Agent Orchestration (Part 1)
Neil Haddley • September 24, 2026
Comparing three LangChain multi-agent patterns, subagents, skills and handoffs, on eleven conversations that need a clarifying question or a follow-up, plus a reproducible tool-call crash traced to one specific structural cause
I wanted to know how to build an agent that answers questions from six documents about Minnesota traffic and car law, where some questions are genuinely ambiguous and the right move is to ask before answering, and where a person often follows up on the answer they get. That is three things to get right: answer well from the right document, recognize when a fact is missing rather than guess, and hold a conversation. Five designs can be built for this, but only four can hold a conversation at all, and the results below are from testing three of those four, on muse-glimmer, across eleven conversations built specifically to need a clarifying question or a follow-up:
- One big prompt (flat). A single agent with all six documents in its prompt. Can hold a conversation, but is not part of the eleven-conversation comparison below — included only in the one-conversation example, as a cost baseline.
- A router. Fixed code classifies each question and sends it to the right specialist agent or agents. It keeps no conversation between calls, so it cannot pause to ask or use a previous answer — excluded entirely, for that structural reason, explained further down.
- Subagents. A supervisor agent decides which specialist agent to call, and what to ask it. Each specialist holds one document.
- Skills. A single agent with a load_skill tool that pulls one document into its own conversation when it needs it, instead of delegating to a separate agent.
- Handoffs. A single agent whose system prompt and tools change with a state variable: it triages, hands off to a specialist, and that specialist owns the conversation from then on, unless it hands off again.
Skills wins, clearly, not marginally. Across the eleven conversations (23 turns), skills gets the most turns with the required facts (18/23, against 16/23 for both subagents and handoffs) and the most turns fully passing an independent judge (17/23, against 16/23 for subagents and 14/23 for handoffs), and is by far the cheapest — subagents used more than twice its tokens (681,789 against 306,542) to get a worse result.
The more interesting split is on asking, and it does not favor skills. Handoffs asks exactly when it should on 15 of 23 turns, clearly ahead of skills and subagents, which tie at 12 of 23. But the three designs fail in different directions: skills mostly under-asks, answering confidently on an opening question that actually needed a fact (9 of its 11 mismatches); subagents mostly over-asks, adding a needless clarifying question to almost every follow-up (11 of 11 mismatches); handoffs splits evenly between the two. Under-asking is the worse failure for a task like this — a confident answer missing a fact it needed, with nothing flagging it — so skills' cost and accuracy lead comes with a real, if smaller, risk that subagents and handoffs mostly avoid.
A crash that pointed to a specific structural cause. muse-glimmer sometimes fails to format a tool call, and it always happened at the same place: a specialist's own ask_user call, nested one level inside a supervisor's tool invocation, under subagents. Flat, skills and handoffs all call ask_user directly, from their own top-level loop, with no nesting — and across every test in this post, on every conversation, none of them ever crashed. Full details below, including the fix I settled on for subagents.
This is part 1 of a series on agent orchestration. It is about agents you build yourself, in one process. Part 2 and part 3 are about agents you do not control, called over the Agent2Agent protocol.
Everything below comes from real runs on my own Mac Studio, run on 24 September 2026. This is a post about agent design, not legal advice. The six documents are general information drawn from the 2025 Minnesota Statutes and court opinions, and they leave out a great deal.
The task
Six documents on Minnesota traffic and car law, about 25,800 words: speeding, the hands-free phone law, driving while impaired (DWI), reckless driving, lemon law and car sales, and car accidents. Every quotation in them is checked against the source text by a script, which gives every question an answer I can check. The six documents come to about 37,000 tokens, comfortably inside muse-glimmer's 128,000-token window.
The options
LangChain's multi-agent documentation describes five patterns for an agent that draws on several areas of knowledge. I built all five: router, subagents, skills, handoffs, and the plain baseline the other four exist to avoid, one agent with everything in its prompt.
| Design | Who decides | Where the documents go | Conversation |
|---|---|---|---|
| All in one prompt | Nobody. There is one call | All six documents in the one agent's prompt | Yes |
| Router | Fixed code: classify, then specialists in parallel, then synthesize | Inside each specialist. Only its answer comes back | No |
| Subagents | The supervisor model. It picks the specialist and rewrites the question | Inside each specialist. Only its answer comes back | Yes |
| Skills | The model itself, with a load_skill tool | Into its own conversation. No separate specialist holds it apart | Yes |
| Handoffs | The model itself, via a transfer_to_<area> tool, once — then whichever specialist it became | Into its own conversation, one document at a time, swapped in by middleware | Yes |
The two split designs look alike, since specialists hold their own documents in both, but the control flow differs — a router's is fixed in code, subagents' is a model's decision, so it can call one specialist, several, or none. A router keeps no conversation, so a follow-up such as "and what if I was under 21?" has nothing to refer to, which is the reason it cannot take part in the test below at all.
Why the router cannot hold a conversation
ask_user pauses a run mid-turn and resumes it later with the person's answer, which needs a checkpointer to hold the run's state until a reply comes back. Router has no checkpointer, because it has no concept of an ongoing run at all — every call is classify, fan out, synthesize, return, forget, by design. There is no run left standing a moment later for a reply to resume into, and the same is true of follow-ups generally: nothing about a previous question survives past its own synthesize step. This is the real, structural reason router is confined to single-shot lookups and excluded from the test below — not that it asks or remembers badly, but that both require state it was built without. Subagents, skills and flat all keep a checkpointer and can all pause with ask_user.
Testing clarification and follow-up
A good agent asks when it needs a fact, rather than guessing or explaining every possible branch. I built twelve conversations to test this on subagents, skills and handoffs, on muse-glimmer, across all six areas. One of the twelve, a DWI aggravating-factors question, never completed cleanly under subagents on any specialist-model configuration I tried, and is excluded from every comparison below, for all three designs — see "The ask_user crash" for why. The other eleven are complete for all three.
Method. Each conversation has an opening question, a fact sheet the design's ask_user tool can draw an answer from, a reference answer for the judge, and one or more follow-ups. When a design pauses to ask, a separate model plays the user and answers whatever was actually asked, from that fact sheet, saying it does not know if the facts do not cover the question. A second model, qwq:32b, independent of every design under test, reads the actual statute and grades the final answer for correctness, completeness and sound reasoning — not just whether a phrase appears. Neither counts toward the design's own token or time totals. Every turn is checked on three axes: did the design ask exactly when it should have (clarify_ok); did it call the specialists the question actually needed (route_ok); and did the final answer contain the required facts (facts_ok), on top of the judge's independent grade.
Most of the twelve are gate questions, where the missing fact decides which document or rule applies at all — new or used, held phone or a 911 call, whether anyone was present at the scene — so there is no way to answer usefully without it. A few are branch questions, where the fact only changes a parameter inside an otherwise-settled answer — refused the test or failed it, how badly someone was hurt — and these are the ones where a design tends to explain every branch instead of committing to asking. One is a cross-document gate: whether a 0.06 reading, below the legal limit, means the question belongs to reckless driving rather than DWI at all — the only conversation that tests routing to the right specialist in the first place, not just answer quality once routed.
Results: the eleven-conversation test
Eleven of the twelve conversations, 23 turns each, run to completion on all three designs. Subagents and handoffs both run every specialist on qwen3.8:27b-mlx, subagents' supervisor and handoffs' triage step on muse-glimmer; skills is muse-glimmer throughout. The twelfth conversation, N6, is excluded entirely, for all three designs, for comparability — explained in the next section.
| Design | Facts | Judge | Asked correctly | Opening route | Tokens | Seconds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skills | 18/23 | 17/23 | 12/23 | 10/11 | 306,542 | 2,299 |
| Subagents | 16/23 | 16/23 | 12/23 | 10/11 | 681,789 | 3,785 |
| Handoffs | 16/23 | 14/23 | 15/23 | 10/11 | 437,251 | 3,292 |
The same numbers, normalized to a 0–100 scale so every axis reads "higher is better" — facts, judge and asking as the plain percentage of 23 turns, tokens and seconds as each design's efficiency relative to the cheapest and fastest of the three:
Opening-question routing is left off this chart because all three designs tie on it (10/11) — it would just be a flat triangle, adding a dimension without adding information. What the shape shows is the trade-off in plain terms: skills is the largest area overall, but its "Asked correctly" point sits well inside handoffs', which is the one axis where a smaller-area design pulls ahead.
Skills leads on facts and on the judge, and by a wide margin on cost: less than half what subagents spent, and about 70 percent of handoffs' tokens, for a better result than either. All three miss the identical opening-question route, the cross-document DWI-versus-reckless gate — the one conversation designed to test routing itself, and every design routes it the same way, regardless of specialist model.
I left the raw per-turn route_ok field out of that table because it is not comparable across designs: it checks whether a turn's specialist or transfer calls match the question's expected areas, which is meaningful every turn for subagents but not for skills or handoffs, where a follow-up in the same area correctly calls nothing at all — the document is already loaded, or the specialist is already active — and the metric still scores that as a miss. That structural artifact, not a real routing gap, is most of the difference between subagents' raw count (21/23) and skills' or handoffs' (10/23 and 12/23).
Asking is where the designs actually diverge, and skills does not come out ahead. Handoffs asks exactly when it should on 15 of 23 turns; skills and subagents tie at 12. Splitting each design's mismatches into two kinds — missed a needed ask, or asked when it was not needed — shows why the raw scores understate the difference:
| Design | Missed a needed ask | Asked when not needed |
|---|---|---|
| Skills | 9 | 2 |
| Subagents | 0 | 11 |
| Handoffs | 4 | 4 |
Subagents never once fails to ask — it just asks on almost every follow-up regardless of whether the follow-up needed a new fact, eleven separate unnecessary clarifying questions. Skills is the opposite: it almost never over-asks, but it silently answers nine turns that were built to require a fact it never requested, mostly on opening questions rather than follow-ups. Handoffs splits down the middle. Under-asking is the more dangerous failure for a task like this — a confident, unhedged answer missing a fact it needed, with nothing about the output flagging the gap — so skills' lead on facts and cost is real, but it is bought partly with the riskier of the two error types.
One conversation, four designs
The clearest example is the phone-while-checking-a-map question, where the document's answer turns entirely on a fact never stated: whether the phone was held.
Handoffs, on the same conversation — triage transfers once, on turn 1, and the phone specialist it becomes stays in charge for the follow-up with no second transfer:
Skills:
CODE
1=== turn 1: I got a ticket for using my phone, but I was just checking the map. Is that 2 even illegal? 3[skills] calls load_skill({"skill_name": "phone"}) 4[skills] calls ask_user({"question": "Were you holding the phone in one or both hands while 5 you were checking the map, or was it mounted or otherwise not held?"}) 6[user] I was holding the phone in one hand while checking the map, and it was not mounted 7 on the dashboard or windshield. 8 9--- answer --- 10Yes. Under Minn. Stat. § 169.475, subd. 2(a)(1), when a motor vehicle is in motion or a part 11of traffic, the operator is prohibited from "holding a wireless communications device with 12one or both hands." Holding the phone in one hand while driving is prohibited even if you 13were only checking a map. 14 15=== follow-up: "Does it matter that I was fully stopped and not moving?" 16--- answer --- 17Yes. [it does not help] Under Minn. Stat. § 169.475, subd. 1(d), a vehicle is "in motion or 18a part of traffic" unless it is lawfully stopped, is in a location that is not designed or 19ordinarily used for vehicular travel, and is not obstructing traffic.
Handoffs — one transfer on turn 1, and no transfer call at all on the follow-up, since active_agent was already phone:
CODE
1=== turn 1: I got a ticket for using my phone, but I was just checking the map. Is that 2 even illegal? 3[handoffs] calls transfer_to_phone({}) 4[handoffs] <- transfer_to_phone: 36 characters 5[handoffs] calls ask_user({"question": "Were you holding the phone in your hand while you 6 were checking the map, or was it mounted or otherwise not held?"}) 7[user] I was holding the phone in my hand while checking the map, it was not mounted anywhere. 8 9--- answer --- 10Yes. Under Minn. Stat. § 169.475, subd. 2(a)(1), when a motor vehicle is in motion or a part 11of traffic, the person operating the vehicle is prohibited from "holding a wireless 12communications device with one or both hands." Checking a map is also covered by the use 13prohibitions in subd. 2(a)(2). The navigation exception in subd. 3(a)(2) allows viewing or 14operating a GPS or navigation system without typing while the vehicle is in motion, "provided 15that the person does not hold the device with one or both hands." Because you were holding 16the phone in your hand while checking the map, the hands-free/navigation exception does not 17apply. 18 19=== follow-up: "Does it matter that I was fully stopped and not moving?" 20--- answer --- 21Yes. Under § 169.475, subd. 1(d), a vehicle "is not in motion or a part of traffic if the 22vehicle is lawfully stopped, is in a location that is not designed or ordinarily used for 23vehicular travel, and is not obstructing traffic." A vehicle stopped at a stop sign, at a 24traffic light or in a traffic jam is still part of traffic. So being fully stopped at a red 25light with the engine on is still "in motion or a part of traffic," and the prohibitions in 26subd. 2(a) apply.
Subagents — it was the specialist that called ask_user, not the supervisor, which only relayed the question upward:
CODE
1=== turn 1: I got a ticket for using my phone, but I was just checking the map. Is that 2 even illegal? 3[supervisor] calls ask_phone_specialist({"question": "Is using a phone to check a map while 4 driving illegal under Minnesota hands-free law? ..."}) 5 [phone specialist] calls ask_user({"question": "Is the phone being held in your hand 6 while driving, or is it mounted/hands-free and not being held?"}) 7[user] The phone was not mounted; the driver was holding it in one hand while checking the 8 maps app at a stop sign. 9--- answer --- 10Yes. Under § 169.475, subd. 2(a)(1) a driver is prohibited from "holding a wireless 11communications device with one or both hands" ... Holding the phone at a stop sign is 12therefore prohibited. 13 14=== follow-up: "Does it matter that I was fully stopped and not moving?" 15--- answer --- 16Yes. [it does not help] "In motion or part of traffic" ... a vehicle "is not in motion or a 17part of traffic if the vehicle is lawfully stopped ... and is not obstructing traffic" ...
