Crashes, dog bites, dram shop, and what an insurer actually owes you.
Minn. Stat. § 86B.341, subd. 2 makes the owner and operator of a watercraft jointly and severally liable and presumes family members had consent. Meanwhile § 65B.43 keeps boats out of no-fault entirely: no PIP, no UM, no UIM. What is left is a straight negligence case with unusual evidence rules.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 65B.46, subd. 3 deems a rider's injuries not to arise from the use of a motor vehicle 'although a motor vehicle is involved in the accident.' That one sentence is why there is no PIP, why the tort threshold is an open question, and why your auto policy's UIM may not follow you onto your own bike.
Read →No-fault does not reach snowmobiles or ATVs, no statute requires anyone to insure one, and no auto UM coverage is owed — but a 2024 amendment to § 169.09 may have just made the machine's owner liable for the friend who was driving it.
Read →Frey v. Snelgrove confirmed the Pierringer release was already Minnesota practice and set the procedure. What it did not do is make settlement money a credit — and the indemnity clause the plaintiff signs can take money back out of the judgment years later.
Read →Two Minnesota rules decide these cases and almost nobody knows them: no traffic violation in chapter 169 is negligence per se, and a cyclist who rolls a stop sign with no car in the vicinity has broken no law at all.
Read →The elements are easy and the conviction is often already in hand. What actually decides these cases is a two-year clock with a six-year exception, and an insurance exclusion built to defeat exactly this claim.
Read →Minnesota's premises duty is a duty to deter crime, not to prevent it. And after the supreme court's January 2026 decision in Glay v. R.C. of St. Cloud, the defense that used to end these cases is off the table.
Read →Minnesota enforces liability waivers — but only if the release actually says the business is off the hook for its own negligence. A practitioner's guide to exculpatory clauses after Justice v. Marvel.
Read →Minnesota's zone-of-danger rule decides who can bring an NIED claim, not what they can recover. A practitioner's guide to Engler, Stadler, K.A.C., and the three ways emotional distress becomes compensable.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 541.073 sets different limitations rules for perpetrators, negligent institutions, and vicarious liability claims. A close reading of the current statute text and the 2013 amendments.
Read →Under Naig v. Bloomington Sanitation and Minn. Stat. § 176.061, an injured employee can settle the damages a compensation carrier has no subrogation interest in — on notice, and on proof of what the settlement covers. The opinion says the employee gives up the statutory one-third in exchange.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 176.081 sets workers' compensation attorney fees by statute, not by retainer: 20 percent of the first $275,000, capped at $55,000 per injury. Laws 2026, ch. 103, § 9 conformed the required retainer notice, effective May 19, 2026.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 3.736, subd. 5 requires notice to the attorney general and to every state employee from whom compensation will be sought. Chapter 466 requires one letter to a governing body. That is the smallest difference between the two acts, and the one that ends cases.
Read →Minn. R. Civ. P. 35 never uses the word 'independent' — the scheduling rule does. What the rule actually requires is a motion, a condition 'in controversy,' 'good cause shown,' and an order specifying manner, conditions, scope and examiner. And requesting the examiner's report widens your privilege waiver beyond the case.
Read →Miller v. Shugart, 316 N.W.2d 729 (Minn. 1982), lets an insured settle a claim collectible only from the policy. The claimant then carries the burden of proving the settlement was reasonable — to a judge, never to a jury.
Read →Minn. Stat. §§ 514.68–514.72 give hospitals — and only hospitals — a lien on the injury claim itself. The perfection clock is ten days, the enforcement clock is two years, and an inflated lien statement can void the lien entirely.
Read →Schmidt v. Clothier gives your underinsured-motorist carrier 30 days' written notice before you release the at-fault driver. American Family v. Baumann made skipping it presumptively fatal — and put the burden of proving no harm on you.
Read →Minnesota K-9 bite cases are governed by specific Eighth Circuit law on warnings, bite duration, and qualified immunity — not by Graham v. Connor alone.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 466.03 enumerates 29 exceptions to Minnesota municipal tort liability. Subdivision 1 makes landing in one of them immunity rather than common law, and subdivisions 7 and 15 make the list open-ended.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 604.11 is not a trial statute — the word 'verdict' does not appear in it. It is a discovery statute with three subdivisions, and one sentence in subdivision 2 gives every party an absolute veto over ADR.
Read →Farmer v. Brennan's deliberate-indifference standard applied to suicide and inmate-on-inmate violence — the two prongs, the Eighth Circuit's subjective rule, and the Minnesota jail standards that generate the proof.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 549.09 runs interest across three separate periods computed by three different officials, and subdivisions 3 and 4 apply every payment to disbursements, then accrued interest, and only then to principal.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 65B.51, subd. 1 orders the court to subtract no-fault benefits from a tort recovery — with no motion, no deadline, and, in the ordinary Minnesota crash, no subrogation right on the other side. The money does not go back to the carrier. It stays with the defendant.
Read →Section 1983 says a violator is liable 'to the party injured,' and says nothing about who sues when the injured party is dead. Federal law sends that question to Minnesota's wrongful death statute — and the Eighth Circuit has enforced it against an estate that got the wrong appointment.
