Twenty-Nine Municipal Immunities, and Two of Them Are Doors to Everything Else

Count them. Minn. Stat. § 466.03 carries thirty-one numbered subdivisions. Subdivision 1 is the scope provision, not an exception. Subdivision 2 has been repealed since 1987 and reads, in the current edition, “MS 1986 [Repealed, 1987 c 346 s 18].”

That leaves 29 subdivisions that define exceptions: 3, 4, 5, 6, 6a, 6b, 6c, 6d, 6e, 6f, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, and 25.

Get the number right. Then don’t trust it. Two of the twenty-nine, subdivisions 7 and 15, don’t describe a kind of claim at all. They pull in other law by reference. So § 466.03 isn’t a list of twenty-nine immunities. It’s a list of twenty-seven, plus a pointer to every other immunity statute in Minnesota, plus the entire exclusion list from the State’s own tort claims act.

This is my map of it. The 180-day notice, the damages cap, and the insurance waiver that can undo the cap are in our companion piece, against a Minnesota city, the deadline that ends your case is not the statute of limitations. Here the question is narrower: which claims chapter 466 takes away, and what that actually does to them.

What happens to a claim that lands in an exception?

It doesn’t fall back to ordinary negligence. Subdivision 1 is two sentences, and the second one runs the whole structure:

Section 466.02 does not apply to any claim enumerated in this section. As to any such claim every municipality shall be liable only in accordance with the applicable statute and where there is no such statute, every municipality shall be immune from liability.

Put that next to § 466.02, which sets the default: “Subject to the limitations of sections 466.01 to 466.15, every municipality is subject to liability for its torts and those of its officers, employees and agents acting within the scope of their employment or duties whether arising out of a governmental or proprietary function.”

So chapter 466 is a switch with two positions. Under § 466.02, a municipality is liable like anyone else. Under § 466.03, it’s liable only as some other statute makes it liable, and if no statute does, not at all.

This is the sequencing mistake I see cost cases. A plaintiff who concedes the conduct falls within an enumerated exception and then argues “but they were still negligent” has already lost. The negligence question is gone. The only question left is whether a different statute imposes liability on these facts. That’s a research question about the rest of the Minnesota Statutes, and you have to answer it before you concede the immunity, not after.

The shortest subdivision decides the most cases

Subdivision 6 is twenty-five words:

Any claim based upon the performance or the failure to exercise or perform a discretionary function or duty, whether or not the discretion is abused.

Look at what that sentence does.

It reaches inaction as well as action. “[T]he performance or the failure to exercise or perform.” A municipality that never decided anything is inside the subdivision on the same terms as one that decided badly.

Abuse isn’t a way out. “[W]hether or not the discretion is abused.” A plaintiff who proves the decision was unreasonable has proved something the subdivision says doesn’t matter. That phrase shuts down the most natural argument a plaintiff wants to make.

It names no actor. Compare subdivision 5, which is limited to “an act or omission of an officer or employee.” Subdivision 6 says only “[a]ny claim based upon the performance or the failure to exercise or perform a discretionary function or duty.” Nothing in the text ties it to a particular person’s decision.

And here’s where this article stops. Neither § 466.03 nor the Act’s definitions section, § 466.01, defines “discretionary function or duty” anywhere. The word “discretion” doesn’t appear in § 466.01 at all. Minnesota courts have drawn a line between the kinds of decisions the subdivision protects and the kinds it doesn’t, and that line is judge-made, fact-heavy, and the subject of a big body of decisional law. That case law isn’t cited or summarized here, and nothing in this article should be read as saying where the line falls. What the statute’s text supports is narrower, and still useful: the subdivision is broad on its face, it survives an abuse of discretion, and the fight over it is a fight about how to characterize the conduct. It isn’t a fight about whether the conduct was careful.

That’s why the real work happens in discovery, not in the briefs. Whether a decision was made at all, by whom, when, on what record, and under what policy is what determines how the conduct gets characterized. If you don’t develop those facts, the conduct gets characterized on the municipality’s version of them.