Flat, where every interrupt replays the entire document prompt:
CODE
1=== turn 1: I got a ticket for using my phone, but I was just checking the map. Is that 2 even illegal? 3[flat] calls ask_user({"question": "Were you holding the phone in one or both hands while 4 checking the map, or was it mounted and used hands-free without typing?"}) 5[user] I was holding the phone in one hand while checking the map, it was not mounted on 6 the dashboard or windshield. 7 8--- answer --- 9Holding a phone while driving is prohibited in Minnesota when the vehicle is in motion or 10part of traffic. Section 169.475, subd. 2(a)(1) prohibits ... "holding a wireless 11communications device with one or both hands." ... Because you were holding the phone in 12one hand while checking the map, the hands-free/no-hold condition for the navigation 13exception is not met. 14 15=== follow-up: "Does it matter that I was fully stopped and not moving?" 16[flat] calls ask_user({"question": "Were you stopped at a red light or stop sign in 17 traffic, or were you parked off the roadway and not obstructing traffic?"}) 18[user] I was stopped at a stop sign with the vehicle fully stopped. 19 20--- answer --- 21Yes, it can matter. [explains the "part of traffic" definition] ... Being fully stopped at 22a stop sign in traffic is therefore still "in motion or a part of traffic" ... so the 23holding prohibition can still apply.
Flat asked again on the follow-up even though that was not expected, and each ask_user interrupt replays the entire ~35,000-token document prompt: its two turns cost 107,280 and 108,209 prompt tokens — seven to seventeen times what skills (14,593 / 4,829), subagents (14,875 / 7,750) or handoffs (14,664 / 4,809) paid for the identical conversation. Handoffs and skills land within a few hundred tokens of each other here; subagents' extra cost on this particular conversation is smaller than its 23-turn total suggests, and shows up more on conversations needing more than one specialist.
The ask_user crash, and why one conversation is excluded
Across this whole test, muse-glimmer sometimes fails to format a tool call, and Ollama returns a 500 error: parse Glimmer call to ask_user: missing ATEM function_calls wrapper. Every time it happened, it was the same specific shape of call: a specialist's own ask_user call, made from inside its own tool loop, itself nested one level inside the supervisor's tool invocation of that specialist, under subagents. Two conversations, N1 and N8, crashed 3 times out of 3 with a pure muse-glimmer deployment (supervisor and specialists both) — near-deterministic, at temperature 0. A third, N6, crashed on retry too. Every load_skill call, every ask_<area>_specialist call, and every top-level ask_user call — flat's, skills', and handoffs' — worked every time, across every conversation in this whole post, on both muse-glimmer builds. Nesting looks like the actual trigger, not the model's general handling of ask_user.
The fix I settled on keeps muse-glimmer as the supervisor and runs every specialist on qwen3.8:27b-mlx instead of just the two crash-prone ones. Run uniformly across all eleven conversations, it crashed zero times, and it fixed a subtler problem along the way: on N8, the supervisor calls two specialists, dwi and reckless, and the uniform run correctly combines both answers into the final synthesis rather than dropping one, which an earlier, narrower version of this same swap had done. Handoffs, run across the same eleven conversations with muse-glimmer throughout (triage and every specialist), also crashed zero times — consistent with the nesting hypothesis, since a handoffs specialist calls ask_user directly from the one top-level loop, never from inside another agent's tool call.
N6 is still the exception, and it is still excluded: on the one earlier retry I ran under the specialist swap, it crashed with a different error entirely — XML syntax error on line 7: element <parameter> closed by </function> — on the supervisor's own call to ask_dwi_specialist, a call that is not nested at all, which does not fit the pattern above. I have not retried N6 under the uniform-specialist config or under handoffs; it remains excluded from every comparison in this post rather than folded back in on an untested assumption. The honest takeaway is to expect this class of bug specifically where one agent's tool loop calls ask_user from inside another agent's tool call, budget for retries there, and treat a single specialist model throughout as more reliable than mixing models across a nested call.
Feedback for LangChain
1. The docs have no worked example of a subagent asking a clarifying question — ask_user and the respond decision appear only on the human-in-the-loop page.
2. Passing the user's own words to a specialist, which LangChain calls forking the input, does not by itself make the specialist ask when the supervisor has already rewritten a vague question into something general enough to answer without asking.
3. get_state with subgraphs cannot see subagents called inside tools, as the subagents page says.
4. A checkpointer on the top-level agent is required for ask_user to work at all, easy to miss when starting from a stateless single-turn agent.
5. A tool call an agent makes from inside another agent's own tool call is not just an ordinary reliability risk with extra steps: across this project, one local model family's ask_user formatting crash only ever happened at exactly that nesting depth, on subagents, and never once on a top-level ask_user call, across flat, skills or handoffs. Nothing in the human-in-the-loop or subagents docs flags nested tool calls as a distinct reliability risk from top-level ones.
6. Handoffs' single transfer per hop is a real single point of failure the docs do not call out: once a specialist takes over, nothing else is watching the conversation, so a mis-route at triage, or a specialist that cannot answer and does not recognize it should hand off elsewhere, has no fallback. On N8 here, triage handed off to the wrong specialist, and that specialist answered "the document does not cover that" on the follow-up rather than transferring to the one that could.
Limits of this test
I wrote the eleven conversations and the six documents. The judge model is a step up from a keyword check, but it is itself one model's opinion, not ground truth; I found and fixed one case where it hallucinated a full grade for an answer it had never seen. The simulated user answering from a fact sheet is also just another model, with its own chance of misreading what was asked. The headline comparison drops one of the twelve conversations (N6) entirely, because subagents could not complete it cleanly under any specialist-model configuration I tried, and I did not retest it under the configurations used for the final numbers here; skills, for what it is worth, ran N6 without any trouble, so its exclusion is conservative rather than flattering to any of the three designs. Skills runs muse-glimmer throughout; subagents and handoffs both run muse-glimmer for the supervisor or triage step and qwen3.8:27b-mlx for every specialist, a configuration forced by the crash rather than chosen for comparability — worth weighing before treating the three-way comparison as a uniform-model test.
The code
Skills won this test, so it is the only design whose code I am including in full. create_agent runs a loop: the model replies, and if the reply contains tool calls, LangChain runs them, adds their results to the conversation, and calls the model again, until a reply has no tool calls left. I built the same loop by hand, without LangChain, in Claude Code part 9, where it is called the agentic loop and drawn step by step. For skills, that one tool is load_skill, and in a conversation it also gets ask_user.
Five pieces of the real script make this work. They are copied from it unchanged, with # ... where I left lines out.
PYTHON
1# 1. The document for a skill is loaded into the agent's own conversation on request, nothing more 2@tool 3def load_skill(skill_name: str) -> str: 4 """Load the full document for one skill, using a skill name from the system prompt.""" 5 if skill_name not in DOCS: 6 return f"There is no skill called {skill_name}. The skills are: {', '.join(AREAS)}." 7 return f"Loaded skill: {skill_name}\n\n{DOCS[skill_name]}" 8 9 10# 2. Middleware lists the skills and their descriptions in the system prompt, and registers the tool 11class SkillMiddleware(AgentMiddleware): 12 tools = [load_skill] 13 14 def __init__(self): 15 self.skills_prompt = "\n".join(f"- **{area}**: {about}" for area, (_, about) in AREAS.items()) 16 17 def wrap_model_call(self, request: ModelRequest, handler: Callable[[ModelRequest], ModelResponse]) -> ModelResponse: 18 addendum = (f"\n\n## Available Skills\n\n{self.skills_prompt}\n\n" 19 "Use the load_skill tool when you need detailed information about handling a specific type of request.") 20 content = list(request.system_message.content_blocks) + [{"type": "text", "text": addendum}] 21 return handler(request.override(system_message=SystemMessage(content=content))) 22 23 24# 3. ask_user is a placeholder; LangChain's human-in-the-loop middleware pauses before it runs, and the 25# person's reply becomes the tool's result — the documented pattern for "ask user" style tools 26@tool 27def ask_user(question: str) -> str: 28 """Ask the user one short question when the answer depends on a fact they have not given.""" 29 return "The user has not answered." # never runs: the middleware below pauses first and the reply replaces it 30 31ASK_MIDDLEWARE = [HumanInTheLoopMiddleware(interrupt_on={"ask_user": {"allowed_decisions": ["respond"]}})] 32 33 34# 4. Building the skills agent: a checkpointer so it can pause mid-turn, load_skill always available, ask_user 35# only in a conversation 36def build(mode: str, memory: bool = False): 37 ask = {"tools": [ask_user], "middleware": ASK_MIDDLEWARE} if memory else {"tools": [], "middleware": []} 38 # ... 39 if mode == "skills": # the docs' skills agent always has a checkpointer, so every question runs on its own thread 40 return create_agent(llm(800, SKILLS_CTX), system_prompt=with_ask(SKILLS_SYSTEM, memory), name="skills", 41 tools=ask["tools"], middleware=[SkillMiddleware()] + ask["middleware"], 42 checkpointer=InMemorySaver()) 43 44 45# 5. The loop itself: stream the agent, and if it interrupts to ask, resume it with the reply 46def run_agent(agent, name: str, question: str, config: dict | None = None, reply=None) -> str: 47 final = "" 48 payload = {"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": question}]} 49 while True: 50 pending = [] 51 for update in agent.stream(payload, config=config, stream_mode="updates"): 52 if "__interrupt__" in update: 53 pending = list(update["__interrupt__"]) 54 continue 55 # ... records each model reply and tool result for the trace and the token counts 56 if not pending or reply is None: 57 return final 58 answers = {} 59 for item in pending: 60 decisions = [] 61 for request in item.value["action_requests"]: 62 asked = request["args"]["question"] 63 decisions.append({"type": "respond", "message": reply(asked)}) 64 answers[item.id] = {"decisions": decisions} 65 payload = Command(resume=next(iter(answers.values())) if len(answers) == 1 else answers)
The test data
The eleven-conversation clarification set, questions_clarify12.json (N6 is excluded from the results above; its record is included here for completeness), with the fact sheet a separate model uses to answer whatever is actually asked, and the reference answer the judge model sees for comparison alongside the real source document:
JSON
1[ 2 { 3 "id": "N1", 4 "facts": "The driver refused the breath test at the scene and was arrested. They have no qualified prior impaired driving incidents within the past 20 years -- this is their first DWI-related stop. No one was hurt and there was no accident. They are 34 years old. They have not yet spoken to a lawyer.", 5 "turns": [ 6 { 7 "question": "I got pulled over and they think I'm impaired. What happens to my license?", 8 "expected": [["dwi"]], 9 "must_include": [["one year"]], 10 "clarify": true, 11 "suggested_answer": "Under Minn. Stat. § 169A.52, subd. 3, a test refusal leads to license revocation of at least one year if you have no qualified prior impaired driving incidents within the past 20 years. This is a civil license consequence imposed by the commissioner, separate from any criminal DWI charge, and it can start before any conviction." 12 }, 13 { 14 "question": "What if this isn't my first offense?", 15 "expected": [["dwi"]], 16 "must_include": [["ignition interlock"]], 17 "suggested_answer": "With one or more qualified prior impaired driving incidents within the past 20 years, § 171.178, subd. 3 replaces the fixed one-year period: revocation instead lasts until the commissioner determines you have used an ignition interlock device in compliance with § 171.306 for the required period." 18 }, 19 { 20 "question": "Can I get a limited license to drive to work during the revocation?", 21 "expected": [["dwi"]], 22 "must_include": [["does not cover"]], 23 "suggested_answer": "This document does not cover ignition interlock program details, limited licenses, or how to reinstate a license, so that question can't be answered from what's here." 24 } 25 ] 26 }, 27 { 28 "id": "N2", 29 "facts": "The driver was racing another car on a public street. A pedestrian was hurt, breaking a leg; doctors say the injury is not life-threatening, not permanent, and will heal fully with no lasting disfigurement or loss of function. No one died. No alcohol or drugs were involved. The driver has no prior reckless or careless driving convictions.", 30 "turns": [ 31 { 32 "question": "I was street racing and someone got hurt. What am I looking at?", 33 "expected": [["reckless"]], 34 "must_include": [["misdemeanor"]], 35 "clarify": true, 36 "suggested_answer": "Racing is reckless driving under Minn. Stat. § 169.13, subd. 1(b), regardless of speed. Because the injury here is not life-threatening or permanent, this is a misdemeanor under subd. 1(c) rather than a gross misdemeanor, which requires great bodily harm or death." 37 }, 38 { 39 "question": "Does it matter that I wasn't actually racing, just driving fast alongside another car?", 40 "expected": [["reckless"]], 41 "must_include": [["racing"]], 42 "suggested_answer": "It may not help. Subd. 1(b) defines racing broadly as willfully comparing or contesting relative speeds by operating one or more vehicles, so driving fast alongside another car in a way that contests speed could still count as racing. Even if it does not, the conduct could still be reckless driving under subd. 1(a) if it showed conscious disregard of a substantial and unjustifiable risk." 43 } 44 ] 45 }, 46 { 47 "id": "N3", 48 "facts": "The vehicle is used, bought from a licensed dealer, with about 50,000 miles on it at the time of purchase. It was not bought new and not bought from a private seller. The dealer's own service department diagnosed the same transmission problem each of the three times. The dealer gave a written warranty at the time of sale. The buyer has not yet contacted the manufacturer or used any arbitration or dispute-resolution program.", 49 "turns": [ 50 { 51 "question": "My car has been in the shop three times for the same issue. Do I qualify for a refund?", 52 "expected": [["lemon"]], 53 "must_include": [["dealer"], ["325F.662"]], 54 "clarify": true, 55 "suggested_answer": "As a used vehicle bought from a dealer, this falls under the used-vehicle warranty in Minn. Stat. § 325F.662, not the new-car lemon law. On a covered malfunction, the dealer must repair or replace the part, or, at the dealer's election, accept return of the vehicle and refund the purchase price." 56 }, 57 { 58 "question": "The dealer says the warranty already expired last month -- does that matter?", 59 "expected": [["lemon"]], 60 "must_include": [["30 days", "1,000 miles"]], 61 "suggested_answer": "At around 50,000 miles, the statutory minimum warranty under § 325F.662, subd. 2(a) for the 36,000-74,999 mile bracket is 30 days or 1,000 miles, whichever comes first. If the dealer's warranty ran shorter than that statutory minimum, the statute's floor controls regardless of what the dealer says has expired." 62 } 63 ] 64 }, 65 { 66 "id": "N4", 67 "facts": "The other driver ran a red light and caused the crash; the person asking was not at fault. Medical bills so far are about $2,500, for an emergency room visit and two follow-up appointments. There is no permanent injury, disfigurement, or death. No surgery has been needed. The person has no-fault auto insurance of their own.", 68 "turns": [ 69 { 70 "question": "I was in a crash that wasn't my fault. Can I sue the other driver for my pain and suffering?", 71 "expected": [["accident"]], 72 "must_include": [["4,000"]], 73 "clarify": true, 74 "suggested_answer": "Under Minn. Stat. § 65B.51, subd. 3, you cannot recover for pain and suffering unless your medical expenses exceed $4,000, or the injury involves permanent disfigurement, permanent injury, death, or disability for 60 days or more. At $2,500 in medical bills with no permanent injury, that threshold has not yet been met." 75 }, 76 { 77 "question": "What if I also broke my arm and it will take a couple months to fully heal?", 78 "expected": [["accident"]], 79 "must_include": [["60 days"]], 80 "suggested_answer": "If the arm injury causes disability -- an inability to engage in substantially all of your usual daily activities -- for 60 days or more, that alone satisfies the alternative threshold in subd. 3(b), regardless of the total medical bill amount." 