Clients who’ve just lost a money judgment tend to assume the appeal itself hits pause. It doesn’t, and the rule says so in one sentence. Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 108.01, subd. 1:
Except as otherwise provided by rule or statute, an appeal from a judgment or order does not stay enforcement of the judgment or order in the trial court unless that court orders relief in accordance with Rule 108.02.
Rule 62.03 of the civil rules closes the loop from the other side: when an appeal is taken, “the appellant may obtain a stay only when authorized and in the manner provided in Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 107 and 108.” The 2009 advisory committee comment adds a detail that has burned more than one appellant: the cost bond filed under Rule 107 doesn’t stay anything. The comment cites Anderson v. Anderson for exactly that point. So while your appellate brief is being written, the judgment creditor can be executing on bank accounts and levying on property, and the docketed judgment sits there as a lien quietly doing damage to your client’s real estate. I walk through that machinery in collecting a Minnesota judgment. The stay doesn’t come free with the appeal. You buy it separately, and this article is the price list.
The motion goes to the district court that just ruled against you
It feels backwards, but it’s mandatory. Rule 108.02, subd. 1: a party seeking any of the following relief “must move first in the trial court” —
- a stay of enforcement of the judgment or order pending appeal;
- approval of the form and amount of security, if any, to be provided in connection with the stay; or
- an order suspending, modifying, restoring, or granting an injunction while the appeal is pending pursuant to Minn. R. Civ. P. 62.02.
You’re asking the judge who entered the judgment to suspend it. Under subd. 2, the trial court may grant that relief “if the appellant provides security in a form and amount that the trial court approves” — a discretionary call the Court of Appeals reviews for abuse of the trial court’s “fairly broad” discretion, as the committee comment puts it. The exception is built into the same sentence: no security is required “as to cases in which a governmental body is the appellant,” and Minn. R. Civ. P. 62.04 says the same thing for the state and its subdivisions. The government stays judgments for free. Your client doesn’t.
“Supersedeas bond” is one option among four
The old rule read as if a surety bond were the only key. The current Rule 108.02, subd. 3, lists the acceptable forms of security:
The form of the security may be a supersedeas bond, a letter of credit, a deposit of cash or property with the trial court administrator, or any other form of security that the trial court approves as adequate under the circumstances.
The security may be one instrument or several, and the committee comment observes that a deposit into court or a letter of credit “may be preferable and less expensive” than a commercial surety bond. Take that seriously. Bond premiums are real money, and sureties demand collateral anyway. Two working rules in the same subdivision decide close cases. One: “The appellant bears the burden of demonstrating the adequacy of any security to be given.” Show up at the motion with the bond commitment, the letter-of-credit terms, or the cash, not with good intentions. Two: unless the court orders otherwise, “a stay of an order or judgment does not take effect until any security ordered is filed and notice of filing is provided to all parties.” An order granting a stay you haven’t funded yet protects nothing. The sheriff can act in the gap.
And under subd. 5, whoever writes the security submits to the district court’s jurisdiction: a surety’s or issuer’s liability “may be enforced on motion in the district court … without the necessity of an independent action.” The respondent doesn’t have to sue the bonding company later. That’s the whole point of the instrument.
How the district court sets the number
Rule 108.02, subd. 4, states one controlling principle and then applies it by type of judgment. The principle, subd. 4(a): the amount “must be fixed at such amount as the trial court determines will preserve the value of the judgment or order to the respondent during the pendency of appeal.”
For a money judgment not otherwise secured, subd. 4(b) says the security “normally must be fixed” at a sum covering four components: the unpaid amount of the judgment or order, costs on appeal (to the extent not already secured under Rule 107), interest during the pendency of the appeal, and any other damages caused by depriving the respondent of the right to enforce during the appeal. Post-judgment interest is a real piece of the number, not a rounding error. I cover how Minn. Stat. § 549.09 sets the rate in my article on interest on verdicts and judgments, and on a large judgment the interest line alone can move the bond by six figures.
Here’s an illustration, with every number invented. Your client loses a $600,000 judgment, pays nothing, and the appeal will realistically take fourteen months. Assume the statutory rate produces $60,000 of interest over that period and anticipated appellate costs run $5,000. The district court applying subd. 4(b) lands the security somewhere around $665,000. That’s more than the judgment, and it surprises clients every time. The bond secures the respondent’s whole position at the end of the appeal, not the judgment as of the day you lost.
