Collectors, garnishment, credit reports, identity theft, and guaranties.
Minnesota's junk fee exemption is keyed to fees authorized by law, not to car dealers. The doc fee cap is the lesser of $350 or ten percent of the sale.
Read →Minnesota's club-contract sections ban the gym termination fee and give an injured member damages plus attorney's fees. The junk fee law gives an injunction.
Read →The price on the listing page and the price at checkout are different numbers. Section 325D.44, subd. 1a(a) says the first one must include the fee.
Read →Minnesota's junk fee law shelters automatic and mandatory gratuities. The bold-type notice that lets a house keep a service charge says the charge is not one.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 325G.051 permits a card surcharge, caps it at five percent, and names no plaintiff. Who can sue, and why I read a cashless counter to violate the junk fee law by obeying it.
Read →Minn. Stat. §§ 332.71–332.75 let an abuse victim get a debt declared coerced and enforcement enjoined. It reaches only debts incurred on or after January 1, 2024, it excludes secured debt, and it awards the debtor no damages and no fees.
Read →Full faith and credit closes the merits of an out-of-state judgment. What survives is jurisdiction — and in an identity-theft case the fight is over service, the address the thief supplied, and whether a creditor can prove an electronic signature was your act under Minn. Stat. § 325L.09.
Read →Minnesota Chapter 168B lets a lot hold your car until you pay — but not your ID, medicine, or, for many owners, anything else in it. Plus notice, sale, and deficiency rules.
Read →Minn. Stat. §§ 325G.56–.63 govern subscriptions that renew themselves. The sections are unusually specific about conduct and conspicuously silent about damages — and the strongest consumer remedies in them are self-executing.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 550.371, subd. 1 affirmatively makes 11 U.S.C. § 522(d) available here. Three or four line items decide the choice — and one Minnesota subdivision can lock a separately filing spouse out of the other set for three years.
Read →Minnesota's all-in pricing law lives in § 325D.44, subd. 1a — inside the one consumer statute whose only remedy is an injunction. Where the money claim actually comes from.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 548.27 makes a foreign judgment subject to the same procedures and defenses as a Minnesota judgment. Matson v. Matson holds that Rule 60.02 does not apply the same way — the grounds are a closed list, the merits are off the table, and the case was usually won or lost in the rendering state.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 325G.53 forbids any expiration date or fee on a gift certificate — but I read its 'tangible record' definition, six carve-outs, and the one appellate case on it as the whole ballgame.
Read →Chapter 58B's private right of action is in § 58B.09, subd. 4 — not where most people look. Its 45-day notice and 30-day cure provisions are conditions on the claim, and they are why the class action is the enforcement vehicle.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 325F.662 gives a car with 150,000 miles a warranty the same car would not get at 60,000 miles — and exempts franchised new-car dealers from the tier that covers it. The warranty also exists whether or not the dealer wrote one.
Read →The 2024 Debt Fairness Act ended spousal liability for medical bills, banned medical debt credit reporting, and created a one-way fee shift for debtors who win. A precise look at ch. 332C — including what 'medical debt' excludes.
Read →The 80 percent figure in Minnesota law is a title-branding trigger under ch. 168A. The statute that governs what your insurer must pay for a totaled car is § 72A.201, subd. 6 — and Morris holds you cannot sue to enforce it.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 541.053, effective August 1, 2013, provides that an expired consumer-debt limitations period "is not revived by the collection of a payment on an account, a discharge in a bankruptcy proceeding, or an oral or written reaffirmation of the debt."
Read →Minn. Stat. §§ 325F.56–.66 govern auto, appliance, and dwelling repairs. Laws 2024, ch. 114, art. 3, § 48 struck the upper dollar limit — the big-ticket engine job is now inside the Act, with treble punitive damages available under § 325F.63.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 548.101 makes a debt buyer prove its case even when nobody shows up — seven evidentiary items, and a missing one is grounds to attack the judgment.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 47.60 caps a consumer small loan at $350, 30 days, and an APR of 50 percent that includes every fee. A 2026 amendment extended the definition of lender to anyone arranging the loan — and the Revisor's codified display does not yet show it.
Read →Under Minn. Stat. § 571.72, subd. 2, cl. (5), a garnishee retains the debtor's money until a writ of execution is served. Chapter 551 — attorney's summary execution — is the step that converts a freeze into a payment, and it has its own caps, notices, and void-on-failure rules.
Read →Minn. Stat. §§ 325G.06–.11 give a three-business-day right to cancel a home solicitation sale. The sentence governing a seller who never gave notice is in § 325G.08, subd. 2 — and I read it as answering how the buyer may cancel, not, in terms, the deadline.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 548.22 and § 548.23 authorize judgment without an action. Section 548.23 requires the authorizing instrument to be 'distinct from' the instrument evidencing the debt, and 16 C.F.R. § 444.2(a)(1) removes the device entirely from consumer credit.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 575.02 hands a creditor an order compelling the debtor to appear and answer under oath — but only after an execution issued to the right sheriff comes back unsatisfied. Chapter 575 then does far more than ask questions.
