A Minnesota Temporary Restraining Order Has No Expiration Date. The Rule's Own Heading Says 'Duration' and Then Sets None.

Ask a lawyer who practices mostly in federal court how long a temporary restraining order lasts and the answer comes back instantly: fourteen days, extendable once for good cause or by consent. That answer is correct — in federal court. Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(b)(2) provides that a TRO issued without notice “expires at the time after entry—not to exceed 14 days—that the court sets, unless before that time the court, for good cause, extends it for a like period or the adverse party consents to a longer extension.”

Minnesota’s rule contains none of that.

Minn. R. Civ. P. 65.01 is captioned “Temporary Restraining Order; Notice; Hearing; Duration.” Read it hunting for the duration and you will come up empty. No outside date. No 14-day ceiling, no 10-day ceiling, no ceiling at all. No requirement that the order state the date and hour it issued. No extension procedure, because there is nothing to extend. The word “Duration” appears exactly once on the Revisor’s page for Rule 65 — in that heading.

What ends a Minnesota TRO is not the calendar. It is a person: the applicant who fails to prosecute the temporary injunction motion, the adverse party who moves to dissolve, or the judge who decides the motion. I treat that as the first fact of the remedy in this state, because it changes how the whole fight is staged.

Nothing in the rule makes the order expire

The rule imposes a duty to move forward rather than a clock. The sentence carrying the “Duration” heading reads:

In case a temporary restraining order is granted without notice, the motion for a temporary injunction shall be set down for hearing at the earliest practicable time and shall take precedence over all matters except older matters of the same character; and when the motion comes on for hearing, the party who obtained the temporary restraining order shall proceed with the application for a temporary injunction, and, if the party does not do so, the court shall dissolve the temporary restraining order.

Minn. R. Civ. P. 65.01. The pressure on the applicant is real, but it is procedural, not temporal. The order does not lapse. It is dissolved — and under this sentence, only when the applicant fails to proceed at a hearing that must be scheduled at the earliest practicable time.

The restrained party holds a lever that is faster than anything in the federal rule. Under the last sentence of Rule 65.01, “[o]n written or oral notice to the party who obtained the ex parte temporary restraining order, the adverse party may appear and move its dissolution or modification, and in that event the court shall proceed to hear and determine such motion as expeditiously as the ends of justice require.” The federal counterpart, Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(b)(4), requires two days’ notice. Minnesota’s rule requires notice — written or oral — and sets no minimum period whatsoever.

So: if I obtained the order, I calendar the temporary injunction hearing myself and never wait for the court to prompt me, because failure to proceed is the one thing the rule guarantees will cost me the order. If I am the one restrained, I do not wait for the applicant’s hearing date at all. I can be in front of the judge on oral notice tomorrow.

None of this stops a district court from writing an expiration date into its own order. Rule 65.04 requires that every restraining order “be specific in terms,” and a judge who wants a fourteen-day sunset can say so. That is the judge’s choice, not the rule’s command — and if the order is silent, do not assume it died on schedule.

What Rule 65.01 requires before a judge signs without notice

Two showings, plus a service obligation the federal rule does not impose.

An ex parte TRO may be granted “only if”:

(1) it clearly appears from specific facts shown by affidavit or by the verified complaint that immediate and irreparable injury, loss, or damage will result to the applicant before the adverse party or that party’s attorney can be heard in opposition, and (2) the applicant’s attorney states to the court in writing the efforts, if any, which have been made to give notice or the reasons supporting the claim that notice should not be required.

Read the second condition slowly. Silence does not satisfy it. “The efforts, if any” means the writing has to address the subject even when the answer is “none” — in which case the attorney must supply “the reasons supporting the claim that notice should not be required.” An ex parte application that never mentions notice has not complied with the rule, and I have seen judges say so.

Then the service piece: “In the event that a temporary restraining order is based upon any affidavit, a copy of such affidavit must be served with the temporary restraining order.” That sentence has no counterpart in Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(b). The restrained party gets the evidentiary basis for the order at the moment of service rather than weeks later, and that is exactly what makes an immediate motion to dissolve a workable tactic.

Five Dahlberg factors — and two showings Dahlberg never mentions

The governing framework comes from Dahlberg Bros., Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 272 Minn. 264, 137 N.W.2d 314 (1965). Five factors, not four. The court said it would “evaluate the situation in light of five considerations which we consider relevant in deciding whether the determination made by the trial court should be sustained on appeal,” and listed them:

(1) The nature and background of the relationship between the parties preexisting the dispute giving rise to the request for relief.