Why does subdivision 5 require due care and subdivision 6 not?

Because they protect different things, and the difference is one clause.

Subdivision 5, “Execution of statute”:

Any claim based upon an act or omission of an officer or employee, exercising due care, in the execution of a valid or invalid statute, charter, ordinance, resolution, or rule.

The immunity for carrying out a statute depends on due care. The immunity for exercising discretion doesn’t. A municipal employee who enforces an ordinance carelessly is outside subdivision 5 by its own terms; a municipality that exercises discretion carelessly is inside subdivision 6 by its own terms.

Notice what subdivision 5 doesn’t require: that the statute be valid. It covers execution of “a valid or invalid statute, charter, ordinance, resolution, or rule.” An employee who enforces an ordinance later held unlawful, with due care, is covered. The plaintiff’s way in isn’t the invalid rule. It’s the missing due care.

The trespasser floor: six subdivisions, one idea

One device keeps showing up in the property-related immunities, and in my reading it’s the most commonly missed feature of § 466.03. Six subdivisions keep liability at the level a trespasser could reach against a private landowner:

The floor isn’t the same everywhere. Subdivision 6f preserves the standard owed to trespassing children, which is a different and generally tougher standard than the one owed to trespassers generally. Subdivision 23(b)(2) goes further and preserves “any existing duty owed by the school district” — language that isn’t a trespasser floor at all.

Subdivision 6e’s floor gives way to subdivision 23. The parks immunity preserves trespasser-level liability “except as provided in subdivision 23,” so on school property opened up for public recreation, subdivision 23 governs, and subdivision 23 carries its own, broader preservation. Which subdivision applies to a given piece of ground is a threshold question, and the answer has real consequences.

And the floor is a pleading decision. When one of these six applies, the case isn’t over. It’s turned into a case about whether the municipality’s conduct would expose a private landowner to a trespasser. That’s a narrow theory, and you have to plead it and prove it as one. Related recreational-use questions come up under Minnesota’s recreational land use statutes, and the snow-and-ice immunity in subdivision 4, which turns on whether the sidewalk abuts a publicly owned building or parking lot, is covered in Minnesota premises liability for snow and ice.

The two subdivisions that make the list open-ended

Subdivision 7, “Other immunity”:

Any claim against a municipality as to which the municipality is immune from liability by the provisions of any other statute.

Subdivision 15, “Section 3.736-like claim”:

Any claim against a municipality, if the same claim would be excluded under section 3.736, if brought against the state.

Subdivision 7 means you can’t finish the immunity analysis inside chapter 466. Any statute anywhere in Minnesota law that immunizes a municipality comes in through this one sentence.

Subdivision 15 is bigger still. Section 3.736, subdivision 3 sets out eighteen lettered exclusions, (a) through (r), under which the State and its employees are not liable, and the subdivision opens with this:

Without intent to preclude the courts from finding additional cases where the state and its employees should not, in equity and good conscience, pay compensation for personal injuries or property losses, the legislature declares that the state and its employees are not liable for the following losses:

So the list § 466.03, subd. 15 brings in is itself open-ended on purpose, and says so in its first clause. Whether an exclusion a court finds under that opening clause is one under which a claim “would be excluded under section 3.736” is a construction question this article doesn’t answer. But the shape of the problem is plain: you cannot count the immunities available to a Minnesota municipality by counting subdivisions of § 466.03.

The quiet giant: subdivision 8

Of the twenty-nine, one almost never gets talked about, and it removes a huge field:

Any claim for a loss other than injury to or loss of property or personal injury or death.

Three categories of loss are carved out of the exception, so they stay inside § 466.02’s ordinary liability rule: injury to or loss of property, personal injury, and death. Everything else is excepted out. A claim against a municipality for purely economic loss, a claim for reputational harm, a claim for lost business opportunity: on the face of subdivision 8, each is a “loss other than” the three listed categories, so each falls under subdivision 1’s rule. Liable only as another statute provides, and otherwise immune.