Read →Entry, docketing, and execution are three different acts. Under Minn. Stat. § 548.09, subd. 1, the lien begins at docketing but the judgment survives only ten years from entry — and renewing an ordinary money judgment under § 541.04 means filing a new lawsuit, not a form.
Read →Reckless disregard counts as willful — but only where the defendant's reading of the statute was objectively unreasonable. That single word decides whether a case is worth $100 to $1,000 per violation or nothing but proven actual damages.
Read →The FCRA gives consumers a private action against furnishers under § 1681s-2(b) only. Subsection (a) is enforceable by regulators alone — and (b) duties are triggered only by a dispute routed through a credit bureau.
Read →Under Minn. Stat. § 336.2-608 a buyer who has accepted goods must prove substantial impairment, not just a defect. And § 325F.665's repair-attempt, out-of-service, and coverage thresholds exclude more buyers than they cover.
Read →Section 1681o pays actual damages. Section 1681n adds statutory and punitive damages but demands willfulness. Both shift fees. What separates a provable case from a frustrating one is almost always a paper trail somebody built months before I saw the file.
Read →The FCRA demands a reasonable reinvestigation and procedures assuring maximum possible accuracy. The automated dispute pipeline is built to ask one question — and there are whole categories of error it structurally cannot find.
Read →A personal guaranty is a separate contract that survives your company's collapse and its bankruptcy. Minnesota's statute of frauds requires it in writing — and I find the waivers buried in the boilerplate are usually more dangerous than the guaranty itself.
Read →In Keathley v. Buddy Ayers Construction, a unanimous Court threw out a test that killed injury claims based on a debtor's 'motive to conceal.' The Eighth Circuit — which governs Minnesota — has taken the better view since 2006.
Read →Under Minn. Stat. § 609.527, a Minnesota law enforcement agency must prepare a police report and give the complainant a copy, and courts must order at least $1,000 in restitution to each direct victim. I explain why that report unlocks your federal remedies.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 550.37 exempts a substantial list of property from collection, and § 571.922 caps wage garnishment on a sliding scale. Exemptions are not automatic. Unclaimed, they are waived — and the amounts change every even-numbered year.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 336.9-610 makes every aspect of a collateral sale answer for its commercial reasonableness. A lender that sold carelessly, or skipped proper notice, can watch its deficiency shrink to zero.
Read →You disputed the error and the bureau closed it as 'verified.' Why self-disputes fail, what the FCRA actually requires, and the moment it becomes a legal claim.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 513.44 lets a creditor unwind a transfer made with actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud — and lists eleven factors courts weigh. Most of them describe things people do without believing they are doing anything wrong.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 549.09, subd. 1(c) splits judgment interest at a $50,000 hinge — 4% for 2026 versus a flat ten percent. Section 337.10, subd. 3 charges 1-1/2 percent per month on construction payables. Sections 334.01 and 334.011 govern the private note.
Read →Prejudgment attachment under Minn. Stat. ch. 570 is Minnesota's rarest creditor remedy because § 570.02 makes the grounds intent-based — and only four of the six can support an ex parte seizure under § 570.025.
Read →Minn. Stat. ch. 565 moves possession of personal property before judgment: § 565.23 after notice and hearing, § 565.24 before it, plus bonds, redelivery rights, and the UCC Article 9 problem that sends a secured party to court at all.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 325F.70, subd. 3 gives a consumer a direct damages remedy under the Consumer Fraud Act that the statute itself deems to benefit the public. Everyone else is back in § 8.31 and Ly v. Nystrom. The Deceptive Trade Practices Act pays nobody.
Read →Minnesota caps interest at $8 on $100 per year — but subd. 2 exempts written credit extensions of $100,000 or more entirely, and § 334.011 gives business and agricultural loans a floating cap. Violate the business cap and the entire interest is forfeited.
Read →The Farmer-Lender Mediation Act conditions foreclosure, repossession, contract for deed cancellation, garnishment, and levy on a mediation notice — but the operative bars sit in Minn. Stat. §§ 336.9-601(h), 550.365, 559.209, and 582.039. Sections 583.20 to 583.32 expire June 30, 2027.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 510.02 shields hundreds of thousands of dollars of homestead value across as much as 160 acres, on an amount that adjusts every even-numbered year. But § 510.05 lists exactly what the shield does not stop, and § 510.07 lets you abandon it by accident. I walk through all four sections.
Read →Minn. Stat. ch. 332B registers debt settlement providers and, at § 332B.09, subd. 3, forbids collecting any payment before the services are fully performed. Chapter 332A does the same job differently for debt management. Both carry private rights of action with statutory damages and fees.
Read →Minn. Stat. §§ 332.31–332.44 license collection agencies and debt buyers and list 24 prohibited practices in § 332.37, including a clause making any FDCPA violation a Minnesota violation. But the private damages remedy lives in the federal statute, 15 U.S.C. § 1692k.
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