(2) The harm to be suffered by plaintiff if the temporary restraint is denied as compared to that inflicted on defendant if the injunction issues pending trial.

(3) The likelihood that one party or the other will prevail on the merits when the fact situation is viewed in light of established precedents fixing the limits of equitable relief.

(4) The aspects of the fact situation, if any, which permit or require consideration of public policy expressed in the statutes, State and Federal.

(5) The administrative burdens involved in judicial supervision and enforcement of the temporary decree.

Dahlberg, 272 Minn. at 274–75, 137 N.W.2d at 321–22. The Minnesota Supreme Court has since called these “the Dahlberg factors for issuance of a temporary restraining order or temporary injunction” — one test, applied to both forms of interim relief. Council of Indep. Tobacco Mfrs. of Am. v. State, 713 N.W.2d 300, 304 (Minn. 2006).

Factor (1) is not a warm-up, and most briefs waste it. In Dahlberg the fact that the dealer had held the Ford franchise for over forty years without either side needing a court did substantial work, and the court affirmed in part because “in view of the long experience that the parties have had with each other without resort to the courts, we accept the judgment of the trial judge in this regard.” 272 Minn. at 283, 137 N.W.2d at 326. Relationship history is evidence. I brief it as evidence.

Two threshold showings sit outside the five factors, and they come from separate cases.

No adequate legal remedy. “The party seeking the injunction must establish that his legal remedy is not adequate, and that the injunction is necessary to prevent great and irreparable injury.” Cherne Indus., Inc. v. Grounds & Assocs., Inc., 278 N.W.2d 81, 92 (Minn. 1979) (citations omitted). The Court of Appeals frames it as a precondition: “A trial court may grant a temporary injunction if the party seeking it establishes that there is no adequate remedy at law and that denial of the injunction will result in irreparable injury.” Sanborn Mfg. Co. v. Currie, 500 N.W.2d 161, 163 (Minn. Ct. App. 1993).

Preservation of the status quo. “The object of a temporary injunction is to maintain the matter in controversy in its existing condition until judgment so that the effect of the judgment shall not be impaired by the acts of the parties during the litigation.” Pickerign v. Pasco Mktg., Inc., 303 Minn. 442, 446, 228 N.W.2d 562, 565 (1975). A motion asking the court to hand the movant something it did not have the week before the lawsuit is asking for more than the remedy was built to do, and it should be framed with that in mind.

Review on appeal is deferential: the question is “whether the order of the trial court constitutes a clear abuse of discretion.” Dahlberg, 272 Minn. at 274, 137 N.W.2d at 321.

Now the part I consider the single most useful holding in Minnesota interim-relief law, because it inverts what the federal formulation trains lawyers to expect. A weak merits case can still win an injunction here. The Court of Appeals said it plainly in Sanborn:

Trial courts have the discretion to balance the factors of irreparable harm and likelihood of success on the merits. Where plaintiffs make a strong showing of irreparable harm, but a doubtful showing that they are likely to win the case, trial courts may properly decide to grant an injunction to preserve the status quo until trial.

Sanborn, 500 N.W.2d at 164–65 (citing Dahlberg, 272 Minn. at 275 n.13, 137 N.W.2d at 321 n.13). Sanborn still reversed, because that movant had shown “no likelihood it will win this case” — a doubtful showing and no showing are different animals. The principle survives the reversal. A genuinely close merits question paired with harm nobody can undo is an injunction case in Minnesota, and I brief it that way instead of as a merits preview.

Compare the federal articulation. “A plaintiff seeking a preliminary injunction must establish that he is likely to succeed on the merits, that he is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, that the balance of equities tips in his favor, and that an injunction is in the public interest.” Winter v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008). “Likely to succeed” is a floor. Minnesota’s factor (3) is weighed, not cleared.

The bond is where the restrained party’s recovery lives

Rule 65.03(a) is written in absolute terms:

No temporary restraining order or temporary injunction shall be granted except upon the giving of security by the applicant, in such sum as the court deems proper, for the payment of such costs and damages as may be incurred or suffered by any party who is found to have been wrongfully enjoined or restrained.

Unlike Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(c), the Minnesota rule exempts nobody, government included. And unlike the pre-1974 statutory regime it replaced, it sets no floor. The Court of Appeals traced the change: before Rule 65.03, “a bond of at least $250 was required” by statute, and “[s]ubsequent to adoption of the rule and repeal of the statute, the amount of security required on a temporary injunction is within the trial court’s discretion and may be waived entirely if appropriate.” Bio-Line, Inc. v. Wilfley, 366 N.W.2d 662, 664 (Minn. Ct. App. 1985). The rule commands security; the case law permits the number to be zero.