Where “personal injury” itself ends is a further question the subdivision doesn’t answer. Emotional harm without physical injury is the obvious test case, and § 466.03 gives no definition of “personal injury” at all. So whether that claim is inside the protected three or outside them is a question of construction governed by authority not cited here. The text doesn’t settle it.

For a personal injury practice this subdivision usually doesn’t come up. For anyone bringing a business, land use, permitting, or records claim against a city, it’s the first provision to read, not the last.

Why are there two unimproved-property immunities and two DUI ones?

Because § 466.03 has been amended by more than twenty-five session laws since 1963, and nobody’s ever consolidated it. Two pairs do the same job on the face of the text:

• Subdivision 6a (“Driving under the influence; custody of motor vehicle”): “Any claim for which recovery is prohibited by section 169A.48, subdivision 2.” Subdivision 14 (“Arrestee’s motor vehicle; care and custody”): “Any claim for a loss for which recovery is prohibited by section 169A.48, subdivision 2.” Same cross-reference, two subdivision numbers.
• Subdivision 6b (“Unimproved property”): “Any claim based upon the condition of unimproved real property owned by the municipality.” Subdivision 13 (“Unimproved realty, old mines”) repeats it and then defines the term, extending it to “land that is owned or administered by the municipality that contains idled or abandoned mine pits or shafts, and appurtenances, fixtures, and attachments to land that the municipality has neither affixed nor improved.”

This isn’t about neatness. An immunity argument that cites only subdivision 6b hasn’t dealt with subdivision 13’s definition, and a response that answers only one half of a duplicated pair leaves the other half sitting there unanswered. Read both halves of each pair before you brief either one.

The Revisor’s history line for § 466.03 lists more than twenty-five session laws, running from Laws 1963, ch. 798, § 3 through Laws 2024, ch. 80, art. 2, § 74 and Laws 2024, ch. 115, art. 16, § 41. Subdivision 6d in the current edition points at chapter 142B and § 142B.41 — cross-references that didn’t read that way a few years ago. This section changes, and the version that matters is the one in force when the claim arose.

Seven moves, in order

Here’s how I work a claim against a public entity:

1. Run § 466.03 before you value the claim, not after the notice goes out. Subdivision 1 means an exception isn’t a defense you get to overcome. It’s the end of the negligence claim unless a different statute supplies liability.
2. If an exception applies, go find the other statute. That’s the only question subdivision 1 leaves open, and it’s a research question about the rest of the code.
3. Read both halves of the duplicated pairs: 6a with 14, 6b with 13.
4. On any property claim, check the six trespasser-floor subdivisions, and if one applies, plead the preserved theory expressly. Remember that 6f preserves the trespassing-children standard and 23(b)(2) preserves “any existing duty owed by the school district.”
5. Don’t stop at chapter 466. Subdivision 7 brings in every other municipal immunity statute; subdivision 15 brings in the eighteen exclusions in § 3.736, subd. 3.
6. Build the decision record early on any discretionary-function case: who decided, when, on what information, under what policy. The subdivision turns on how the conduct is characterized, and it’ll be characterized on whatever record exists.
7. Check the version of § 466.03 in force when the claim arose. The section has been amended over and over, most recently in 2024.

A second rule wearing an exception’s name

Section 466.03 is titled “Exceptions,” and that title undersells it. An exception implies a rule that mostly holds, with a defined set of departures. Twenty-nine subdivisions, two of which bring in every other immunity in Minnesota law and an eighteen-item list that says it’s incomplete, aren’t a set of departures. They’re a second rule.

The Legislature did something unusual in subdivision 1: it said out loud what falling into an exception means. A claim inside § 466.03 doesn’t go back to the common law. It goes to whatever statute happens to cover it, and to immunity if none does. Most immunity statutes leave that unsaid. This one wrote it down, which is a courtesy. It’s also why the very first question in a case against a Minnesota city isn’t whether the city was careless. It’s whether any statute in the code makes it answerable for this kind of carelessness.