81 } 82 ] 83 }, 84 { 85 "id": "N5", 86 "facts": "The driver was holding the phone in one hand while checking a maps app, at a stop sign with the vehicle fully stopped. The phone was not mounted on the dashboard or windshield. The driver was not on a phone call and was not typing a text message, only viewing the map screen.", 87 "turns": [ 88 { 89 "question": "I got a ticket for using my phone, but I was just checking the map. Is that even illegal?", 90 "expected": [["phone"]], 91 "must_include": [["hold", "held", "holding"]], 92 "clarify": true, 93 "suggested_answer": "Holding the phone to check the map voids the hands-free navigation exception in § 169.475, subd. 3(a)(2), which only applies if you do not hold the device with one or both hands. Since the phone was held, this was prohibited under subd. 2(a)(1)." 94 }, 95 { 96 "question": "Does it matter that I was fully stopped and not moving?", 97 "expected": [["phone"]], 98 "must_include": [["part of traffic"]], 99 "suggested_answer": "No. Under subd. 1(d), a vehicle stopped at a stop sign is still 'part of traffic' -- the exception for a stopped vehicle only applies if it is lawfully stopped somewhere not designed for vehicular travel and not obstructing traffic, which a stop sign is not." 100 } 101 ] 102 }, 103 { 104 "id": "N6", 105 "facts": "A breath test measured blood alcohol at 0.19. This is the driver's second DWI-related arrest -- they have one qualified prior impaired driving incident, from about three years ago. No children were in the vehicle. They took the breath test and did not refuse it. No one was injured and there was no accident.", 106 "turns": [ 107 { 108 "question": "I got arrested for DWI. My blood alcohol was well over the limit and this isn't my first time. What am I facing?", 109 "expected": [["dwi"]], 110 "must_include": [["gross misdemeanor"]], 111 "clarify": true, 112 "suggested_answer": "Two aggravating factors apply here under § 169A.03, subd. 3: an alcohol concentration of 0.16 or more, and one qualified prior impaired driving incident. Under § 169A.25, subd. 1, a DWI with two or more aggravating factors is a second-degree DWI, a gross misdemeanor with mandatory penalties under § 169A.275." 113 }, 114 { 115 "question": "What if I'd had two prior DWIs before this one instead of just one?", 116 "expected": [["dwi"]], 117 "must_include": [["felony"]], 118 "suggested_answer": "With three or more qualified prior impaired driving incidents within the past ten years, this becomes a first-degree DWI under § 169A.24, subd. 1 -- a felony punishable by up to seven years' imprisonment, a fine of up to $14,000, or both, with mandatory penalties under § 169A.276." 119 } 120 ] 121 }, 122 { 123 "id": "N7", 124 "facts": "The van is new, bought directly from a manufacturer-authorized dealer. It is used mostly for the buyer's landscaping business, hauling equipment and tools to job sites most days. The buyer is not sure exactly what percentage of the van's overall use is personal versus business -- it varies week to week and they have never tracked it.", 125 "turns": [ 126 { 127 "question": "I bought a new van and it keeps breaking down. Can I get a refund under the lemon law?", 128 "expected": [["lemon"]], 129 "must_include": [["40 percent"]], 130 "clarify": true, 131 "suggested_answer": "The lemon law's 'consumer' definition in § 325F.665, subd. 1(b) requires the vehicle be used for personal, family, or household purposes at least 40 percent of the time. Whether this van qualifies depends on that percentage, which is not yet known." 132 }, 133 { 134 "question": "Does it matter that I sometimes use it to drive my kids to school too?", 135 "expected": [["lemon"]], 136 "must_include": [["40 percent"]], 137 "clarify": true, 138 "suggested_answer": "It could matter, but only if that use, combined with any other personal use, adds up to at least 40 percent of the van's overall use -- and since even the buyer is not sure of the actual split, that is the fact that would need to be pinned down, likely by estimating typical weekly mileage or days used for each purpose, before a firm answer is possible." 139 } 140 ] 141 }, 142 { 143 "id": "N8", 144 "facts": "A breath test measured blood alcohol at 0.06, below Minnesota's 0.08 legal limit for driving while impaired. The driver did not refuse any test. No drugs were involved. No one was hurt and there was no collision -- the other driver was only nearly hit.", 145 "turns": [ 146 { 147 "question": "I was driving after a few drinks and swerved into another lane, almost hitting someone. What law applies to me?", 148 "expected": [["reckless"]], 149 "must_include": [["169.13"]], 150 "clarify": true, 151 "suggested_answer": "At 0.06, blood alcohol was below Minnesota's 0.08 legal limit, so the DWI statute does not apply here. Swerving into another lane could instead be reckless driving under § 169.13, subd. 1(a), if the driver was aware of and consciously disregarded a substantial and unjustifiable risk to others." 152 }, 153 { 154 "question": "Does it matter that I only swerved because I was reaching for my phone?", 155 "expected": [["reckless"], ["reckless", "phone"]], 156 "must_include": [["substantial and unjustifiable"]], 157 "suggested_answer": "Reaching for a phone does not exempt the driver -- the reckless driving standard asks whether the driver was aware of and consciously disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk, which distracted swerving into another lane could still satisfy regardless of what caused the distraction." 158 } 159 ] 160 }, 161 { 162 "id": "N9", 163 "facts": "No one else was present at the scene. The other vehicle was parked and unattended, with visible damage to its rear bumper. The person has paper and a pen available and is willing to leave a note. No one was injured. This did not happen on a highway.", 164 "turns": [ 165 { 166 "question": "I backed into a parked car in a parking lot and nobody was around. What do I have to do?", 167 "expected": [["accident"]], 168 "must_include": [["conspicuous"]], 169 "clarify": true, 170 "suggested_answer": "Under § 169.09, subd. 4, because the other vehicle was unattended, you must locate and notify the owner, report it to a peace officer, or leave a written notice in a conspicuous place on the struck vehicle, giving your name and address and the registered owner's." 171 }, 172 { 173 "question": "What if I just drove off without doing anything?", 174 "expected": [["accident"]], 175 "must_include": [["169.09"]], 176 "suggested_answer": "Leaving without locating the owner, notifying police, or leaving a written notice violates § 169.09. Depending on the circumstances, leaving the scene can carry real penalties under subd. 14, including fines and possible imprisonment if the collision involved injury or death." 177 } 178 ] 179 }, 180 { 181 "id": "N10", 182 "facts": "The driver called 911 to report a traffic accident they saw happen just ahead of them on the highway. It was not their own accident and they were not involved in it. They were holding the phone to their ear while driving and speaking to the dispatcher.", 183 "turns": [ 184 { 185 "question": "Can I get in trouble for being on my phone while driving if I was calling for help?", 186 "expected": [["phone"]], 187 "must_include": [["emergency"]], 188 "clarify": true, 189 "suggested_answer": "Calling 911 to report a traffic accident, medical emergency, or serious hazard falls under the emergency assistance exception in § 169.475, subd. 3(a)(4), so holding the phone for that call was not prohibited." 190 }, 191 { 192 "question": "What if I was calling a tow truck company instead of 911?", 193 "expected": [["phone"]], 194 "must_include": [["emergency"]], 195 "suggested_answer": "A call to a tow truck company is not 'emergency assistance' as the statute defines it -- that exception is limited to reporting an accident, medical emergency, serious traffic hazard, or a crime about to be committed. Holding the phone for a tow truck call would not fall under that exception." 196 } 197 ] 198 }, 199 { 200 "id": "N11", 201 "facts": "The driver was not operating a commercial motor vehicle and does not hold a commercial driver's license or learner's permit. This is their first camera-detected speeding violation. The registered owner of the vehicle is the same person who was driving at the time.", 202 "turns": [ 203 { 204 "question": "I got a speeding ticket in the mail from a traffic camera. What happens now?", 205 "expected": [["speeding"]], 206 "must_include": [["warning"]], 207 "clarify": true, 208 "suggested_answer": "Under § 169.14, subd. 13(b), a first camera-detected speeding violation gets only a warning, with no fine or conviction. A second offense within the program becomes eligible for diversion that includes a traffic safety course." 209 }, 210 { 211 "question": "What if I'm a commercial truck driver with a CDL?", 212 "expected": [["speeding"]], 213 "must_include": [["commercial"]], 214 "suggested_answer": "Subd. 13(c) says the camera-ticket process does not apply to a violation in a commercial motor vehicle or by a holder of a commercial driver's license or learner's permit, so as a CDL holder this camera-based process would not apply, and the violation would be handled through the standard process instead." 215 } 216 ] 217 }, 218 { 219 "id": "N12", 220 "facts": "The seller was a private individual, not a licensed dealer or any kind of business. No written warranty was given at the time of sale. The car is about eight years old with roughly 90,000 miles. The buyer paid in cash, with no financing involved.", 221 "turns": [ 222 { 223 "question": "I bought a car from someone on Facebook Marketplace, not a dealer, and it broke down after a week. What are my options?", 224 "expected": [["lemon"]], 225 "must_include": [["fraud"], ["Uniform Commercial Code"]], 226 "clarify": true, 227 "suggested_answer": "A private seller is not a 'dealer' under § 325F.662, so neither the new-car lemon law nor the used-car dealer warranty applies here. Options instead fall under general car-sale law -- the Uniform Commercial Code, consumer fraud statutes, and damage and title disclosure statutes, which apply to any car sale." 228 }, 229 { 230 "question": "Does it matter if the seller lied about the mileage?", 231 "expected": [["lemon"]], 232 "must_include": [["fraud"]], 233 "suggested_answer": "Yes -- misrepresenting the mileage implicates Minnesota's fraud and misrepresentation statute, § 325F.69, subd. 1, separate from any lemon-law protection, since a misrepresentation claim is not limited to dealer sales." 234 } 235 ] 236 } 237]
The knowledge documents
The six documents, exactly as the agents received them. You can also download them: speeding.md, mobile-phone.md, dwi.md, reckless-driving.md, lemon-law.md and car-accidents.md.
Speeding (speeding.md)
MARKDOWN
1# Minnesota speeding and speed limits 2 3This document is general legal information about Minnesota speed limits and speeding offenses (petty misdemeanor traffic violations). It is not legal advice, and it does not cover every situation. 4 5## Sources and currency 6 7- Minn. Stat. § 169.14 (speed restrictions), § 169.011 (definitions), § 169.89 (penalties), and §§ 609.02 and 609.03 (definitions of petty misdemeanor and misdemeanor, and their maximum sentences). 8- Text taken from the 2025 Minnesota Statutes, as published by the Office of the Revisor of Statutes at https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/ and read on 2026-09-20. Laws passed in the 2026 legislative session may not be reflected. 9- Section 169.14 was last amended by 2024 c 127 art 3 s 49-51. 10- Court decisions: Minnesota Supreme Court and Court of Appeals opinions, and United States Supreme Court opinions, read in the Harvard Caselaw Access Project (https://case.law/) or on the Cornell Legal Information Institute site (https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/). Every passage placed in quotation marks in the case sections below was checked against the opinion text. The summaries of holdings are my own reading of each opinion and are short. Older opinions cite the same statutes by earlier subdivision numbers and dates, for example Minn. Stat. § 169.14 (1982). 11 12## The basic speed rule 13 14Section 169.14, subd. 1, applies everywhere and at every speed: "No person shall drive a vehicle on a highway at a speed greater than is reasonable and prudent under the conditions." The same subdivision adds that "Every driver is responsible for becoming and remaining aware of the actual and potential hazards then existing on the highway and must use due care in operating a vehicle." Speed must be restricted as necessary to avoid colliding with any person, vehicle or other conveyance. A driver can therefore break the law while under the posted or statutory limit if the speed is not reasonable and prudent for the conditions. 15 16## Statutory speed limits 17 18Section 169.14, subd. 2(a), sets these speeds "where no special hazard exists". Speeds above them are "prima facie evidence that the speed is not reasonable or prudent and that it is unlawful". The exception is that "the speed limit within any municipality shall be a maximum limit and any speed in excess thereof shall be unlawful". 19 20| Where | Statutory limit | 21|---|---| 22| Urban district | 30 mph | 23| Noninterstate expressways and noninterstate freeways | 65 mph | 24| Locations not otherwise specified | 55 mph | 25| Interstate highways outside an urbanized area with a population greater than 50,000 | 70 mph | 26| Interstate highways inside an urbanized area with a population greater than 50,000 | 65 mph | 27| Alleys | 10 mph | 28| Residential roadways, if adopted by the road authority | 25 mph | 29| Rural residential districts, if adopted by the road authority | 35 mph | 30 31The 25 mph and 35 mph limits are not effective unless the road authority has erected signs showing the speed limit and where the residential roadway or rural residential district begins and ends (subd. 2(b) and (c)). Other subdivisions let road authorities set limits by sign; subd. 2(d) refers to "a speed limit designated on an appropriate sign under subdivision 4, 5, 5b, 5c, or 5e". 32 33Definitions in § 169.011: 34 35- "Urban district" means "the territory contiguous to and including any city street or town road that is built up with structures devoted to business, industry, or dwelling houses situated at intervals of less than 100 feet for a distance of a quarter of a mile or more" (subd. 90). 36- "Residential roadway" means "a city street or town road that is either (1) less than one-half mile in total length, or (2) in an area zoned exclusively for housing that is not a collector or arterial street" (subd. 64). 37- "Rural residential district" is territory along a city street or town road "built up with visible dwelling houses situated at intervals averaging 300 feet or less for a distance of a quarter of a mile or more" (subd. 69a). 38 39## Passing on a two-lane highway 40 41Section 169.14, subd. 2a, raises the limit by ten miles per hour over the posted limit while a driver is overtaking and passing another vehicle, but only when all four conditions are met: the driver is on a two-lane highway with one lane in each direction; the posted limit is 55 mph or higher; the driver is overtaking and passing another vehicle going the same way; and the driver meets the requirements in § 169.18. 42 43## School zones 44 45Under subd. 5a, local authorities may set a school speed limit within a school zone. It applies "when children are present, going to or leaving school during opening or closing hours or during school recess periods". It "shall not be lower than 15 miles per hour and shall not be more than 30 miles per hour below the established speed limit". It takes effect when signs mark the beginning and end of the zone, and "Any speed in excess of such posted school speed limit is unlawful." A school zone violation carries a surcharge equal to the fine, but not less than $25 (subd. 5a(d)). 46 47## Work zones 48 49Under subd. 5d, on a road with an established limit of 50 mph or greater, the limit is adjusted to 45 mph in a work zone when both (1) at least one lane or part of a lane is closed in either direction and (2) workers are present. It does not apply where positive barriers separate workers from traffic, where the work zone is in place for less than 24 hours, or where the road authority has set a different limit. Road authorities can also authorize reduced work zone limits, reducing the limit by no more than 20 mph on roads with a limit of 55 mph or more. 50 51Under subd. 6a, a person convicted of violating a work zone speed limit, or any other provision of § 169.14 while in a work zone, "shall be required to pay a fine of $300", in addition to the surcharge under § 357.021, subd. 6. Section 169.011, subd. 95, defines "work zone". 52 53## Extreme speed and large excesses 54 55- **Over 100 mph.** Under subd. 1a, the license of a person who violates a speed limit "by driving in excess of 100 miles per hour, is revoked for six months under section 171.17, or for a longer minimum period of time applicable under section 169A.53, 169A.54, or 171.174". 