That repeal deserves a paragraph of its own. Minnesota’s entire injunction chapter — Minn. Stat. §§ 585.01 through 585.04 — was repealed by 1974 Minn. Laws ch. 394, § 11. The statutory authority Dahlberg itself cited for temporary injunctions, Minn. Stat. § 585.02, no longer exists. Interim injunctive relief in Minnesota state court is a creature of Rule 65 and the case law, full stop. A brief citing chapter 585 came out of a form file that is fifty years stale.

Two more things about the bond, and they matter most when you are the one who was wrongly restrained.

Good faith is no defense to bond liability. “We therefore hold that good faith in obtaining a temporary restraining order is no defense to recovery of damages on an injunction bond.” Hubbard Broad., Inc. v. Loescher, 291 N.W.2d 216, 221 (Minn. 1980). The claimant’s burden is to “establish that he suffered damages proximately caused by a restraining order to which the opposing party was not entitled.” Id. at 219–20. Liability can be enforced on motion; Rule 65.03(b) provides that each surety “submits to the jurisdiction of the court and irrevocably appoints the court administrator as the surety’s agent,” and that “[t]he surety’s liability may be enforced on motion without the necessity of an independent action.”

The bond is usually the ceiling. Hubbard quoted the earlier rule that damages from a wrongful injunction “are recoverable (unless the writ was procured by malice) only by action on the bond,” and read that holding as implying the applicant’s good faith is irrelevant to recovery within the bond. Id. at 221 (quoting AMF Pinspotters, Inc. v. Harkins Bowling, Inc., 260 Minn. 499, 507, 110 N.W.2d 348, 353 (1961)). That is why the number set at the TRO stage is never a formality. If I represent the restrained party, I argue the bond amount at the outset with a damages model attached, because that argument gets far harder after the order is signed.

Rule 65.04 dictates how the order reads and who it reaches

Rule 65.04 is a comparatively recent addition to Minnesota practice — effective March 1, 2001, and drawn, as the Advisory Committee said, “directly from Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(d).”

Every order granting an injunction and every restraining order shall set forth the reasons for its issuance; shall be specific in terms; shall describe in reasonable detail, and not by reference to the complaint or other document, the act or acts sought to be restrained; and is binding only upon the parties to the action, their officers, agents, servants, employees, and attorneys, and upon those persons in active concert or participation with them who receive actual notice of the order by personal service or otherwise.

Three drafting rules fall out of that sentence. The order must state its own reasons, so a one-line order granting the motion does not comply. It must describe the restrained conduct itself and cannot incorporate the complaint by reference. And its reach past the named parties runs only to people who actually received notice. A proposed order reciting that “Defendant and all persons acting in concert are enjoined” with no notice mechanism is an enforcement problem waiting to happen.

Temporary relief is a nondispositive motion in this state

This is where lawyers arriving from federal court get caught. In Minnesota state court, a motion for a temporary injunction is nondispositive.

Minn. Gen. R. Prac. 115.01(a)(2) defines nondispositive motions as “all other motions, including but not limited to discovery, third party practice, temporary relief, intervention or amendment of pleadings.” The Advisory Committee said so in as many words: “Federal court practice treats motions for interlocutory injunctive relief as dispositive because these matters are heard with other dispositive motions before judges rather than magistrates, but there is no reason to treat these motions as dispositive in state-court practice.”

That classification sets the schedule under Minn. Gen. R. Prac. 115.04: moving documents — notice of motion and motion, proposed order, affidavits and exhibits, and any memorandum — served and filed at least 21 days before the hearing; response at least 14 days before; reply, limited to new matters, at least 7 days before. Memoranda are capped at 35 pages, with the original and reply together subject to the same cap. Minn. Gen. R. Prac. 115.05.

Two traps live in that schedule. First, Rule 115.10 applies to this motion like any other: “No motion will be heard unless the parties have conferred in an attempt to resolve their differences prior to the hearing. The moving party shall initiate the conference.” The moving party certifies compliance, or the reasons for non-compliance, before the hearing. Nothing on the face of the rule carves out injunctions. If the emergency was genuine and conferring was impossible, say so in the certification instead of omitting it and hoping nobody looks.

Second, Rule 115.07 is the relief valve: “If irreparable harm will result absent immediate action by the court, or if the interests of justice otherwise require, the court may waive or modify the time limits established by this rule.” Invoke it by name when you need a hearing inside 21 days. Filing early and hoping is not a strategy.

