Minnesota Injury Guide is organised around where you are in the problem rather than around what a lawyer would call your case. Someone three days after a collision and someone eleven months into a denied claim need different pages, and they should not have to read each other's.
Where are you?
- It just happened
The first days. What to do, what not to say, and which clocks have already started. — 5 guides.
- Who pays the bills
No-fault, health plans, liens, and the layers of coverage most people do not know they have. — 3 guides.
- Making the claim
Fault, thresholds, damages, and what the adjuster on the other end is actually doing. — 7 guides.
- When it goes wrong
Denials, lowball offers, disputed fault, and the deadlines that end a claim quietly. — 4 guides.
- Background
The statutes and doctrines the rest of the site refers back to. — 2 guides.
Latest guides
Newest first. Each shows the date its sources were last checked, because that is the only thing that makes a page like this worth more than the advertising it sits next to.
- A child's injury claim: who holds it, who signs for it, and why a judge has to approve the settlement
Minnesota does not let a parent settle a child's injury claim. A rule of practice requires a written petition and a written order before any part of the proceeds is paid to anyone, and it applies to a claim that was never filed as much as to a case that went to verdict.Sources checked September 8, 2026.
- Claims against a city, county, or the state: the immunities come first, and the clock is short
Minnesota waived governmental immunity and then wrote the exceptions back in by statute. A claim against a public body has to survive a list of enumerated immunities, a damages cap, and a notice period that closes in 180 days.Sources checked September 8, 2026.
- Hit while walking or on a bicycle: the coverage question starts with a definition
A pedestrian or a cyclist struck by a car in Minnesota usually has no-fault benefits, and the reason is a definition rather than a policy. What a bicycle is, what a motorcycle is, and what happens when there is no policy anywhere are each answered in a different section of the No-Fault Act.Sources checked September 8, 2026.
- After a dog attack: the dangerous dog statutes, and what actually happens to the dog
Minnesota's dangerous dog law is a separate system from the statute that pays damages. It has its own definition of owner, its own definition of provocation, a 14-day clock, and a destruction provision that does not require a prior declaration.Sources checked September 8, 2026.
- Minnesota's dog bite statute: the two phrases that decide the case
Minn. Stat. § 347.22 makes a dog's owner liable without any showing of negligence, and the dog's history does not matter. Almost every contested Minnesota dog case turns instead on two phrases written into the statute itself.Sources checked September 8, 2026.
All 21 guides · By subject
Things you will read everywhere that are not true
Three of 50. Each is quoted from the guide that verifies it against the statute or the opinion, in full and unshortened.
Commonly repeated
"You have two years to file a personal injury lawsuit in Minnesota."
That is not the general rule. Minnesota's two-year statute, Minn. Stat. § 541.07(1), applies to "libel, slander, assault, battery, false imprisonment, or other tort resulting in personal injury" — a list of intentional torts, plus veterinary malpractice. In Ott v. Great Northern Railway Co., 70 Minn. 50, 72 N.W. 833 (1897), the court rejected the argument that a negligently inflicted personal injury falls into the same class as a battery, reasoning that the alternative would leave "one clause of the statute limiting the time of commencing such an action as this to six years and another clause limiting it to two years, which would result in a radical repugnancy." The two-year statute is real. It is not the statute that governs an ordinary negligence claim.
Which clocks start the day you are hurt
Commonly repeated
"As long as you are under 51 percent, you can recover."
Not with multiple defendants. A claimant found 40 percent at fault, in a case where two defendants are found 30 percent each, is not under the line — the claimant's fault is greater than the fault of each person against whom recovery is sought, taken separately. Minnesota does not add the defendants together unless the joint-venture or joint-enterprise elements are met. That is the holding of Cambern, following Marier, and it is the reason the single number people carry around is not a safe way to think about a case with several defendants.
Comparative fault: being partly at fault is not the end of a claim
Commonly repeated
"You need $4,000 in medical bills before you can sue for pain and suffering in Minnesota."
That is one gate out of five, and it is not stated as a bill total. Permanent disfigurement, permanent injury, death, and disability for 60 days or more each open the claim independently under § 65B.51, subd. 3(b), with no dollar requirement at all. A person with a permanent scar and modest treatment is through clause (b)(1) whatever the bills say.
The tort threshold: when a Minnesota crash claim can include pain and suffering
All 50 corrections
What makes this different
- Nothing is written from memory
Not a statute number, not a deadline, not a dollar threshold. Every source is retrieved and read before the sentence is written, and a separate pass confirms each authority actually stands for what it is cited for. Both dates are printed on the page.
- No results, no predictions, no estimates
This site publishes no verdicts, no settlement figures, and no guess at what a claim is worth. Those numbers belong to someone else's injuries, coverage, and venue.
- A contact form that asks for almost nothing
There is no "tell us what happened" box, on purpose. A rule about prospective clients makes collecting your story at this stage bad for you and bad for us, and the page explains exactly why.
- No tracking of any kind
No analytics, no cookies, nothing loaded from anyone else's server — enforced by the site's security policy and by a check that fails the build, not by a promise.
Talk to someone
Nothing on this page is advice about your situation, and no article can be. If you want your own facts looked at, a Minnesota personal injury attorney can do that.
Talk to someone
Guides publish as each one clears source verification, which is slower than writing them and is the only thing that makes them worth reading. The index lists everything published so far.