56- **20 mph or more over the limit.** Under subd. 2(d), a person who drives 20 miles per hour or more over the applicable limit "is assessed an additional surcharge equal to the amount of the fine imposed for the speed violation, but not less than $25". 57 58## How speed is proved 59 60Section 169.14, subd. 10(a): "In any prosecution in which the rate of speed of a motor vehicle is relevant, evidence of the speed as indicated on radar or other speed-measuring device, including but not limited to a speed safety camera system, is admissible in evidence, subject to the following conditions": 61 621. "the officer or traffic enforcement agent under section 169.147 operating the device has sufficient training to properly operate the equipment"; 632. "the officer or traffic enforcement agent testifies as to the manner in which the device was set up and operated"; 643. "the device was operated with minimal distortion or interference from outside sources"; and 654. "the device was tested by an accurate and reliable external mechanism, method, or system at the time it was set up." 66 67Subd. 10(b): records of tests kept in the regular course of a law enforcement agency's operations "are admissible in evidence without further foundation as to the results of the tests", are available to a defendant on demand, and the subdivision does not "preclude or interfere with cross examination or impeachment of evidence of the rate of speed". 68 69A patrol car speedometer reading is admissible under subd. 9 "on a showing that a vehicle is regularly used in traffic law enforcement and that the speedometer thereon is regularly and routinely tested for accuracy and a record of the results of said tests kept on file". The reading is "prima facie evidence" of the speed, "subject to correction by the amount of error, if any, shown to exist by the test made closest in time to the time of said reading". 70 71## Setting and changing limits 72 73- Trunk highways: subd. 4 lets the commissioner of transportation erect signs designating a reasonable and safe limit after "an engineering and traffic investigation". The limit is "effective when such signs are erected", and speeds over it are prima facie evidence that the speed is unlawful, "except that any speed limit within any municipality shall be a maximum limit and any speed in excess thereof shall be unlawful". 74- Local streets and highways not on the trunk system: subd. 5 lets local authorities request the commissioner to authorize signs after an engineering and traffic investigation. 75- City streets: subd. 5h lets a city "establish speed limits for city streets under the city's jurisdiction other than the limits provided in subdivision 2 without conducting an engineering and traffic investigation". It does not apply "to town roads, county highways, or trunk highways in the city", and the city "must erect appropriate signs to display the speed limit". 76- Safe road zones: subd. 5i lets the commissioner set a temporary or permanent limit in a designated safe road zone, effective on the erection of signs, and "Any speed in excess of the posted limit is unlawful." 77- Minimum speeds: subd. 8 lets the commissioner post a minimum speed on a trunk highway, and "Any speeds less than the posted minimum speeds shall be prima facie evidence that the speed is not reasonable or prudent and that it is unlawful." 78 79## Reduced speed and civil cases 80 81Section 169.14, subd. 3(a), requires a driver to "drive at an appropriate reduced speed" in listed situations, including when "approaching or passing an authorized emergency vehicle stopped with emergency lights flashing", when "approaching and crossing an intersection or railway grade crossing", "approaching and going around a curve", "approaching a hill crest", on "any narrow or winding roadway", and "when special hazards exist with respect to pedestrians or other traffic or by reason of weather or highway conditions". Under subd. 3(b), failing to reduce speed appropriately near a stopped emergency vehicle adds a surcharge equal to the fine, but not less than $25. 82 83Subd. 7 says the speed limits in the chapter do not "relieve the plaintiff in any civil action from the burden of proving negligence on the part of the defendant as the proximate cause of an accident." How a speeding violation matters in a civil injury case is covered in the car accidents document. 84 85## Speed safety cameras 86 87Section 169.14, subd. 13(a), applies when a violation "is identified through the use of a speed safety camera system implemented under section 169.147". The owner or lessee of the vehicle "is guilty of a petty misdemeanor and must pay a fine of" $40, or $80 "if the violation is for a speed at least 20 miles per hour in excess of the speed limit". Under subd. 13(b), a first offense gets a warning with no fine or conviction, and a second offense is eligible for diversion that includes a traffic safety course. Subd. 13(c) says that does not apply to a violation in a commercial motor vehicle or by a holder of a commercial driver's license or learner's permit. Subd. 13(d) says it "applies to violations committed on or after August 1, 2025, and before August 1, 2029". Under subd. 14(a) the owner is not liable if, for example, the vehicle was stolen, another person is convicted for the same violation, or the owner provides a sworn statement that the owner "was not operating the vehicle at the time of the violation". Evidence from a camera system may be used "solely for a citation or prosecution for a violation under subdivision 13" (subd. 10(c)). 88 89Subd. 12 makes it unlawful to "sell, offer for sale, use, or possess any radar jammer in this state", defined as a device designed or intended "to jam or interfere in any manner with a speed-measuring device operated by a peace officer". 90 91## What kind of offense speeding is 92 93Section 169.89, subd. 1, provides: "Unless otherwise declared in this chapter with respect to particular offenses, it is a petty misdemeanor for any person to do any act forbidden or fail to perform any act required by this chapter." Under subd. 2, a person charged with a petty misdemeanor "is not entitled to a jury trial", "is not subject to imprisonment" and faces "a fine of not more than $300". Section 609.02, subd. 4a, says a petty misdemeanor "does not constitute a crime". 94 95A petty misdemeanor becomes a misdemeanor in two cases (§ 169.89, subd. 1): where the violation "is committed in a manner or under circumstances so as to endanger or be likely to endanger any person or property", or where it is a repeat, "when preceded by two or more petty misdemeanor convictions within the immediate preceding 12-month period". A misdemeanor is a crime for which a sentence of not more than 90 days or a fine of not more than $1,000, or both, may be imposed (§ 609.02, subd. 3; § 609.03). 96 97## Reckless and careless driving 98 99Reckless driving, racing and careless driving are separate crimes under Minn. Stat. § 169.13 and are covered in a separate document. Speeding alone is a petty misdemeanor, as described above, unless § 169.89, subd. 1, raises it to a misdemeanor. 100 101## Leading cases: speed measurements and the evidence of speeding 102 103**State v. Gerdes, 291 Minn. 353, 191 N.W.2d 428 (1971).** The Minnesota Supreme Court held that district courts may take judicial notice of the reliability of radar. This is known only through later decisions that cite it. In State v. Ali, the Court of Appeals described the rule this way: "In State v. Gerdes, 291 Minn. 353, 191 N.W.2d 428 (1971), the Minnesota Supreme Court held that district courts could take judicial notice of the reliability of radar." 104 105**State v. Ali, 679 N.W.2d 359 (Minn. App. 2004).** Officer Johnson watched two vehicles in a 30 mph zone in Minneapolis and checked them with a laser speed-measuring device. The driver challenged his speeding conviction, arguing the laser evidence was inadmissible and the evidence insufficient. The Court of Appeals affirmed: "Because we conclude that the laser evidence was properly admitted, and that the laser reading and the officer's observations are sufficient to support appellant's conviction, we affirm." It said the courts accept "the reliability of radar speedometers where there is evidence they were operated by trained personnel who have adequately tested the accuracy of the particular device by which the defendant's speed was determined", and treated laser evidence the same way. Holding: laser speed readings are admissible when the operator is trained and the device was tested, and a court need not require the officer to qualify as an expert. 106 107**State v. Olson, 887 N.W.2d 687 (Minn. App. 2016).** An officer used a handheld laser to clock Shane Olson at 70 miles per hour in a 55 zone. Olson argued that the officer's external test proved only that the unit measured distance accurately, and that speed depends on accurate time as well as distance. Section 169.14, subd. 10(a)(4), requires an external test. The Court of Appeals held: "Because the officer's external test verified not only that the laser unit was measuring distance accurately but also implicitly verified that it was measuring time accurately, the district court did not abuse its discretion by admitting the officer's testimony of the speed-device evidence, and we affirm." Holding: the external test required by subd. 10(a)(4) can be satisfied by a test of distance measurement that also verifies the timing. 108 109**State v. Manley, 353 N.W.2d 649 (Minn. App. 1984).** A jury found Manley guilty of speeding under § 169.14, subd. 5, but the complaint had charged him under subd. 2, and the state was allowed to amend it after the state had rested its case. The elements of subd. 2 were "speed in excess of 55 m.p.h. or speed in excess of 30 m.p.h. in an urban district", and the elements of subd. 5 were "speed in excess of a posted speed limit which is authorized by the Commissioner of Transportation upon the basis of an engineering and traffic investigation". The court noted that under § 169.06, subd. 4(c), traffic-control devices are presumed to have been placed by lawful authority, so "under the amended charge, a presumption arose and the burden of going forward shifted to appellant." The Court of Appeals reversed the conviction because "the amendment charged a different offense which substantially prejudiced the rights of appellant." Holding: the state cannot switch from a statutory-limit charge to a posted-limit charge after the close of its evidence. 110 111## Leading cases: the traffic stop for speeding 112 113An ordinary speeding ticket begins with a traffic stop. These cases set the limits on what an officer can do during and after one. Cases arising from impaired-driving investigations are in the DWI document. 114 115**Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648 (1979).** The Supreme Court held "that except in those situations in which there is at least articulable and reasonable suspicion that a motorist is unlicensed or that an automobile is not registered, or that either the vehicle or an occupant is otherwise subject to seizure for violation of law, stopping an automobile and detaining the driver in order to check his driver's license and the registration of the automobile are unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment." It added: "We hold only that persons in automobiles on public roadways may not for that reason alone have their travel and privacy interfered with at the unbridled discretion of police officers." 116 117**Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106 (1977).** The Court held "only that once a motor vehicle has been lawfully detained for a traffic violation, the police officers may order the driver to get out of the vehicle without violating the Fourth Amendment's proscription of unreasonable searches and seizures." It described the extra intrusion as de minimis, and it called the officer-safety justification both legitimate and weighty. 118 119**Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420 (1984).** The Court held that Miranda warnings apply to custodial interrogation "regardless of the nature or severity of the offense", including a misdemeanor traffic offense. But it also held: "The similarly noncoercive aspect of ordinary traffic stops prompts us to hold that persons temporarily detained pursuant to such stops are not "in custody" for the purposes of Miranda." So roadside questions during an ordinary stop do not require Miranda warnings, and a driver is in custody for Miranda purposes when arrested. 120 121**Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806 (1996).** The Court held: "As a general matter, the decision to stop an automobile is reasonable where the police have probable cause to believe that a traffic violation has occurred." It rejected the argument that the reasonableness of a stop depends on an officer's actual motive: "Subjective intentions play no role in ordinary, probable-cause Fourth Amendment analysis." A stop for a real traffic violation is lawful even if the officer hoped to find something else. 122 123**State v. George, 557 N.W.2d 575 (Minn. 1997).** A trooper stopped Thomas George's motorcycle for an asserted illegal headlight configuration. The Minnesota Supreme Court held that "Trooper Vaselaar did not have an objective legal basis for suspecting that the George was driving his motorcycle in violation of any motor vehicle law (or that he was violating any other law)". It also held that the state had failed to prove voluntary consent to the ensuing search, and it reversed and vacated the conviction. Holding: a traffic stop needs an objective legal basis, meaning a real violation or reasonable suspicion of one. 124 125**State v. Askerooth, 681 N.W.2d 353 (Minn. 2004).** An officer stopped Todd Askerooth for failing to obey a stop sign, learned he had no license, ordered him out, patted him down, and confined him in the squad car before getting consent to search his van. The Minnesota Supreme Court held that "Article I, Section 10 of the Minnesota Constitution requires that each incremental intrusion during a traffic stop be tied to and justified by one of the following: (1) the original legitimate purpose of the stop, (2) independent probable cause, or (3) reasonableness, as defined in Terry." It reversed. Holding: under the Minnesota Constitution, an officer may not expand a traffic stop step by step without a justification for each step. 126 127**Rodriguez v. United States (U.S. 2015).** The Court held that "Absent reasonable suspicion, police extension of a traffic stop in order to conduct a dog sniff violates the Constitution's shield against unreasonable seizures." The tolerable duration of a stop is determined by its mission, "which is to address the traffic violation that warranted the stop", and "Authority for the seizure ends when tasks tied to the traffic infraction are—or reasonably should have been—completed." Checking the license, warrants, registration and proof of insurance are part of the mission. 128 129**Heien v. North Carolina (U.S. 2014).** The Court held: "Because Darisse's mistake of law was reasonable, there was reasonable suspicion justifying the stop under the Fourth Amendment." An officer's reasonable mistake about what the law prohibits can support a stop. The Minnesota Supreme Court had reached the opposite result in State v. Anderson (2004), discussed in the DWI document, which concerned a stop based on a mistaken reading of the move-over law. 130 131**Navarette v. California (U.S. 2014).** The Court held that a traffic stop "complied with the Fourth Amendment because, under the totality of the circumstances, the officer had reasonable suspicion that the truck's driver was intoxicated", on the strength of an anonymous 911 report that the truck had run the caller off the road. 132 133## How the case law fits together (my summary) 134 135- To prove speed, the state generally uses a radar or laser reading or a tested speedometer. The operator must be trained and the device tested by an external method, and the driver may cross-examine (§ 169.14, subd. 10; Ali; Olson). 136- A stop for a traffic violation needs probable cause or reasonable suspicion of a real violation, and the officer's private motive does not matter (Whren, Prouse, George). 137- During the stop, the officer may order the driver out of the car (Mimms), may ask routine questions without Miranda warnings (Berkemer), but cannot extend the stop beyond its mission without reasonable suspicion (Rodriguez). Under the Minnesota Constitution each expansion must be justified (Askerooth). 138- The charge matters. Switching from an ordinary-limit charge to a posted-limit charge after the evidence closed was reversible error in Manley. 139 140## What this document does not cover 141 142- The dollar amount of an ordinary speeding ticket. It is not set out in the statutes above, and this document does not state it. 143- Demerit points, insurance effects, and how to contest or pay a ticket. 144- Reckless driving, racing and careless driving, which have their own document. 145- Local ordinances, commercial drivers, and special limits for other vehicle types. 146- Other sections of chapter 169. 147- Court decisions not listed above. The list is a selection of leading decisions, not a complete one.