Judgments about property run through subd. 4(c). Where the judgment “determines the possession, ownership, or use of real or personal property (such as in actions for replevin, foreclosure, or conveyance of real property),” the security is normally fixed to compensate the respondent for loss of use of the property during the appeal, plus appellate costs, interest, and other damages, and the subdivision expressly includes waste. And subd. 4(d) permits a partial stay with security sized to the portion actually stayed. Remember that one when a judgment mixes a money award your client can pay with declaratory relief it can’t live under.
The ten-day statute that takes the discretion out of it
Rule 108 isn’t the only road, and the other one is hiding in the execution chapter. Minn. Stat. § 550.36(a) opens by saying so: “This section is an alternative to the Minnesota Rule of Civil Appellate Procedure, Rule 108.02, subdivision 3.” Then it does something the rule never does. It makes the stay mandatory if you comply:
Execution of a judgment for the payment of money only shall be stayed during the course of all appeals or discretionary appellate reviews of a judgment if, within ten days after the entry thereof, the judgment debtor shall file with the court administrator a bond, running to the judgment creditor, the creditor’s personal representatives, and assigns.
The bond “must be in the amount of the judgment, or a lesser amount approved by the court in the interests of justice,” conditioned on payment of the judgment with interest computed at the § 549.09 rate, and, under a 2004 cap the legislature added, “[t]he total appeal bond that is required of all appellants must not exceed $150,000,000, regardless of the value of the judgment.” The statute’s clock is brutal: ten days after entry of judgment, with notice and a copy of the bond served on the judgment creditor within two days after that. The creditor may except to the bond’s sufficiency, and a court that finds it insufficient may let execution issue unless a further bond is given. Paragraph (b) adds a safety valve against games: on evidence the debtor may be dissipating assets, the court may enter protective orders and require a bond up to the full judgment.
In practice I treat § 550.36 as the emergency brake and Rule 108.02 as the steering wheel. If the ten-day window is open and the client can bond the full amount, the statute buys certainty. If the window’s closed, or the client needs a lesser amount, a different instrument, or a stay of something other than a money execution, the Rule 108 motion is the vehicle, and it’s available at any point in the appeal.
A cash deposit also clears the title
One more statute belongs in the toolkit. Under Minn. Stat. § 548.12, when an appeal is taken from a docketed judgment, or a motion to vacate or for a new trial is pending, the judgment debtor may deposit in court “an amount sufficient to secure the payment of such judgment, with all interest and costs likely to accrue thereon pending the appeal or motion,” and upon the court’s approving order “the judgment lien upon the real estate of the debtor shall cease and be transferred to the money so deposited.” A certified copy of the order can be filed in every county where the judgment was transcribed. For a client who needs to close a refinance or a sale while the appeal runs, that’s the difference between a frozen parcel and a clean one. The lien comes off the land and moves onto the deposit.
Post nothing, and both tracks run at once
An appellant who can’t or won’t fund security still gets the appeal. Nothing in Rule 108 conditions appellate review on a stay. What keeps going alongside it is enforcement. The respondent executes, and if the appeal later succeeds, the money has to come back. Getting it back is its own project, against a party who may have spent it. That risk cuts both ways, which is why sophisticated respondents sometimes negotiate a voluntary standstill instead of levying on a judgment that might get reversed.
Meanwhile Rule 108.01, subd. 2, splits the district court’s remaining power more finely than most lawyers expect. A timely and proper appeal “suspends the trial court’s authority to make any order that affects the order or judgment appealed from,” but the court “retains jurisdiction as to matters independent of, supplemental to, or collateral to” it. The committee comment collects the cases, including attorney-fee and cost motions that go forward after the appeal is perfected. And before the appeal is even filed, Rule 62.01 gives the district court discretionary power to stay enforcement pending post-trial motions under Rules 50.02, 52.02, 59, and 60 (including a Rule 60.02 motion to vacate) on such conditions for the adverse party’s security as are proper.
Lose the stay motion below, and you get one review, on a record you build
The trial court’s stay decision isn’t the last word, but the road back up is narrow. Under Rule 108.02, subd. 6, review comes by motion in the Court of Appeals under Rule 127, and the rule prescribes what the motion must contain: (a) the reasons for relief and the facts relied on; (b) originals or copies of affidavits or other sworn statements supporting any disputed facts; and (c) a copy of the trial-court submissions, any order on security, and the other relevant parts of the record. If the Court of Appeals grants the motion, it may give relief on the same terms the trial court could have given under subds. 2, 3, and 4, and may require the security to be posted in the trial court. If the case moves to the Supreme Court on a petition for review, Rule 108.03 keeps existing security in full force unless that court orders otherwise, and lets it require additional security to protect anyone damaged by the continued stay.