The answer is often yes. But it’s never the negligence claim you started with.

Madgett Law, LLC handles Minnesota injury claims against cities, counties, school districts, and other public entities, including statutory immunity analysis under Minn. Stat. § 466.03, notice of claim under § 466.05, the damages cap under § 466.04, and claims against the State under § 3.736. If your injury involved public property or a public employee, you need the immunity question and the notice question answered early. Send us a message or call 612-470-6529.

Sources: Minn. Stat. § 466.03 (2025), “Exceptions”. The section contains thirty-one subdivision labels: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6a, 6b, 6c, 6d, 6e, 6f, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25. Subdivision 1 is the scope provision and subdivision 2 appears as “MS 1986 [Repealed, 1987 c 346 s 18],” leaving 29 subdivisions that define exceptions. Provisions relied on: subd. 1 (both sentences, including “As to any such claim every municipality shall be liable only in accordance with the applicable statute and where there is no such statute, every municipality shall be immune from liability.”); subd. 4 (snow and ice, including the abutting publicly owned building or parking lot condition); subd. 5 (“Any claim based upon an act or omission of an officer or employee, exercising due care, in the execution of a valid or invalid statute, charter, ordinance, resolution, or rule.”); subd. 6 (“Any claim based upon the performance or the failure to exercise or perform a discretionary function or duty, whether or not the discretion is abused.”); subd. 6a and subd. 14 (both keyed to § 169A.48, subd. 2); subd. 6b and subd. 13 (unimproved real property, with subd. 13’s definition); subd. 6e (parks and recreation areas, including the trespasser sentence and its “except as provided in subdivision 23” clause); subd. 6f (beach or pool equipment, including paragraph (b)’s three-condition duty to warn trespassers and paragraph (c)’s trespassing-children preservation); subd. 7 (“Any claim against a municipality as to which the municipality is immune from liability by the provisions of any other statute.”); subd. 8 (“Any claim for a loss other than injury to or loss of property or personal injury or death.”); subd. 15 (“Any claim against a municipality, if the same claim would be excluded under section 3.736, if brought against the state.”); subd. 16, subd. 20, subd. 22, and subd. 23 (each quoted for its trespasser-level preservation, and subd. 23(b)(2) for “reduces any existing duty owed by the school district”). Minn. Stat. § 466.02 (2025) (default liability, quoted in full). Minn. Stat. § 466.01 (2025) (definitions; the section contains subdivisions 1 through 6 — Municipality; Governing body of a town, school district; Release, hazardous substance; subdivisions 4 and 5, both shown as “MS 1996 [Repealed, 1997 c 7 art 1 s 140]”; and Employee, officer, or agent — and the word “discretion” does not appear anywhere in the section). Minn. Stat. § 3.736, subd. 3 (2025) (opening declaration, quoted verbatim, and eighteen lettered exclusions (a) through (r)). Revisor’s history line for § 466.03, ending at “2024 c 80 art 2 s 74; 2024 c 115 art 16 s 41.” Section 466.03 was not amended in the 2026 Regular Session. All statutory text from the Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes, 2025 Minnesota Statutes. This article cites no case law. The meaning of “discretionary function or duty” under subdivision 6 is governed by Minnesota decisional law that is deliberately neither cited nor summarized here; nothing above states where Minnesota courts draw that line. Three further questions are identified rather than answered: whether an exclusion a court finds under the opening clause of § 3.736, subd. 3 is imported by § 466.03, subd. 15; what other statutes supply liability for a claim that falls within an enumerated exception; and where the boundary of “personal injury” runs for purposes of subd. 8, which § 466.03 does not define. This article is general legal information about Minnesota law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. Whether any immunity applies depends on the facts, the entity, and the version of the statute in force when the claim arose. No outcome is promised or implied.