The hands-free phone law (mobile-phone.md)
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1# Minnesota law on driving with a mobile phone (the "hands-free" law) 2 3This document is general legal information about Minnesota's law on using a phone or similar device while driving. It is not legal advice, and it does not cover every situation. 4 5## Sources and currency 6 7- Minn. Stat. § 169.475 (use of wireless communications device) and § 169.011, subd. 94 (definition of "wireless communications device"). Text taken from the 2025 Minnesota Statutes, as published by the Office of the Revisor of Statutes at https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/ and read on 2026-09-20. Laws passed in the 2026 legislative session may not be reflected. 8- Session law 2019 c 11 (H.F. 50), which amended § 169.475 and § 169.011, subd. 94. Its effective date is August 1, 2019, for acts committed on or after that date. Section 169.475 was later amended by 2023 c 68 art 4 s 50 and 51. 9- Court decisions: United States Supreme Court opinions read on the Cornell Legal Information Institute site (https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/) and Minnesota opinions read in the Harvard Caselaw Access Project (https://case.law/). Every passage placed in quotation marks in the case sections below was checked against the opinion text. The summaries of holdings are my own reading and are short. 10- Minnesota House Research Department, "Distracted Driving: Cell Phone Use While Driving", October 2019, https://www.house.mn.gov/hrd/pubs/ss/ssdistdrvg.pdf. This is nonpartisan legislative staff analysis, and it is the source for the first-offense fine and the surcharge below. It is dated October 2019, so those two amounts may have changed. 11 12## What the law prohibits 13 14Section 169.475, subd. 2(a): "when a motor vehicle is in motion or a part of traffic, the person operating the vehicle upon a street or highway is prohibited from": 15 161. "holding a wireless communications device with one or both hands"; or 172. using a wireless communications device to: 18 - "initiate, compose, send, retrieve, or read an electronic message"; 19 - "engage in a cellular phone call, including initiating a call, talking or listening, and participating in video calling"; and 20 - "access the following types of content stored on the device: video content, audio content, images, games, or software applications". 21 22## Key definitions 23 24- **Wireless communications device** (§ 169.011, subd. 94): "(1) a cellular phone, or (2) a portable electronic device that is capable of receiving and transmitting data, including but not limited to text messages and email, without an access line for service." It does not include "a device or feature that is permanently physically integrated into the vehicle", "a global positioning system or navigation system that is only capable of being used for navigation purposes", or "a two-way radio, citizens band radio, or amateur radio equipment used in accordance with Federal Communications Commission rules and regulations". 25- **Electronic message** (§ 169.475, subd. 1(b)): "a self-contained piece of digital communication that is designed or intended to be transmitted between physical devices." It includes email, a text message, an instant message, "a command or request to access a web page", a voice mail message, a transmitted image, transmitted video content including through video calling, and transmitted gaming data. It does not include "voice or audio data transmitted as a result of making a phone call", data transmitted between a vehicle and a device in the vehicle, two-way, citizens band or amateur radio data, or "data transmitted automatically without direct initiation by a person". 26- **Voice-activated or hands-free mode** (subd. 1(c)): a feature, accessory, wireless connection or built-in capability "that allows the person to use verbal or single touch commands to" activate or deactivate the device, and to activate or deactivate a function or software application of the device. It "does not include typing or scrolling on a device." 27- **In motion or part of traffic** (subd. 1(d)): a vehicle "is not in motion or a part of traffic if the vehicle is lawfully stopped, is in a location that is not designed or ordinarily used for vehicular travel, and is not obstructing traffic". House Research explains that a vehicle stopped at a stop sign, at a traffic light or in a traffic jam is still part of traffic. 28 29## What is allowed 30 31Under § 169.475, subd. 3(a), the prohibitions do not apply if a person uses a wireless communications device: 32 331. "solely in a voice-activated or hands-free mode" to initiate or participate in a cellular phone call, "provided that the person does not hold the device with one or both hands", or to initiate, compose, send or listen to an electronic message; 342. to view or operate a GPS or navigation system without typing while the vehicle is in motion, "provided that the person does not hold the device with one or both hands"; 353. to listen to audio-based content without scrolling or typing while the vehicle is in motion, and without holding the device; 364. "to obtain emergency assistance to (i) report a traffic accident, medical emergency, or serious traffic hazard, or (ii) prevent a crime about to be committed"; 375. "in the reasonable belief that a person's life or safety is in immediate danger"; or 386. in an authorized emergency vehicle while performing official duties. 39 40Subdivision 3(b) limits the hands-free exception: it "does not apply to accessing nonnavigation video content, engaging in video calling, engaging in live-streaming, accessing gaming data, or reading electronic messages." So a driver can use hands-free mode to dictate or listen to a message, but not to read one. 41 42## Penalties 43 44- **Second or later violation.** Section 169.475, subd. 2(b), provides: "A person who violates paragraph (a) a second or subsequent time must pay a fine of $275." 45- **First violation.** The statute itself does not state an amount. House Research (October 2019) says the law lets the Judicial Council set the fine and that "The current fine for a first offense is $50." It also says tickets are "subject to the surcharge on all criminal and traffic offenses, which increases the amount an offender must pay by at least $75." These figures come from 2019 and may have changed. 46- **Type of offense.** House Research describes violations as "payable offenses", which are "punished by a fine" like a speeding ticket, are "not technically crimes under Minnesota law" and "do not require a court appearance". It adds that "Failure to pay a fine can result in the suspension of a driver's license." 47- **When it can become a crime.** House Research says that if phone use "results in some other dangerous driving conduct, prosecutors can charge a more serious crime", for example careless or reckless driving under Minn. Stat. § 169.13. Careless and reckless driving are misdemeanors, and reckless driving that causes great bodily harm or death is a gross misdemeanor. 48 49## History of the statute 50 51The history line of § 169.475 in the 2025 statutes lists these enactments: 2008 c 350 art 1 s 38, 2015 c 75 art 2 s 22, 2019 c 11 s 2, and 2023 c 68 art 4 s 50 and 51. The 2019 act is the hands-free law. House Research (October 2019) says the Legislature passed a hands free law making it illegal for drivers to use hand-held cell phones while driving, and adds: "While it was previously illegal to text while driving, the new law also increased restrictions on using all electronic communication devices." Conduct before August 1, 2019 was governed by the earlier text of the statute, which this document does not set out. 52 53## How the pieces apply (my reading, not a quotation) 54 55| Conduct while the vehicle is moving or part of traffic | Prohibited? | Why | 56|---|---|---| 57| Holding the phone to your ear for a call | Yes | Holding a wireless communications device with one or both hands (subd. 2(a)(1)) | 58| Talking on a call through a car's built-in system or a paired earpiece, with the phone in a mount | Generally no | Hands-free mode with no holding (subd. 3(a)(1)) | 59| Dictating a text message by voice | No | Voice-activated or hands-free mode allows initiating, composing, sending or listening to an electronic message (subd. 3(a)(1)(ii)) | 60| Reading an incoming text on the screen | Yes | Hands-free mode does not extend to "reading electronic messages" (subd. 3(b)) | 61| Typing a destination into a navigation app while driving | Yes | The navigation exception requires that the use not "require the driver to type" (subd. 3(a)(2)) | 62| Following a map on a phone in a mount, with no typing and no holding | No | Navigation exception (subd. 3(a)(2)) | 63| Scrolling through a music or podcast app | Yes | The audio exception requires that the use not require the driver "to scroll or type" (subd. 3(a)(3)) | 64| Playing a video or a game, or watching a video call | Yes | Hands-free mode does not extend to "nonnavigation video content", "video calling" or "gaming data" (subd. 3(b)) | 65| Stopped at a red light with the engine on, holding the phone | Yes | A vehicle is not "in motion or a part of traffic" only if it is lawfully stopped, in a location not designed or ordinarily used for vehicular travel, and not obstructing traffic (subd. 1(d)) | 66| Calling 911 to report a crash | No | Emergency assistance exception (subd. 3(a)(4)) | 67 68A driver's own phone is not the only concern. A vehicle's built-in screen is "permanently physically integrated into the vehicle" and so is not a "wireless communications device" under § 169.011, subd. 94. 69 70## Related crimes when phone use leads to harm 71 72The hands-free law is a fine-only offense, but phone use can be part of the evidence for more serious crimes. Careless driving under § 169.13, subd. 2(a), applies to a person who operates a vehicle "carelessly or heedlessly in disregard of the rights of others, or in a manner that endangers or is likely to endanger any property or any person". It is a misdemeanor. The reckless driving crime requires that the driver was "aware of and consciously disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk". Both are covered in the reckless and careless driving document. 73 74If a driver causes the death of a human being as a result of operating a motor vehicle in a grossly negligent manner, § 609.2112, subd. 1(a)(1), makes it criminal vehicular homicide, punishable by imprisonment for not more than ten years or a fine of not more than $20,000, or both. Section 609.2113 does the same for great bodily harm (subd. 1, up to five years), substantial bodily harm (subd. 2, up to three years) and bodily harm (subd. 3, up to 364 days). House Research (2019) notes that "Several states, including Alaska, Illinois, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Utah explicitly state that a person who is texting and causes an accident resulting in serious injury or death is guilty of a criminal offense", and that Minnesota's law relies on the existing crimes. The meaning of gross negligence is discussed in the reckless driving document (State v. Meany). 75 76## Court decisions 77 78I searched for published Minnesota Supreme Court and Court of Appeals decisions that interpret § 169.475 and did not find one. The search service I used limited how many queries I could make, so this is not proof that none exist. The cases below are general decisions on the Fourth Amendment and traffic stops that apply when a driver is stopped for phone use, and one decision on phones seized at arrest. Unpublished appellate opinions in Minnesota are not precedential and were not reviewed. 79 80**Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806 (1996).** "As a general matter, the decision to stop an automobile is reasonable where the police have probable cause to believe that a traffic violation has occurred." "Subjective intentions play no role in ordinary, probable-cause Fourth Amendment analysis." My reading is that an officer who sees a driver holding a phone in motion has a lawful basis for a stop, whatever else the officer might also be thinking. 81 82**Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648 (1979).** A stop needs "at least articulable and reasonable suspicion" of a violation. My reading is that an officer cannot stop a driver at random to check for phone use. 83 84**Heien v. North Carolina (U.S. 2014).** "Because Darisse's mistake of law was reasonable, there was reasonable suspicion justifying the stop under the Fourth Amendment." Because the hands-free law has several exceptions, an officer may be mistaken about what is prohibited. Under Heien, a reasonable mistake of law does not by itself make a stop unconstitutional. This is a federal rule, and the Minnesota Supreme Court has held in State v. Anderson (2004), discussed in the DWI document, that an officer's mistaken belief about a traffic law did not supply the basis for a stop in that case. 85 86**Rodriguez v. United States (U.S. 2015).** "Authority for the seizure ends when tasks tied to the traffic infraction are—or reasonably should have been—completed." My reading is that after a stop for holding a phone, the officer may check the license and registration and write the ticket, but may not prolong the stop for unrelated investigation without reasonable suspicion. 87 88**Riley v. California (U.S. 2014).** The Court held that "The police generally may not, without a warrant, search digital information on a cell phone seized from an individual who has been arrested." It concluded: "Our answer to the question of what police must do before searching a cell phone seized incident to an arrest is accordingly simple—get a warrant." The case is about a search after an arrest and not about phone use while driving, but it applies when a driver is arrested and the officer wants to look inside the phone. Being ticketed for a violation of § 169.475 does not by itself give an officer the right to look through the phone. My reading is that this limit still applies to the phone of a driver arrested for careless driving or DWI. 89 90**State v. Meany, 262 Minn. 491 (1962), and State v. Kissner, 541 N.W.2d 317 (Minn. App. 1995).** These decisions on gross negligence apply to any driver, including a distracted one, whose conduct causes a death. They are summarized in the reckless driving document. 91 92## How this fits together (my summary) 93 94- The statute prohibits holding a device and prohibits using it for messages, calls and stored content, unless the device is used solely in hands-free mode or fits an exception. Reading a message is never allowed through hands-free mode. 95- The statute applies whenever the vehicle is in motion or part of traffic, including at a red light. 96- The ticket is a payable, fine-only offense. The second offense in the statute costs $275. The first-offense fine is set outside the statute. 97- A stop for phone use is judged like any other traffic stop under the cases above. Searching the phone afterward generally needs a warrant. 98- If phone use contributes to a crash, the driver can face careless or reckless driving, or criminal vehicular operation or homicide, which need different proof. 99 100## What this document does not cover 101 102- Whether the current first-offense fine and surcharge are still the 2019 amounts. 103- Special rules for commercial drivers, school bus drivers or drivers holding a learner's permit or provisional license. Section 169.475 contains no separate provisions for them, but other laws may apply and were not researched. 104- Local ordinances, and how tickets are contested. 105- Court decisions not listed above. No published Minnesota appellate decision on § 169.475 was found, and the general cases above are a selection.