The 2009 committee comment flags two limits on all of this. Courts keep discretion to waive security entirely, but the comment, citing No Power Line, Inc. v. Minnesota Environmental Quality Council, notes the supreme court’s warning that the discretion “must be exercised sparingly.” And some orders can’t be stayed at any price: the comment quotes Petersen v. Petersen for the rule that orders changing child custody “are not affected by supersedeas or cost bonds” and take effect when the trial court says they do. A bond protects money. It doesn’t protect everything.
The clock that matters most is still running somewhere else. None of this extends the time to appeal itself, which is governed by the deadlines in my guide to Minnesota appeal deadlines and appealable orders. Get the notice of appeal filed on time. Then fight about the stay.
Madgett Law, LLC handles Minnesota civil appeals and the enforcement fights around them: supersedeas motions, bond and letter-of-credit structuring, § 550.36 statutory stays, and, on the other side of the caption, execution against unbonded judgments during appeal. If you’re holding a judgment or appealing one, send us a message or call 612-470-6529.
Sources: Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 108 — Rule 108.01, subd. 1 (no stay of enforcement absent trial-court relief under Rule 108.02, except as otherwise provided by rule or statute); 108.01, subd. 2 (appeal suspends trial-court authority over the judgment appealed from; jurisdiction retained over independent, supplemental, or collateral matters); 108.02, subd. 1(a)–(c) (stay, security approval, and Rule 62.02 injunction relief sought first in the trial court); subd. 2 (security requirement; governmental-appellant exception); subd. 3 (forms of security — supersedeas bond, letter of credit, deposit of cash or property, or other approved form; appellant’s burden; stay effective only on filing of security with notice); subd. 4(a)–(d) (preserve-the-value principle; money-judgment components — unpaid amount, appellate costs, interest, other damages; property-judgment components including loss of use and waste; partial stays); subd. 5 (security providers submit to district-court jurisdiction; enforcement on motion without independent action); subd. 6 (review by Court of Appeals on Rule 127 motion; required contents; relief on the same terms); Rule 108.03 (security remains in force during Supreme Court review; additional security); Advisory Committee Comment — 2009 Amendments (cost bond does not stay, citing Anderson v. Anderson; abuse-of-discretion review; deposit or letter of credit as cheaper alternatives; waiver discretion “exercised sparingly,” citing No Power Line, Inc. v. Minnesota Environmental Quality Council; custody orders unaffected by supersedeas or cost bonds, quoting Petersen v. Petersen — case propositions attributed to the comment). Minn. R. Civ. P. 62.01 (discretionary stay pending Rule 50.02, 52.02, 59, and 60 motions); 62.02 (injunction pending appeal); 62.03 (stay on appeal only as authorized by Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 107 and 108); 62.04 (no security from the state or its subdivisions). Minn. Stat. § 550.36(a) (mandatory stay of execution on a money-only judgment on filing a bond within ten days of entry; bond in the amount of the judgment or a court-approved lesser amount; interest per § 549.09; $150,000,000 aggregate cap; two-day service of notice; creditor’s exception to sufficiency; the section’s self-description as an alternative to Rule 108.02, subdivision 3); § 550.36(b) (protective orders and full-amount bond on evidence of asset dissipation); Minn. Stat. § 548.12 (deposit in court on appeal from a docketed judgment; judgment lien on real estate ceases and transfers to the deposited funds; certified copies filed in counties of transcription). Rule text from the Revisor’s Minnesota Court Rules pages (Appellate Procedure and Civil Procedure); statutory text from the Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes, retrieved August 2026.
The $600,000 bond illustration is invented arithmetic used to show how Rule 108.02, subd. 4(b)’s components stack; the interest and cost figures are not computed from § 549.09 and are not drawn from any case.
This article is general legal information about Minnesota law. It is not legal advice, it does not create an attorney–client relationship, and no outcome is promised or implied. Whether a stay is available, what security a court will require, and every deadline discussed here depend on the judgment, the record, and the forum. Do not calculate a bond or a deadline in your own matter from this article.