its neighbors went the same way — the chapter’s table of sections shows § 604.05 as “MS 1992 [Repealed, 1994 c 623 art 5 s 3],” and §§ 604.08 and 604.09 with the same repealer.

Read the current chapter 604 table of sections end to end and there is no future-damages provision, no present-value provision, no itemization provision, and no periodic-payment provision. What chapter 604 has on damages generally is § 604.01 (comparative fault), § 604.02 (apportionment), § 604.03 (useful life of product), and § 604.055 (waiver of liability), followed by the fireman’s rule, the economic loss sections, medical malpractice discovery, and a long list of specific statutory causes of action.

This matters because the assumption drives real decisions — settlement valuation, structure design, whether to fight over a discount rate. If you are budgeting for a post-verdict reduction that no statute authorizes, you are budgeting wrong.

What actually survives?

One section, in a different chapter, and it is not a discounting rule. Minn. Stat. § 549.25, “Future damages; payment,” provides in full:

Where a claimant is awarded an amount representing future damages greater than $100,000, the court shall hold a hearing prior to ordering entry of judgment to allow the claimant to consider whether payment of the future damages over time as the damages are incurred is in the best interests of the claimant. The following factors may be considered at the hearing, as well as any others as justice requires:

(1) the claimant’s financial ability to meet obligations likely to be incurred as a result of the injury at issue in the trial;

(2) the advantages, if any, to the claimant from voluntarily entering into a structured settlement; and

(3) the interests of the claimant in self-determination over the claimant’s financial affairs.

If the claimant decides, after the hearing, that structured payments of future damages would be in the claimant’s best interests, the court shall make available information to assist the claimant in seeking an appropriate financial instrument to provide such payments. Judgment may not be entered until the claimant has notified the court that the claimant does not wish to enter into a structured settlement.

Read what this does and does not do.

It does not authorize the court to discount anything. It does not let the defendant elect periodic payments. It does not reduce the award. It is a claimant-protective pause: above the threshold, the court must hold a hearing so the plaintiff can consider structuring, and judgment is blocked until the plaintiff tells the court it does not want one. The listed factors are all about the claimant’s circumstances and autonomy — including, expressly, “the interests of the claimant in self-determination over the claimant’s financial affairs.”

This is the mechanism most plaintiffs never hear about until after trial, and most lawyers do not plan for. It also means the trial has to produce a number identified as future damages, or the trigger cannot be evaluated.

Does a special verdict have to itemize future damages by year or period?

No. Nothing in Minnesota law requires a year-by-year or period-by-period breakdown.

Minn. R. Civ. P. 49.01(a) makes special verdicts permissive as to form: “The court may require a jury to return only a special verdict in the form of a special written finding upon each issue of fact,” and the court “may submit to the jury written questions susceptible of categorical or other brief answer or may submit written forms of the several special findings which might properly be made under the pleadings and evidence; or it may use such other method of submitting the issues and require written findings thereon as it deems most appropriate.” Rule 49.01(b) adds a chapter 604-specific requirement — the court “shall inform the jury of the effect of its answers to the comparative fault question” — but says nothing about damages categories.

Minn. Stat. § 604.01, subd. 1 is the closest thing to a mandate, and it is narrow: “The court may, and when requested by any party shall, direct the jury to find separate special verdicts determining the amount of damages and the percentage of fault attributable to each party.” Separate special verdicts as to the amount of damages and the percentages of fault. Not a temporal itemization of future loss.

So the granularity of a Minnesota damages verdict form is a product of practice and of what the parties request — not a statutory schedule.

Then why does every Minnesota verdict form split past from future?

Because two other statutes make the split necessary for reasons that have nothing to do with present value.

Interest. Minn. Stat. § 549.09, subd. 1(b) provides that preverdict, preaward, or prereport interest “shall not be awarded on the following: … (2) judgments or awards for future damages.” Preverdict interest on the past-damages component can be substantial in a case that took years to try; on the future component it is zero. The same paragraph then presupposes that the split exists: “For the purposes of clause (2), the amount of settlement offer must be allocated between past and future damages in the same proportion as determined by the trier of fact.”

That sentence is the closest Minnesota comes to requiring an itemization, and it appears in the interest statute. It assumes the trier of fact has produced a past/future proportion, and it uses that proportion to allocate the parties’ settlement offers when applying the offer-comparison rules. Those rules — whose offer was closer, and what that does to the interest award — are the subject of Minnesota’s prejudgment interest and settlement offer machinery, and the rate mechanics are in the price of delay.