Driving while impaired (dwi.md)
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1# Minnesota driving while impaired (DWI) 2 3This document is general legal information about Minnesota's impaired driving law and the leading court decisions that interpret it. It is not legal advice, and it does not cover every situation. Impaired driving charges can carry jail time and the loss of a driver's license, and anyone facing one should speak to a lawyer. 4 5## Sources and currency 6 7- Minn. Stat. chapter 169A: § 169A.03 (definitions), § 169A.20 (the offenses), §§ 169A.24 to 169A.27 (first- to fourth-degree DWI), §§ 169A.275 to 169A.277 (mandatory penalties and long-term monitoring), § 169A.33 (underage drinking and driving), § 169A.35 (open bottle law), § 169A.41 (preliminary screening test), § 169A.51 (implied consent) and § 169A.52 (test refusal or failure; revocation). 8- Minn. Stat. § 171.178 (license revocation periods for DWI), and §§ 609.02 and 609.03 (definitions of misdemeanor and gross misdemeanor and their general maximum sentences). 9- Text taken from the 2025 Minnesota Statutes, as published by the Office of the Revisor of Statutes at https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/ and read on 2026-09-20. Laws passed in the 2026 legislative session may not be reflected. Section 169A.20 was last amended by 2023 c 63 art 4 s 28. 10- Court decisions: Minnesota Supreme Court and Court of Appeals opinions, and United States Supreme Court opinions, read in the Harvard Caselaw Access Project (https://case.law/) or on the Cornell Legal Information Institute site (https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/). Every passage placed in quotation marks in the case sections below was checked against the opinion text. The summaries of holdings are my own reading of each opinion and are short. Older opinions cite the DWI statute by its former number, § 169.121, which was recodified as chapter 169A. 11- Where a sentence below is my reading of how sections fit together, and not a quotation, it says so. Court decisions can be overruled or limited by later decisions, and this document notes the ones that were. 12 13## Terminology 14 15Chapter 169A of the Minnesota Statutes is titled "driving while impaired", and the offenses are called "driving while impaired" (DWI). I did not find the term "DUI" in the sections quoted here. Wherever this document says DWI, it means the offenses in § 169A.20. 16 17## What is a DWI offense 18 19Section 169A.20, subd. 1: "It is a crime for any person to drive, operate, or be in physical control of any motor vehicle, as defined in section 169A.03, subdivision 15, within this state or on any boundary water of this state when": 20 211. "the person is under the influence of alcohol"; 222. "the person is under the influence of a controlled substance"; 233. "the person is under the influence of an intoxicating substance and the person knows or has reason to know that the substance has the capacity to cause impairment"; 244. "the person is under the influence of a combination of any two or more of" those substances or of cannabis-related substances (clause 8); 255. "the person's alcohol concentration at the time, or as measured within two hours of the time, of driving, operating, or being in physical control of the motor vehicle is 0.08 or more"; 266. "the vehicle is a commercial motor vehicle and the person's alcohol concentration at the time, or as measured within two hours of the time, of driving, operating, or being in physical control of the commercial motor vehicle is 0.04 or more"; 277. "the person's body contains any amount of a controlled substance listed in Schedule I or II, or its metabolite", other than cannabis flower, a cannabis product, a lower-potency hemp edible, a hemp-derived consumer product, an artificially derived cannabinoid, or tetrahydrocannabinols; or 288. "the person is under the influence of cannabis flower, a cannabis product, a lower-potency hemp edible, a hemp-derived consumer product, an artificially derived cannabinoid, or tetrahydrocannabinols". 29 30Two points follow from the wording. The offense covers being "in physical control" of the vehicle as well as driving it, and a person can be guilty under clause 1 by being under the influence even if the alcohol concentration is below 0.08. 31 32Definitions in § 169A.03: 33 34- "Motor vehicle" means "every vehicle that is self-propelled and every vehicle that is propelled by electric power obtained from overhead trolley wires. The term includes motorboats in operation and off-road recreational vehicles, but does not include a vehicle moved solely by human power" (subd. 15). 35- "Alcohol concentration" means the number of grams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood, per 210 liters of breath, or per 67 milliliters of urine (subd. 2). 36 37## Refusing a chemical test is a separate crime 38 39Section 169A.20, subd. 2: "It is a crime for any person to refuse to submit to a chemical test: (1) of the person's breath under section 169A.51 (chemical tests for intoxication), or 169A.52 (test refusal or failure; revocation of license); or (2) of the person's blood or urine as required by a search warrant". 40 41Under the implied consent law, § 169A.51, subd. 1(a), a person who drives, operates or is in physical control of a motor vehicle in Minnesota "consents, subject to the provisions of sections 169A.50 to 169A.53 (implied consent law), and section 169A.20 (driving while impaired), to a chemical test of that person's blood, breath, or urine for the purpose of determining the presence of alcohol", and other substances, "administered at the direction of a peace officer". Subd. 1(b) says the test may be required when an officer has probable cause to believe the person was driving impaired and one of these conditions exists: the person has been lawfully arrested for DWI; the person was in an accident resulting in property damage, injury or death; the person refused the preliminary screening test; or the screening test showed an alcohol concentration of 0.08 or more. 42 43## The preliminary screening test 44 45Section 169A.41, subd. 1, lets a peace officer who "has reason to believe from the manner in which a person is driving, operating, controlling, or acting upon departure from a motor vehicle" that the driver may be violating the DWI law require "a sample of the driver's breath for a preliminary screening test using a device approved by the commissioner for this purpose". Subd. 2 limits its use: the result "must be used for the purpose of deciding whether an arrest should be made and whether to require the tests authorized in section 169A.51 (chemical tests for intoxication), but must not be used in any court action except" in the listed situations, which include proving that a chemical test "was properly required" and prosecutions for test refusal. My reading is that the roadside screening result is a tool for the officer's decision, not ordinary trial evidence of the alcohol concentration. 46 47## The four degrees of DWI 48 49Section 169A.20, subd. 3, says a person "may be sentenced as provided in" §§ 169A.24 to 169A.27. The degree depends on aggravating factors and prior history. 50 51**Aggravating factors** (§ 169A.03, subd. 3) are: 52 531. "a qualified prior impaired driving incident within the ten years immediately preceding the current offense"; 542. "having an alcohol concentration of 0.16 or more as measured at the time, or within two hours of the time, of the offense"; or 553. "having a child under the age of 16 in the motor vehicle at the time of the offense if the child is more than 36 months younger than the offender". 56 57A "qualified prior impaired driving incident" includes "prior impaired driving convictions and prior impaired driving-related losses of license" (subd. 22). 58 59| Degree | When it applies | Class of crime | 60|---|---|---| 61| First | A DWI committed within ten years of the first of three or more qualified prior impaired driving incidents, or after a prior felony conviction under § 169A.24 or specified related felonies (§ 169A.24, subd. 1) | Felony: up to seven years, a fine of up to $14,000, or both, with mandatory penalties under § 169A.276 (subd. 2) | 62| Second | A DWI with two or more aggravating factors; or a test refusal with one aggravating factor (§ 169A.25, subd. 1) | Gross misdemeanor; mandatory penalties in § 169A.275 and long-term monitoring in § 169A.277 "may be applicable" | 63| Third | A DWI with one aggravating factor; or a test refusal (§ 169A.26, subd. 1) | Gross misdemeanor; the same mandatory penalties and monitoring "may be applicable" | 64| Fourth | Any other violation of § 169A.20, subd. 1 (§ 169A.27, subd. 1) | Misdemeanor | 65 66Maximum sentences for the lower degrees: sections 169A.25 to 169A.27 state only the class of crime. My reading is that the general limits in § 609.03, which applies when no other punishment is provided, therefore apply. Under that section a gross misdemeanor carries "imprisonment for not more than 364 days or to payment of a fine of not more than $3,000, or both", and a misdemeanor carries "not more than 90 days" or "not more than $1,000", or both. 67 68## Mandatory penalties for repeat offenders 69 70These sections add minimum penalties to the maximums above. 71 72**Nonfelony violations, § 169A.275.** 73 74- Second offense (a DWI within ten years of a qualified prior incident), subd. 1(a): the court "shall sentence" the person to "a minimum of 30 days of incarceration, at least 48 hours of which must be served in a local correctional facility", or "eight hours of community work service for each day less than 30 days that the person is ordered to serve in a local correctional facility". The prosecutor may move, or the court may decide on its own, to sentence without the minimum if "substantial mitigating factors exist", and the reasons must be stated on the record (subd. 1(b) and (c)). Any sentence "must include a mandatory sentence that is not subject to suspension or a stay of imposition or execution, and that includes incarceration for not less than 48 hours or at least 80 hours of community work service" (subd. 1(d)). 75- Third offense (within ten years of the first of two qualified prior incidents), subd. 2(a): "a minimum of 90 days of incarceration, at least 30 days of which must be served consecutively in a local correctional facility", or an intensive supervision program that requires the person to "consecutively serve at least six days in a local correctional facility". Under subd. 2(b), not more than 60 days of the minimum may be served on home detention or intensive probation, and under subd. 2(c) the penalties "must be imposed and executed". 76- Fourth offense (within ten years of the first of three qualified prior incidents), subd. 3(a): a minimum of 180 days of incarceration with at least 30 days served consecutively in a local correctional facility, or an intensive supervision program with at least six days served consecutively, or staggered sentencing with a minimum of 180 days of incarceration. Under subd. 3(b) not more than 150 days may be served on home detention or intensive probation. 77- Fifth offense or more (subd. 4): a minimum of one year of incarceration with at least 60 days served consecutively in a local correctional facility, or one of the other listed programs. 78 79**Felony violations, § 169A.276.** Subd. 1(a): a person convicted of first-degree DWI is sentenced "to imprisonment for not less than three years", and the court may add a fine of not more than $14,000. Subd. 1(b): the court "may stay execution of this mandatory sentence as provided in subdivision 2" but "may not stay imposition or adjudication of the sentence or impose a sentence that has a duration of less than three years". Subd. 1(d): after release the commissioner "shall place the person on conditional release for five years". Subd. 3: "The court may not stay the execution of the driver's license revocation provisions of section 169A.54". 80 81**Long-term monitoring, § 169A.277.** Subd. 1 applies to a person convicted of a DWI "within ten years of the first of two or more prior impaired driving convictions", or under 19 and previously convicted, or driving while the license was canceled as inimical to public safety. Subd. 2: when the court sentences such a person "to a stayed sentence and when electronic monitoring equipment is available", the court "shall require that the person participate in a program of electronic alcohol monitoring", for "a minimum of 30 consecutive days during each year of the person's probationary period". Subd. 3 requires the person to reimburse the cost "to the extent the person is able to pay". 82 83## Underage drinking and driving 84 85Section 169A.33, subd. 2: "It is a crime for a person under the age of 21 years to drive, operate, or be in physical control of a motor vehicle while consuming alcoholic beverages, or after having consumed alcoholic beverages while there is physical evidence of the consumption present in the person's body." Subd. 3 makes it a misdemeanor. Under subd. 4 the commissioner "shall suspend the person's driver's license or operating privileges for 30 days, or for 180 days if the person has previously been found to have violated subdivision 2". Under subd. 5, if the conduct also violates the DWI law, the DWI penalties apply instead of the license sanction in subd. 4. 86 87## Open bottle law 88 89Section 169A.35 makes three things a crime, all misdemeanors under subd. 5: 90 91- Subd. 2: "to drink or consume an alcoholic beverage, distilled spirit, or 3.2 percent malt liquor in a motor vehicle when the vehicle is upon a street or highway". 92- Subd. 3: "to have in possession, while in a private motor vehicle upon a street or highway, any bottle or receptacle containing an alcoholic beverage, distilled spirit, or 3.2 percent malt liquor that has been opened, or the seal broken, or the contents of which have been partially removed". "Possession" means "either that the person had actual possession of the bottle or receptacle or that the person consciously exercised dominion and control over the bottle or receptacle" (subd. 1(4)). The offense applies to a passenger as well as the driver. 93- Subd. 4: for the owner, or the driver if the owner is not present, "to keep or allow to be kept" such an opened container in the vehicle. 94 95Subd. 6(b): subdivisions 3 and 4 "do not apply to a bottle or receptacle that is in the trunk of the vehicle if it is equipped with a trunk, or that is in another area of the vehicle not normally occupied by the driver and passengers if the vehicle is not equipped with a trunk. However, a utility compartment or glove compartment is deemed to be within the area occupied by the driver and passengers." Subd. 6(a) exempts passengers in a bus operated by a motor carrier of passengers, a commercial pedal vehicle with five or more passengers, and a limousine. 96 97## Effect on the driver's license 98 99License revocation is a separate consequence from the criminal penalty, and it can start before any conviction. Under the statutes it is imposed by "the commissioner". 100 101Under § 169A.52, subd. 3, a test refusal leads to revocation, and under subd. 4 a test failure (an alcohol concentration of 0.08 or more, or the presence of a Schedule I or II controlled substance or its metabolite other than marijuana or tetrahydrocannabinols) leads to revocation, "as provided in section 171.178". The minimum periods in § 171.178 are: 102 103- **Test refusal** (subd. 3): "not less than one year" if the person has no qualified prior impaired driving incidents within the past 20 years. With one or more such incidents within the past 20 years, revocation lasts "until the commissioner determines that the person used an ignition interlock device in compliance with section 171.306 for the period of time described in subdivision 8". 104- **Test failure** (subd. 4), with no qualified prior incidents within 20 years: "not less than 90 days"; "not less than 180 days if the person is under 21 years of age and the test results indicate an alcohol concentration of less than twice the legal limit"; and "not less than one year if the test results indicate an alcohol concentration of twice the legal limit or more". With one or more prior incidents within 20 years, revocation lasts until the ignition interlock requirement is met. 105- **DWI conviction** (subd. 5), with no qualified prior incidents within 20 years, the periods are: 106 - "not less than 30 days" for a conviction under § 169A.20, subd. 1; 107 - "not less than 90 days" for a test refusal conviction under subd. 2; 108 - "not less than 180 days if the person is under 21 years of age and the test results indicate an alcohol concentration of less than twice the legal limit"; and 109 - "not less than one year if the test results indicate an alcohol concentration of twice the legal limit or more". 110 111 With one qualified prior incident within 20 years, or two or more, revocation lasts "until the commissioner determines that the person used an ignition interlock device in compliance with section 171.306". Subd. 5(b) adds time when someone was hurt: "Whenever department records show that the violation involved personal injury or death to any person, at least 90 additional days must be added to the base periods provided in paragraph (a), clause (1), items (i) to (iv)." My reading is that a first-time driver convicted of DWI who injured someone faces at least 30 days plus 90 additional days, and more if under 21 or at twice the legal limit. 112- **Criminal vehicular operation or homicide conviction** (subd. 6): for the versions of those crimes that involve impairment (clauses (2) to (6)), revocation is "until the commissioner determines that the person used an ignition interlock device in compliance with section 171.306". Those crimes are covered in the reckless driving document. 113 114For a commercial motor vehicle, § 169A.52 provides for disqualification from operating one under § 171.165, including for a test result of 0.04 or more. 115 116## Leading cases: what counts as "physical control" 117 118The statute reaches a person who is "in physical control" of a vehicle, not only a person who is driving. The statute does not define the phrase, and the Minnesota Supreme Court has read it broadly. 