Read →Kingsley's objective standard governs excessive force against a pretrial detainee. The Eighth Circuit has not extended it to medical care — so in Minnesota, plan on proving what the jailer actually knew.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 541.076 gives four years from accrual. But the definition of 'health care provider' in the limitations statute is not the definition used by the minority-tolling statute, the expert-affidavit statute, or the death statutes.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 604.06 does not codify the common law fireman's rule. It disables it for peace officers and public safety officers. A 2026 amendment enlarged the covered class and applied the change retroactively to February 1, 2020.
Read →In Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, a unanimous Court held that negligent-hiring claims against freight brokers are not preempted by the FAAAA. The industry's center of gravity sits in Minnesota, and so does the exposure.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 604.03 makes expiration of a product's ordinary useful life a defense — not a deadline. It has no date certain, the manufacturer's own stated service life is one of six nonexclusive factors, and it does not bar the claim.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 548.251 is not a damages rule. It is a written evidentiary proceeding on a ten-day fuse, it applies only where there is a verdict, it never reaches future benefits, and in an auto case it is usually not the operative statute at all.
Read →Until May 20, 2023, Minn. Stat. § 573.01 said a personal injury cause of action 'dies with the person.' It now says the claim survives the death of any party. What that changed — and what it did not.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 544.41 lets a nonmanufacturer certify the manufacturer's identity and be dismissed. The dismissal is conditional, reversible on five grounds, and reaches only strict liability in tort.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 604.02, subd. 1 made several liability the default in 2003 and kept joint and several liability for four categories — including any defendant whose fault is greater than 50 percent.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 604.07 was repealed in 1988 and §§ 604.08–604.09 in 1994. What survives is § 549.25 — a hearing, not a discount — and a past/future split that exists because the interest statute needs it.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 626.557 creates a private treble-damages action for financial exploitation only. For neglect and abuse it supplies a mandatory report, a state investigation, and a public memorandum — and the negligence case still has to stand on its own.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 540.08 makes an unapproved settlement of a minor's claim invalid, and Minn. Gen. R. Prac. 145 supplies the machinery — including a rule that reaches claims with no lawsuit on file, and a fund the child cannot touch at 18 without a second order.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 169.09, subd. 5a makes a permissive driver the owner's agent 'in case of accident.' It contains no cap, no theft exception, and no presumption of consent — and the leading cases all cite a statute number that no longer exists.
Read →Minnesota's spousal consortium claim comes from Thill v. Modern Erecting Co. (1969), not from a statute, and it was created with conditions attached — including a joinder rule that kills the claim if the injured spouse's case goes to trial without it.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 466.05 requires written notice to a municipality's governing body within 180 days of discovering the injury. Minn. Stat. § 466.04 caps damages, § 466.03 lists the immunities, and § 466.06 contains the one lever most claimants never pull.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 169.685, subd. 4 makes proof of seat belt and child restraint use or nonuse inadmissible in any litigation involving personal injury or property damage from the use or operation of a motor vehicle. The bar runs both ways, with one exception.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 62A.095 forbids a health plan's subrogation clause unless it applies only after full recovery and is reduced by a pro rata share of fees and costs. Self-funded ERISA plans argue the limit does not reach them.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 65B.525 forces no-fault benefit claims of $10,000 or less into binding arbitration under the Minnesota No-Fault Arbitration Rules. The arbitrator's fact findings are final; the arbitrator's legal conclusions are reviewed de novo.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 65B.51, subd. 3 bars noneconomic damages in a Minnesota motor vehicle case unless a threshold is met — and the $4,000 computation removes diagnostic x-rays and rehabilitative treatment from the total before it is measured.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 548.251 and § 604.01 answer two different questions, and § 548.251, subd. 3(c) fixes the sequence between them. Collateral sources come off before the fault reduction; settlement credits come off after. Same dollars, different result.
Read →Minn. Stat. §§ 604A.20–604A.27 strip a landowner's duty of care toward recreational users — but only for an owner 'who gives written or oral permission ... without charge.' Section 604A.27 keeps that permission from ripening into an easement.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 573.02 gives the cause of action to a court-appointed trustee, not to the spouse or the children. Minn. Gen. R. Prac. 144 supplies the machinery — and a 2023 amendment quietly enlarged what that trustee is allowed to recover.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 347.22 makes a dog's owner liable for 'the full amount of the injury sustained' — no negligence, no prior bite, no scienter. All that is left to fight about is provocation and whether the person was lawfully present.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 340A.801 creates a claim against a vendor who caused an intoxication by an illegal sale. Minn. Stat. § 340A.802 conditions it on written notice served within 240 days of the date counsel is retained — and bars the action without it.
Read →Minn. Stat. ch. 65B pays $40,000 in basic economic loss benefits regardless of fault. Section 65B.51, subd. 3 then bars any recovery for noneconomic detriment unless a $4,000 net medical figure — or one of four injury categories — is met.
Read →Minnesota abolished the invitee/licensee distinction in 1972, but Minn. Stat. § 466.03, subd. 4 immunizes municipalities for snow and ice on most public sidewalks, § 466.03, subd. 6e immunizes parks, and § 466.05 gives a claimant 180 days to present notice.
Read →Minnesota requires every auto policy to carry uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage under Minn. Stat. § 65B.49, subd. 3a. Section 65B.49, subd. 4a sets the payout against what the at-fault driver actually paid, and subd. 10 now puts a four-year clock on UIM.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 604.18 gives a first-party insured taxable costs — half the proceeds above the insurer's pre-trial offer, capped at $250,000, plus fees capped at $100,000 — but only after a motion to amend, only from the judge, and never after arbitration or appraisal.
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