Collateral sources. Minn. Stat. § 548.251, subd. 1 defines collateral sources as payments made “to the plaintiff, or on the plaintiff’s behalf up to the date of the verdict.” Future benefits are outside the definition and are not deducted. Subdivision 5 closes the loop: “The jury shall not be informed of the existence of collateral sources or any future benefits which may or may not be payable to the plaintiff.” The court’s post-verdict duties under subdivision 3 operate on the past component. The ordering of that reduction against the § 604.01 fault reduction is covered in Minnesota reduces a verdict three times, in a fixed order.

So where does present value actually happen?

Inside the jury’s number, if it happens at all — which makes it an evidentiary contest at trial rather than an arithmetic exercise afterward.

That distinction is the practical point of this article. If discounting were statutory and post-verdict, the discount rate would be a question of law argued to a judge on a motion. Because Minnesota has no such statute, whatever discounting occurs is a function of what the economists testified to, what the parties asked the court to instruct, and what the jury did with it. The rate is decided by whoever wins the fight over the expert testimony, before the verdict is returned.

Be honest about the limits of what is verifiable here. I could not confirm from a primary or archival source a controlling published Minnesota decision or a statute prescribing how a Minnesota jury must be instructed on reduction to present value, and I am not going to supply a citation I have not read. Counsel litigating a large future-damages case should resolve the instruction question directly — against the current Minnesota jury instruction guides and the case law they cite — rather than against the assumption that a statute handles it. What is verifiable, and what this article asserts, is the negative: chapter 604 contains no present-value provision, the section usually cited for one was repealed in 1988, and no Minnesota statute directs a court to discount a future-damages verdict before entering judgment.

Does Minnesota have periodic payments?

Only through § 549.25, and only at the claimant’s election.

There is no defendant-elected periodic payment scheme in Minnesota. The claimant considers structuring at the § 549.25 hearing, and judgment is held until the claimant tells the court it does not want one. If the claimant does want one, “the court shall make available information to assist the claimant in seeking an appropriate financial instrument.”

Where the claimant is a minor or an incompetent person, the two schemes interlock. Minn. Gen. R. Prac. 145.06 governs court approval of a structured settlement — the issuer must be licensed in Minnesota and carry a financial rating “equivalent to A. M. Best Co. A+, Class VIII or better,” a competing quote is required if the issuer is related to the settling party or its insurer, and the original policy is deposited with the court administrator. The advisory committee comment to Rule 145 ties this directly to the statute: “Where a minor or incompetent receives a verdict representing future damages greater than $100,000 and the guardian determines that a structured settlement pursuant to Minnesota Statutes 1990, section 549.25 would be in the best interests of the minor or incompetent person, this rule shall apply to the implementation of the election pursuant to the statute.” The full approval machinery is in a parent cannot settle a Minnesota child’s injury claim.

Chapter 549 also carries the state’s structured-settlement transfer regime — registration and surety bond, prohibited practices, required disclosures to the payee, conditions and approval of transfers, effects of transfer, and appointment of an attorney adviser, at §§ 549.35 to 549.41. Sections 549.31 through 549.34 were repealed in 2022. Anyone drafting a petition that still recites “sections 549.30 to 549.34,” including anyone quoting Rule 145.06(b)(3) verbatim, is citing repealed sections.

What to do

• Stop pricing a post-verdict present-value reduction that no statute authorizes. Price the discount fight where it actually occurs: in the economist’s testimony and the damages instruction.
• Ask for a verdict form that separates past from future damages. Section 549.09 needs the proportion, and § 549.25 needs the future number. Under § 604.01, subd. 1 a party can require separate special verdicts on damages and fault; the past/future granularity is something to negotiate into the form.
• Calendar the § 549.25 hearing as part of trial planning, not as a post-trial surprise. Judgment cannot be entered until the claimant notifies the court it does not want a structure.
• Do not let a client waive the structuring decision casually. The statute frames it as the claimant’s decision, with self-determination listed as a factor.
• On the defense side, remember what does not come off. Future collateral benefits are not deductible under § 548.251, and the jury does not hear about them.
• If the plaintiff is a minor or incompetent, run § 549.25 and Rule 145.06 together before agreeing to any structure.