119 120**State, Department of Public Safety v. Juncewski, 308 N.W.2d 316 (Minn. 1981).** Police found David Juncewski inside a pickup truck parked on the side of a county road, seated behind and leaning against the steering wheel. The county court decided the state had not proved he was in physical control. The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed, reasoning that "Because Minnesota laws designed to prevent driving while intoxicated are to be broadly construed in the public's favor", Juncewski exercised the necessary control to have violated § 169.121. The opinion identified as an issue "Whether having the engine running is an essential element of the offense". Holding: a person can be in physical control of a vehicle without driving it, and a running engine is not required. 121 122**Kozak v. Commissioner of Public Safety, 359 N.W.2d 625 (Minn. App. 1984).** A deputy found Joseph Kozak asleep in the driver's seat of a car parked on the highway shoulder. The Court of Appeals affirmed the finding that he was in physical control while under the influence. It observed: "The legislature has not defined the "physical control" element of § 169.121." It also noted that in 1978 the legislature deleted the word "actual" from "actual physical control", that this indicated a desire that the statute be given the "broadest possible effect". Holding: an intoxicated person asleep at the wheel of a parked car can be in physical control, in a license revocation proceeding. 123 124**State v. Starfield, 481 N.W.2d 834 (Minn. 1992).** Deputies found Starfield in a car with the keys not in the ignition; keys were later found in her coat pocket at the jail. The court of appeals had vacated her physical control conviction because the jury was not instructed about whether the vehicle was operable. The Supreme Court reinstated the conviction: "Other courts have held, and we agree, that the state does not need to prove operability of the motor vehicle." It added that "There may be circumstances where operability of a vehicle is relevant on the issue of whether a person has physical control of a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol", but no supplementary instruction had been requested. Holding: the state does not have to prove the vehicle could be driven. 125 126## Leading cases: stops and roadside investigation 127 128A DWI case often begins with a traffic stop, and a stop needs a lawful basis. The Fourth Amendment cases on traffic stops generally are in the speeding document. These cases arose from impaired driving investigations. 129 130**Marben v. State, Department of Public Safety, 294 N.W.2d 697 (Minn. 1980).** A trooper stopped Marben, had him do roadside coordination tests, concluded he was under the influence, arrested him, and read the implied consent advisory. The Supreme Court affirmed the revocation for refusing testing and concluded that "Marben was properly arrested", so the implied consent law was validly invoked. It is an early statement that a valid arrest for DWI is the gateway to the implied consent process. 131 132**State v. Anderson, 683 N.W.2d 818 (Minn. 2004).** An officer stopped Matthew Anderson for violating the move-over law, Minn. Stat. § 169.18, subd. 11, but Anderson argued that he had in fact moved a lane away from the stopped emergency vehicle. The district court suppressed the impaired driving evidence because it concluded that Anderson was not actually violating the statute, and the court of appeals reversed, holding that an officer's reasonable interpretation of a statute, even if wrong, may support a stop. The Supreme Court framed the second question as whether "the officer's mistaken belief about the correct interpretation of a traffic law" could form the required objective basis for suspecting criminal activity. It reversed the court of appeals and reinstated the district court's decision, so the suppression order stood. The United States Supreme Court later took a different view under the Fourth Amendment in Heien v. North Carolina (2014): a reasonable mistake of law can justify a stop. See the speeding document for Heien. 133 134**State v. Burbach, 706 N.W.2d 484 (Minn. 2005).** Peggy Burbach was stopped for speeding, and the officer asked to search the vehicle after detecting the odor of alcohol. The Supreme Court held, under Article I, Section 10 of the Minnesota Constitution, that "an officer's detection of the odor of alcohol coming from an adult passenger during a traffic stop does not, by itself, provide a reasonable, articulable suspicion of an open-container violation sufficient to permit an officer to expand the traffic stop by requesting to search the vehicle." Holding: the smell of alcohol on a passenger alone does not justify expanding a traffic stop into a request to search for open bottles. 135 136**State v. Lopez, 698 N.W.2d 18 (Minn. App. 2005).** After a report of "something weird going down with a car in the parking lot", an officer approached Christine Lopez's vehicle with her emergency lights on and partially blocked it. The Court of Appeals held the officer's actions "created a showing of authority sufficient that a reasonable person would not feel free to leave" and so were a seizure, but upheld it as "a reasonable, limited emergency check on appellant's welfare". Holding: a welfare check that amounts to a seizure can be lawful if it is a limited emergency check. 137 138**State v. Klamar, 823 N.W.2d 687 (Minn. App. 2012).** A trooper checked on a vehicle stopped on the side of an interstate in the early morning, smelled a strong odor of alcohol, and was told the driver had one drink. The trooper ordered the driver out to perform field sobriety tests. The Court of Appeals reversed the district court's dismissal, holding that "the trooper's approach to Klamar's vehicle to check on the welfare of its occupants was not a seizure" and that the later investigative seizure "was reasonable at its inception and in its scope". 139 140**Wilkes v. Commissioner of Public Safety, 777 N.W.2d 239 (Minn. App. 2010).** An officer saw a vehicle stopped in the right lane of a road around midnight. The Court of Appeals held that "appellant's driving conduct and the totality of the circumstances support a reasonable, articulable suspicion of criminal activity", and affirmed the license revocation. 141 142**Magnuson v. Commissioner of Public Safety, 703 N.W.2d 557 (Minn. App. 2005).** The Court of Appeals held that a stop based on a tip from an identified informant was lawful because "the police had reason to believe that the informant's tip was based on personal observation". It also held that the implied consent advisory did not violate due process because it did not warn that an alcohol concentration of .20 or more is an aggravating factor, since "due process does not require that the implied-consent advisory warn a driver of every possible consequence". 143 144**Navarette v. California (U.S. 2014).** The United States Supreme Court held that a traffic stop "complied with the Fourth Amendment because, under the totality of the circumstances, the officer had reasonable suspicion that the truck's driver was intoxicated", based on a 911 call reporting that the truck had run the caller off the road. 145 146**Michigan Department of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444 (1990).** The Supreme Court considered "whether a State's use of highway sobriety checkpoints violates the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments" and held: "We hold that it does not." 147 148## Leading cases: the implied consent advisory and the right to counsel 149 150**Friedman v. Commissioner of Public Safety, 473 N.W.2d 828 (Minn. 1991).** Joy Friedman's license was revoked for refusing an implied consent breath test after she was denied a chance to consult a lawyer. The Supreme Court reversed. It held under article I, section 6 of the Minnesota Constitution that "the right to counsel attaches at the chemical testing stage." The right is limited: "The right to counsel will be considered vindicated if the person is provided with a telephone prior to testing and given a reasonable time to contact and talk with counsel." and "If counsel cannot be contacted within a reasonable time, the person may be required to make a decision regarding testing in the absence of counsel." Holding: a driver asked to submit to a chemical test has a limited right to consult a lawyer first. 151 152**State v. Melde, 725 N.W.2d 99 (Minn. 2006).** Two drivers argued that the advisory did not adequately warn them of the consequences of refusing. The Supreme Court held that the advisory "violates neither federal nor state procedural due process guarantees". It relied on South Dakota v. Neville: "This warning makes it clear that a test-refusal is not a "safe harbor."" and noted that "Minnesota drivers have a limited right to counsel before testing." 153 154**State v. Hunn, 911 N.W.2d 816 (Minn. 2018).** Scott Hunn was asked at the jail whether he would consent to urine testing, without the deputy first reading the implied consent advisory. The Supreme Court held that "the limited right to counsel recognized by Friedman is triggered only when the implied-consent advisory is read." Holding: if the officer does not invoke the implied consent law, the Friedman right does not arise. 155 156**State v. Rosenbush, 931 N.W.2d 91 (Minn. 2019).** An officer obtained a search warrant for Jennifer Rosenbush's blood and read her the newer advisory for blood and urine tests, which says only that refusal is a crime. The Supreme Court held that "the limited right to counsel established in Friedman does not apply when an individual is asked to submit to a blood test pursuant to a warrant". 157 158**Mell v. Commissioner of Public Safety, 757 N.W.2d 702 (Minn. App. 2008).** The Court of Appeals held that a preliminary breath test given by a county jail as part of the routine booking process was permissible, and that the driver's right to counsel was not violated when he had two minutes to use the telephone and telephone book before the deputy required the test. 159 160**State v. Larivee, 656 N.W.2d 226 (Minn. 2003).** The district court had ruled that a driver denied access to an independent blood-alcohol test suffered a due process violation. The Supreme Court held that when a person charged with a related driving offense is in custody, "the person must submit to the state's test as a condition precedent to the right to an independent test." Larivee had refused to let the officer direct the state's test, so the statute gave him no right to an additional test, and the Court affirmed the court of appeals on that statutory question. 161 162**State v. Koppi, 798 N.W.2d 358 (Minn. 2011).** John Koppi was convicted of second-degree test refusal. The Supreme Court reversed and ordered a new trial because "the district court's instruction to the jury included an incorrect, purely subjective definition of probable cause and the instructional error was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt". Holding: the jury must be given an objective standard of probable cause for the officer's request for a test. 163 164## Leading cases: testing and the Fourth Amendment 165 166This is the area where the law has changed most. The United States Supreme Court's decisions changed what Minnesota could do, and the Minnesota Supreme Court responded. 167 168**Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757 (1966).** A driver was hospitalized after a crash and police had a doctor draw his blood over his objection. The Court held that the privilege against self-incrimination "protects an accused only from being compelled to testify against himself, or otherwise provide the State with evidence of a testimonial or communicative nature", so the blood test did not violate it. On the Fourth Amendment, "Given these special facts, we conclude that the attempt to secure evidence of blood-alcohol content in this case was an appropriate incident to petitioner's arrest." 169 170**South Dakota v. Neville, 459 U.S. 553 (1983).** The Court held: "a refusal to take a blood-alcohol test, after a police officer has lawfully requested it, is not an act coerced by the officer, and thus is not protected by the privilege against self-incrimination." It also held that the warning that a driver could lose the license "made it clear that refusing the test was not a 'safe harbor,' free of adverse consequences." 171 172**State v. Shriner, 751 N.W.2d 538 (Minn. 2008).** After Janet Shriner caused a car accident, police took her blood without a warrant. The Minnesota Supreme Court held that "The rapid, natural dissipation of alcohol in the blood creates single-factor exigent circumstances that will justify the police taking a warrantless, nonconsensual blood draw from a defendant, provided that the police have probable cause to believe that defendant committed criminal vehicular operation." This single-factor rule was later rejected by the United States Supreme Court in Missouri v. McNeely. 173 174**State v. Netland, 762 N.W.2d 202 (Minn. 2009).** Jakklyn Netland argued that the criminal test refusal statute was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court held that "Netland's right to due process was not violated and that the criminal test-refusal statute did not result in an unconstitutional search". The reasoning relied on the exigency of vanishing alcohol evidence, which McNeely later undercut. 175 176**Missouri v. McNeely, 569 U.S. 141 (2013).** The Court held "that in drunk-driving investigations, the natural dissipation of alcohol in the bloodstream does not constitute an exigency in every case sufficient to justify conducting a blood test without a warrant." Whether an exigency exists depends on the totality of the circumstances. 177 178**State v. Brooks, 838 N.W.2d 563 (Minn. 2013).** Police took blood and urine samples from Wesley Brooks without a search warrant. The Supreme Court held that "Brooks voluntarily consented to the searches at issue in this case" under the totality of the circumstances, so no warrant was needed. It cautioned that it did not hold that Brooks consented merely because Minnesota law provides that anyone who drives in Minnesota consents to testing. 179 180**Birchfield v. North Dakota (U.S. 2016).** The Court held: "The Fourth Amendment permits warrantless breath tests incident to arrests for drunk driving but not warrantless blood tests." The reasoning weighed the intrusion of each kind of test against the government's need. 181 182**State v. Bernard, 859 N.W.2d 762 (Minn. 2015).** William Bernard was charged with test refusal after refusing a breath test following a valid DWI arrest. The Supreme Court held that "a warrantless breath test of Bernard would have been constitutional under the search-incident-to-arrest exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement", and therefore that "the test refusal statute is a reasonable means to a permissive object and that it passes rational basis review". This result is consistent with Birchfield for breath tests. 183 184**State v. Lindquist, 869 N.W.2d 863 (Minn. 2015).** Bonnie Lindquist's blood was drawn without a warrant before McNeely. The Supreme Court held that McNeely applied to her case on direct review, but that her test results did not need to be suppressed because the officer who facilitated the blood draw acted in objectively reasonable reliance on binding appellate precedent. This adopted the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule in Minnesota for that situation. 185 186**State v. Thompson, 886 N.W.2d 224 (Minn. 2016).** Ryan Thompson refused warrantless blood and urine tests after a DWI arrest and was convicted of test refusal. Applying Birchfield, the Supreme Court held: "a warrantless urine test does not qualify as a search incident to a valid arrest of a suspected drunk driver", and that Thompson "cannot be prosecuted for refusing to submit to an unconstitutional warrantless blood or urine test". The test refusal statute was unconstitutional as applied to him. A blood or urine test can still be required with a search warrant, and refusing a warranted test remains a crime under § 169A.20, subd. 2(2). 187 188**Mitchell v. Wisconsin (U.S. 2019).** For a driver who is unconscious and cannot be given a breath test, a plurality of the Court concluded that "the exigent-circumstances doctrine generally permits a blood test without a warrant." 189 190## How the case law fits together (my summary) 191 192- A driver can be guilty by being in physical control of a vehicle without driving it. A running engine and an operable vehicle are not required (Juncewski, Starfield, Kozak). 193- An officer needs a lawful reason to stop or seize a driver. The rules on reasonable suspicion are in the speeding document. In DWI investigations the courts have upheld stops based on driving conduct, a reliable tip, or a limited welfare check, and have refused to let the smell of alcohol on a passenger justify a search for open bottles. 194- Minnesota drivers have a limited right to consult a lawyer before deciding whether to take a test under the implied consent advisory (Friedman), but only when the advisory is read and not when a warrant has been obtained (Hunn, Rosenbush). 195- A breath test after a valid arrest for DWI can be required without a warrant, and refusing it can be charged as a crime (Birchfield, Bernard). Blood and urine tests generally need consent or a warrant, and a driver cannot be prosecuted for refusing a warrantless blood or urine test (Thompson). Alcohol dissipating in the blood is not by itself an emergency that removes the need for a warrant (McNeely). 196 197## What this document does not cover 198 199- Ignition interlock program details, limited licenses, and how to reinstate a license. 200- Underage drinking and driving rules beyond the summary above, boating and snowmobile rules beyond the mention of motorboats above, and detailed rules for commercial drivers. 201- Field sobriety test procedure, court procedure and plea negotiations. 202- Criminal vehicular operation or homicide, which are in the car accidents document and the reckless driving document. 203- Court decisions not listed above. The list is a selection of leading decisions, not a complete one.