An injunction order is appealable; an ex parte TRO is not

An order on a temporary injunction is appealable as of right. Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 103.03(b) permits an appeal to the Court of Appeals “from an order which grants, refuses, dissolves or refuses to dissolve, an injunction.” That is paragraph (b) — the rule has lettered paragraphs, not subdivisions.

An ex parte temporary restraining order is a different animal, and Rule 65 itself keeps the categories apart: 65.01 governs the “Temporary Restraining Order,” 65.02 governs the “Temporary Injunction,” and 65.04 speaks of “Every order granting an injunction and every restraining order.” Ex parte orders also carry an independent appealability defect. “Ex parte orders are nonappealable simply because the trial court has not had the opportunity to correct any error by having its attention directed thereto by adversary proceedings.” Chapman v. Dorsey, 230 Minn. 279, 287 (1950). The Court of Appeals restated it in 2013: “[E]x parte orders are not appealable.” Fiduciary Found., LLC v. Brown, 834 N.W.2d 756, 761 (Minn. Ct. App. 2013) (citing Chapman).

The Court of Appeals has also applied 103.03(b) by its terms to reject an appeal from an order that granted interim relief but “did not grant an injunction,” holding it “not appealable pursuant to Minn.R. Civ.App.P. 103.03(b)” — then extending discretionary review to reach it anyway. Bio-Line, 366 N.W.2d at 665. What the order does matters more than the label on it, and where appealability is genuinely uncertain, the discretionary route is there.

That route is Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 105.01: on petition, “in the interests of justice the Court of Appeals may allow an appeal from an order not otherwise appealable pursuant to Rule 103.03 except an order made during trial.” The petition must be served, filed, and accompanied by a $550 filing fee within 30 days of the filing of the order. Under Rule 105.02, the petition may not exceed 4,000 words and must state “why an immediate appeal is necessary and desirable”; the response is due within 7 days and any reply within 3 days.

Do not overlook Minn. R. Civ. P. 62.02 while the appeal runs. “When an appeal is taken from an interlocutory or final judgment granting, dissolving, or denying an injunction, the court in its discretion may suspend, modify, restore, or grant an injunction during the pendency of the appeal upon such terms as to bond or otherwise as it considers proper for the security of the rights of the adverse party.” The district court can keep the restraint alive, or lift it, in the meantime.

Where federal practice diverges

If the case is in, or headed to, the District of Minnesota, the framework shifts in ways that change the filing:

On the federal substantive test, the Eighth Circuit’s en banc formulation is that “whether a preliminary injunction should issue involves consideration of (1) the threat of irreparable harm to the movant; (2) the state of balance between this harm and the injury that granting the injunction will inflict on other parties litigant; (3) the probability that movant will succeed on the merits; and (4) the public interest.” Dataphase Sys., Inc. v. C L Sys., Inc., 640 F.2d 109, 114 (8th Cir. 1981) (en banc). The Supreme Court’s Winter formulation states each element as something the plaintiff “must establish.” 555 U.S. at 20. Whatever the interaction between those two, they are federal standards governing federal motions. They do not displace Dahlberg in a Minnesota district court, and a state-court brief built on Winter is arguing the wrong test.

The package I actually file

For an ex parte TRO in Minnesota state court, assume the judge is looking for every one of these:

1. A verified complaint or affidavit stating specific facts. Rule 65.01 requires that immediate and irreparable injury “clearly appear[] from specific facts shown by affidavit or by the verified complaint.” Conclusions do not satisfy it. If the verified complaint is doing the work, verify it properly; if an affidavit is, it has to be served with the order.
2. The attorney’s written statement on notice — the efforts made, or the reasons notice should not be required. A separate document, or a discrete section of the memorandum. Never buried.
3. A proposed order that complies with Rule 65.04 — reasons stated, terms specific, restrained acts described in the order itself rather than by reference to the complaint, and a persons-bound clause tied to actual notice.
4. A memorandum organized around the five Dahlberg factors, with the Cherne threshold showings — no adequate remedy at law, great and irreparable injury — under their own heading rather than folded into factor (2).
5. A security proposal with a number and a rationale. The court must require security under Rule 65.03(a). Propose a figure with support rather than letting the other side set the anchor — and if you are the restrained party, that number may be your entire recovery.
6. A noticed temporary injunction motion, already calendared. The hearing must be set at the earliest practicable time, and failure to proceed at it is the one certain way to lose what you won.