The observation

Minnesota’s 1986 tort reform era produced a set of chapter 604 sections that the Legislature then repealed in two waves, in 1988 and 1994. What is left is a chapter that tells you how to apportion fault and almost nothing about how to handle a damages award that extends over decades.

The one surviving future-damages provision points in the opposite direction from what people expect. Section 549.25 is not a defense tool for stretching out payments. It is a consumer-protection provision that stops the entry of judgment until the plaintiff has been given a hearing, a list of factors weighted toward the plaintiff’s autonomy, and the court’s help finding an instrument if the plaintiff wants one.

The verdict number is closer to the check than the folklore suggests. What sits between them is a fault reduction, a collateral-source reduction limited to payments already made, a settlement credit, an interest calculation that skips the future component entirely — and a hearing about whether the plaintiff would rather be paid over time.

Madgett Law, LLC handles Minnesota personal injury litigation, including damages presentation in cases with substantial future medical and wage-loss components, the Minn. Stat. § 549.25 hearing, and structured settlement review. If you are evaluating a settlement with a large future-care component, the arithmetic is worth a second opinion before it is signed. Send us a message or call 612-470-6529.

Sources: Minn. Stat. ch. 604, table of sections (Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes, 2025 Minnesota Statutes), showing § 604.05 as “MS 1992 [Repealed, 1994 c 623 art 5 s 3],” § 604.07 as “MS 1986 [Repealed, 1988 c 503 s 5],” and §§ 604.08 and 604.09 as “MS 1992 [Repealed, 1994 c 623 art 5 s 3],” together with the Revisor’s version-list entry for § 604.07 showing the same repealer; the surviving sections of chapter 604 as listed in that table. Minn. Stat. § 604.01, subd. 1 (“The court may, and when requested by any party shall, direct the jury to find separate special verdicts determining the amount of damages and the percentage of fault attributable to each party…”) and subd. 5 (credit for settlements and advance payments). Minn. Stat. § 549.25 (future damages; payment — quoted in full, including the threshold, the mandatory hearing, the three enumerated factors, the court’s obligation to make information available, and the bar on entry of judgment until the claimant notifies the court). Minn. Stat. § 549.09, subd. 1(b) (preverdict interest, the exclusion at clause (2) for “judgments or awards for future damages,” and the sentence requiring settlement offers to be “allocated between past and future damages in the same proportion as determined by the trier of fact”); the interest-rate mechanics of § 549.09, subd. 1(c) are referenced but deliberately not reproduced. Minn. Stat. § 548.251, subd. 1 (collateral sources limited to payments “up to the date of the verdict”), subd. 3 (duties of the court), and subd. 5 (“The jury shall not be informed of the existence of collateral sources or any future benefits which may or may not be payable to the plaintiff.”). Minn. Stat. ch. 549, table of sections, showing §§ 549.31–549.34 repealed by 2022 c 62 s 32 and the current transfer provisions at §§ 549.35 (registration; surety bond), 549.36 (prohibited practices; penalties), 549.37 (required disclosures to payee), 549.38 (conditions and approval of transfers), 549.39 (effects of transfer), 549.40 (procedure for approval of transfers), 549.405 (appointment of attorney adviser), and 549.41 (general provisions; construction). All statutory text at revisor.mn.gov. Minn. R. Civ. P. 49.01(a) and (b) (special verdicts; the permissive “may require” language and the chapter 604 comparative-fault instruction requirement) and 49.02 (general verdict with interrogatories), as published in Minnesota Court Rules by the Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minn. Gen. R. Prac. 145.06 (structured settlements; issuer licensing and rating conditions; related-issuer competitive quote; deposit of the original policy) and the Advisory Committee Comment — 2000 Amendment to Rule 145 (the quoted passage linking Rule 145.06 to Minn. Stat. § 549.25). What this article does not cite, and why: no Minnesota statute or published decision prescribing how a jury must be instructed on reduction of future damages to present value was retrieved from a primary or archival source for this article. The article says so in the text and states only the verified negative — that chapter 604 contains no present-value provision and that no statute directs a post-verdict discount. Counsel should resolve the instruction question against current authority rather than against this article. The text of the repealed §§ 604.07, 604.08, and 604.09 was not retrievable from the Revisor’s site, and this article therefore makes no claim about what those sections contained. This article is general legal information about Minnesota law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. Every case depends on its own facts. No outcome is promised or implied.