Interim relief is the corner of Minnesota civil practice where the gap between the rule text and the received wisdom runs widest. The received wisdom says a TRO lasts fourteen days, the bond is a formality, and the test is likelihood of success. In this state the rule sets no duration, the bond is the restrained party’s whole recovery, and the test is five weighed considerations in which a doubtful merits showing can still lose to a strong showing of irreparable harm. Draft to the rule, not to the folklore.

Madgett Law, LLC litigates emergency and interim relief in Minnesota state and federal court — obtaining and defending against temporary restraining orders and temporary injunctions in business, contract, property, and consumer disputes, including the bond fight and the appeal. If you have been served with a restraining order, or you need one, call 612-470-6529 or send us a message.

Related reading: Minnesota’s lis pendens statute, prejudgment attachment under chapter 570, harassment restraining orders under § 609.748, receiverships under chapter 576, and Minnesota’s non-compete ban.

Sources: Minn. R. Civ. P. 65.01 (conditions for an ex parte TRO; service of the supporting affidavit; setting the temporary injunction hearing; dissolution on failure to proceed; motion to dissolve on written or oral notice; absence of any stated duration), 65.02 (notice required for a temporary injunction; grounds; consolidation with trial), 65.03(a)–(b) (mandatory security; surety’s submission to jurisdiction and enforcement on motion), 65.04 (contents and scope of injunctions and restraining orders; persons bound; Advisory Committee Comment — 2000 Amendment, noting the provision is drawn from Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(d)); Minn. R. Civ. P. 62.02 (injunction pending appeal). Minn. Gen. R. Prac. 115.01(a)(2) (temporary relief is a nondispositive motion) and Advisory Committee Comment — 1997 Amendment (contrast with federal treatment); 115.04(a)–(c) (21/14/7-day schedule); 115.05 (35-page limit); 115.07 (waiver or modification of time limits on a showing of irreparable harm); 115.10 (pre-hearing conference and certification). Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 103.03(b) (appeal from an order granting, refusing, dissolving, or refusing to dissolve an injunction); 105.01 (discretionary review; 30 days; $550 fee); 105.02 (4,000-word limit; response and reply times). Minn. Stat. §§ 585.01–585.04 [Repealed, 1974 c 394 s 11] (former statutory injunction chapter, including § 585.02 cited in Dahlberg). Dahlberg Bros., Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 272 Minn. 264, 274–75, 283, 137 N.W.2d 314, 321–22, 326 (1965) (five considerations; clear-abuse-of-discretion review; weight of the parties’ pre-dispute relationship). Council of Indep. Tobacco Mfrs. of Am. v. State, 713 N.W.2d 300, 304 (Minn. 2006) (the Dahlberg factors govern both TROs and temporary injunctions). Cherne Indus., Inc. v. Grounds & Assocs., Inc., 278 N.W.2d 81, 92 (Minn. 1979) (inadequate legal remedy; great and irreparable injury). Sanborn Mfg. Co. v. Currie, 500 N.W.2d 161, 163, 164–65 (Minn. Ct. App. 1993) (threshold showings; balancing strong irreparable harm against a doubtful merits showing). Pickerign v. Pasco Mktg., Inc., 303 Minn. 442, 446, 228 N.W.2d 562, 565 (1975) (object of a temporary injunction). Bio-Line, Inc. v. Wilfley, 366 N.W.2d 662, 664–65 (Minn. Ct. App. 1985) (security amount discretionary and may be waived entirely; repeal of the $250 statutory bond; order that “did not grant an injunction” not appealable under 103.03(b)). Hubbard Broad., Inc. v. Loescher, 291 N.W.2d 216, 219–20, 221 (Minn. 1980) (proof required to recover on an injunction bond; good faith no defense; damages recoverable on the bond absent malice, quoting AMF Pinspotters, Inc. v. Harkins Bowling, Inc., 260 Minn. 499, 507, 110 N.W.2d 348, 353 (1961)). Chapman v. Dorsey, 230 Minn. 279, 287 (1950) (ex parte orders nonappealable; N.W.2d parallel omitted — unverifiable, CAP has no nw2d vol. 41). Fiduciary Found., LLC v. Brown, 834 N.W.2d 756, 761 (Minn. Ct. App. 2013) (same). Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(b)(1)(B), (b)(2), (b)(4), (c), (d) (federal comparison). Winter v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008); Dataphase Sys., Inc. v. C L Sys., Inc., 640 F.2d 109, 114 (8th Cir. 1981) (en banc). 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.