Reckless and careless driving (reckless-driving.md)
MARKDOWN
1# Minnesota reckless and careless driving 2 3This document is general legal information about Minnesota's reckless driving and careless driving laws. It is not legal advice, and it does not cover every situation. 4 5## Sources and currency 6 7- Minn. Stat. § 169.13 (reckless or careless driving), last amended by 2019 c 10 s 1 and 2. Also §§ 609.02 and 609.03 (definitions of misdemeanor, gross misdemeanor and great bodily harm, and their general maximum sentences), and § 169.89, subd. 1 (penalties for traffic violations). 8- Text taken from the 2025 Minnesota Statutes, as published by the Office of the Revisor of Statutes at https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/ and read on 2026-09-20. Laws passed in the 2026 legislative session may not be reflected. 9- Minn. Stat. §§ 609.2112, 609.2113 and 609.2114 (criminal vehicular homicide and operation), read from the 2025 statutes. 10- Court decisions: Minnesota Supreme Court and Court of Appeals opinions, read in the Harvard Caselaw Access Project (https://case.law/). Every passage placed in quotation marks in the case sections below was checked against the opinion text. The summaries of holdings are my own reading and are short. Older opinions apply older versions of the statutes, including the earlier numbering and wording of § 169.13 and § 609.21. 11- Minnesota House Research Department, "Distracted Driving: Cell Phone Use While Driving", October 2019, https://www.house.mn.gov/hrd/pubs/ss/ssdistdrvg.pdf, for how distracted driving can lead to these charges. 12 13## Reckless driving 14 15Section 169.13, subd. 1(a): "A person who drives a motor vehicle or light rail transit vehicle while aware of and consciously disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the driving may result in harm to another or another's property is guilty of reckless driving. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that disregard of it constitutes a significant deviation from the standard of conduct that a reasonable person would observe in the situation." 16 17Two things are needed: the driver is aware of the risk and consciously disregards it, and the risk is a significant deviation from what a reasonable person would do. 18 19**Racing** is reckless driving. Subd. 1(b): "A person shall not race any vehicle upon any street or highway of this state. Any person who willfully compares or contests relative speeds by operating one or more vehicles is guilty of racing, which constitutes reckless driving, whether or not the speed contested or compared is in excess of the maximum speed prescribed by law." 20 21## How serious reckless driving is 22 23Subd. 1(c): "A person who violates paragraph (a) or (b) is guilty of a misdemeanor. A person who violates paragraph (a) or (b) and causes great bodily harm or death to another is guilty of a gross misdemeanor." 24 25"Great bodily harm" has the meaning in § 609.02, subd. 8: "bodily injury which creates a high probability of death, or which causes serious permanent disfigurement, or which causes a permanent or protracted loss or impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ or other serious bodily harm." 26 27## Careless driving 28 29Subd. 2(a): "Any person who operates or halts any vehicle upon any street or highway carelessly or heedlessly in disregard of the rights of others, or in a manner that endangers or is likely to endanger any property or any person, including the driver or passengers of the vehicle, is guilty of a misdemeanor." 30 31Careless driving does not require that the driver was aware of the risk. It is a lesser standard than reckless driving, and it is also a misdemeanor. 32 33## Sentences 34 35- **Misdemeanor.** "a sentence of not more than 90 days or a fine of not more than $1,000, or both" (§ 609.02, subd. 3). Section 609.03 sets the same limits when no other punishment is provided. 36- **Gross misdemeanor.** Section 609.03 provides "imprisonment for not more than 364 days or to payment of a fine of not more than $3,000, or both", when no other punishment is provided. 37 38The House Research summary from 2019 described a reckless driving death as punishable by "up to a year in jail, a $3,000 fine, or both". The current text of § 609.03 says 364 days for a gross misdemeanor, and this document follows the statute. 39 40## Where the section applies 41 42Subd. 3(a): the section applies, but is not limited in application, to a person who drives in the prohibited manner "(1) upon the ice of any lake, stream, or river", or "(2) in a parking lot ordinarily used by or available to the public though not as a matter of right, and a driveway connecting the parking lot with a street or highway". 43 44Subd. 3(b) says it does not apply to "(1) an authorized emergency vehicle, when responding to an emergency call or when in pursuit of an actual or suspected violator; (2) the emergency operation of any vehicle when avoiding imminent danger; or (3) any raceway, racing facility, or other public event sanctioned by the appropriate governmental authority." 45 46Subd. 3(c): "Nothing in this section or section 609.035 or 609.04 shall limit the power of the state to prosecute or punish a person for conduct that constitutes any other crime under any other law of this state." 47 48## Related rules 49 50- **Ordinary traffic violations can become misdemeanors.** Section 169.89, subd. 1, makes most violations of chapter 169 a petty misdemeanor, "except that" a violation "committed in a manner or under circumstances so as to endanger or be likely to endanger any person or property" is a misdemeanor. That is separate from the reckless and careless driving offenses in § 169.13. 51- **Distracted driving.** House Research (2019) says that if using an electronic device "results in some other dangerous driving conduct, prosecutors can charge a more serious crime", for example careless or reckless driving. It gives the example that composing or reading an electronic message while driving that endangers another person "could rise to the level of careless or reckless driving". 52 53## The 2019 change to the reckless driving standard 54 55Section 169.13 was last amended by 2019 c 10 s 1 and 2. The current text of subd. 1(a) requires that the driver be "aware of and consciously disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk". Decisions from before 2019 apply the earlier wording of the statute, and this document does not set that wording out. When a case below decided before 2019 speaks of reckless driving, it is describing the earlier standard, and the current text should be read for what applies today. 56 57## Criminal vehicular homicide and operation 58 59When careless or reckless driving causes a death or injury, the prosecutor can instead charge one of the criminal vehicular crimes. They are in §§ 609.2112 to 609.2114. 60 61**Criminal vehicular homicide, § 609.2112, subd. 1(a).** A person "may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than ten years or to payment of a fine of not more than $20,000, or both, if the person causes the death of a human being not constituting murder or manslaughter as a result of operating a motor vehicle" in any of eight ways: 62 631. "in a grossly negligent manner"; 642. "in a negligent manner while under the influence of" alcohol, a controlled substance, a cannabis-related substance, or a combination; 653. "while having an alcohol concentration of 0.08 or more"; 664. "while having an alcohol concentration of 0.08 or more, as measured within two hours of the time of driving"; 675. "in a negligent manner while under the influence of an intoxicating substance" that the person knows or has reason to know can cause impairment; 686. "in a negligent manner while any amount of a controlled substance listed in Schedule I or II, or its metabolite" is present, other than the cannabis-related substances; 697. "where the driver who causes the collision leaves the scene of the collision in violation of section 169.09, subdivision 1 or 6"; or 708. where the driver knew that a peace officer had previously issued a citation or warning that the motor vehicle was defectively maintained, knew remedial action was not taken, had reason to know the defect created a present danger to others, and the death was caused by the defective maintenance. 71 72Under subd. 1(b), for clauses 2 to 6 "occurring within ten years of a qualified prior driving offense, the statutory maximum sentence of imprisonment is 15 years." Under subd. 2 it is an affirmative defense to clause 6 that the defendant used the controlled substance according to a valid prescription. 73 74**Criminal vehicular operation, § 609.2113.** The same eight ways apply, with the maximum depending on the harm caused: 75 76- Great bodily harm (subd. 1): "not more than five years" or a fine of not more than $10,000, or both. 77- Substantial bodily harm (subd. 2): "not more than three years" or a fine of not more than $10,000, or both. 78- Bodily harm (subd. 3): "not more than 364 days" or a fine of not more than $3,000, or both. 79 80**Unborn child, § 609.2114.** Subd. 1(a) makes it a crime to cause the death of an unborn child as a result of operating a motor vehicle in the same listed ways, with up to ten years or a fine of not more than $20,000, or both. Subd. 2 covers causing great bodily harm to an unborn child subsequently born alive, with up to five years or a fine of not more than $10,000, or both. 81 82A driver who causes a death by grossly negligent driving is therefore facing a felony, not the misdemeanor of careless driving or the misdemeanor or gross misdemeanor of reckless driving. The difference between the levels of fault is the subject of the cases below. 83 84## Leading cases: what reckless, careless and grossly negligent driving mean 85 86**State v. Bolsinger, 221 Minn. 154, 21 N.W.2d 480 (1946), as explained in State v. Meany, 262 Minn. 491 (1962).** Bolsinger reviewed the meaning of the terms reckless and grossly negligent in the former criminal negligence statute for vehicles. The Bolsinger decision is known here only through Meany's description of it. Meany said: "In the Bolsinger case we held that" reckless "means in such a manner as to indicate either a willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property". In Meany, the Minnesota Supreme Court restated the two standards. For reckless driving: "in order to constitute the crime in question by reckless driving, the accused must have known, or should have known, that his manner of driving the vehicle created an unreasonable risk of harm, but he need not have intended to cause harm." For gross negligence: "Briefly stated, we concluded that ‘grossly negligent,’ as used in our criminal negligence statute, means with very great negligence or without even scant care but not with such reckless disregard of probable consequences as is equivalent to a willful and intentional wrong." Meany added: "Proof of either reckless driving or grossly negligent driving will sustain a conviction under this statute." The defendant in Meany struck and killed a young girl walking on or beside a Bloomington street. Holding: gross negligence is a very high degree of carelessness, and it stops short of an intentional wrong. 87 88**State v. White, 292 N.W.2d 16 (Minn. 1980).** Police officers saw White spin his pickup truck numerous times in a short period on a slippery downtown street early one morning and then park it in a traffic lane with the engine running. He was found guilty of reckless driving and disorderly conduct and not guilty of driving under the influence and simple assault. The Minnesota Supreme Court held: "We hold that this evidence was sufficient to support the guilty verdicts." It said the evidence "showed that he drove recklessly in such a manner as to indicate either a willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property." Holding: reckless driving can be proved by conduct such as repeated spinning on a slippery street even though no crash occurred, and the wording is the pre-2019 standard. 89 90**State v. Kissner, 541 N.W.2d 317 (Minn. App. 1995).** Jeffrey Kissner began to pass another vehicle in his passing lane when a northbound Chevrolet occupied that lane, and the collision happened. It was near a no-passing zone: the court noted that "A no-passing zone began approximately 325 feet south of the spot where the Chevrolet and appellant's Ford had come to rest", and a state trooper estimated that "approximately three to four seconds separated the Ford from the start of the no-passing zone". The Court of Appeals affirmed his convictions for criminal vehicular homicide and criminal vehicular operation causing substantial bodily harm. It said: "Applying the appropriate standard of review, we conclude that a jury could have reasonably found each element of the charged offenses, including the element of gross negligence required to prove criminal vehicular homicide and criminal vehicular operation causing substantial bodily harm." It also observed that the case "is lacking in a single dramatic piece of evidence, such as driving while intoxicated." Holding: a dangerous passing maneuver, without alcohol, can support a finding of gross negligence. 91 92**State v. Rasinski, 472 N.W.2d 645 (Minn. 1991).** Gerald Rasinski was convicted of four felony counts of criminal vehicular operation resulting in death, two gross misdemeanor counts of DWI, and one misdemeanor count of careless driving after a July 4, 1989 collision in which two 19-year-old men were killed. The Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed the convictions and held that "the findings of the trial court adequately support the departure from the sentencing guidelines." On a lack of insurance, it agreed with the trial court that it shows "callousness towards other motorists, or at the very best, ... inadvertence toward the duty he owes to other motorists", and is a valid consideration of the seriousness of the charged offense". It reversed the order denying execution of the sentence and remanded. 93 94**State v. Al-Naseer, 690 N.W.2d 744 (Minn. 2005).** Mohammed Al-Naseer's car struck and killed a man changing a flat tire on the side of Highway 10. He was convicted of two counts of criminal vehicular homicide, one for gross negligence and one for leaving the scene. The Minnesota Supreme Court held that the erroneous admission of a videotaped police interview was not harmless: "we conclude that the guilty verdict was not ‘surely unattributable’ to the erroneous admission of the videotaped interview and hold that the error was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt." It also held the jury should have been instructed on the lesser-included offense of careless driving: "Both Al-Naseer and the state agree, as do we, that careless driving is a lesser-included offense with respect to criminal vehicular homicide — gross negligence." The failure to give the instruction meant the jury "was not in a position to weigh whether Al-Naseer's conduct constituted gross negligence or ordinary negligence. This was error." Finally, it held: "while the accident victim's death is a necessary element to be proved in order to establish criminal vehicular homicide, it is not an element that must be proved to establish gross negligence." Holding: the level of fault is judged by the driving conduct and not by how bad the result was, and a jury may have to be offered careless driving as the lesser charge. 95 96**State v. Al-Naseer, 734 N.W.2d 679 (Minn. 2007).** On the leaving-the-scene theory, the Supreme Court held that the state must prove "that Al-Naseer had knowledge that he had been involved in the type of accident that would impose a duty to stop, an accident with a person or another vehicle." It affirmed the reversal of the conviction and remanded for reconsideration of the verdict under this mens rea standard. The court agreed "that both section 169.09, subdivisions 1 and 6, and section 609.21, subdivision 1(7), require some level of knowledge and are not strict liability statutes." Holding: leaving the scene is not a strict liability crime, and the driver must know they were in an accident with a person or vehicle. 97 98**State v. Stavish, 868 N.W.2d 670 (Minn. 2015).** Derek Stavish was charged with three counts of criminal vehicular operation resulting in death, two counts of fourth-degree DWI, reckless driving and careless driving after a single-vehicle rollover crash that killed Brent Lehnen. The district court suppressed the results of a warrantless blood draw. The Supreme Court held: "We conclude that the State established under the totality-of-the-circumstances approach that exigent circumstances justified the warrantless blood draw." It affirmed the court of appeals, which had reversed the suppression. This case is discussed with the DWI blood-testing cases and shows how those rules apply in a fatal crash prosecution that includes reckless and careless driving counts. 99 100**State v. Pflepsen, 590 N.W.2d 759 (Minn. 1999).** Richard Pflepsen was sentenced for criminal vehicular operation, careless driving and inattentive driving arising from one collision. The Supreme Court decided procedural questions about how the district court should have sentenced him and resentenced him on the lesser-included misdemeanor convictions, and concluded: "We reverse the court of appeals, vacate the district court's sentencing orders, and remand for adjudication of conviction and resentencing." It shows that careless and inattentive driving can be charged alongside a felony from the same crash. 101 102**State v. Engle, 743 N.W.2d 592 (Minn. 2008).** This case concerns recklessly discharging a firearm, not driving, but shows how the Minnesota Supreme Court reads reckless in a criminal statute. It held that the offense "requires proof of a conscious or intentional act, in connection with the discharge of a firearm, that creates a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the actor is aware of and disregards." Similar language now appears in the reckless driving statute after the 2019 amendment. 103 104## How the levels of fault fit together (my summary) 105 106| Level | Statute | Fault standard | Class | 107|---|---|---|---| 108| Careless driving | § 169.13, subd. 2(a) | "carelessly or heedlessly in disregard of the rights of others", or in a way that endangers | Misdemeanor | 109| Reckless driving | § 169.13, subd. 1 | aware of and consciously disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk | Misdemeanor; gross misdemeanor if great bodily harm or death results | 110| Criminal vehicular operation or homicide by gross negligence | §§ 609.2112 to 609.2114 | "grossly negligent manner": very great negligence, without even scant care, not a willful wrong (Meany) | Felony or gross misdemeanor by injury level | 111| Criminal vehicular operation or homicide while impaired | §§ 609.2112 to 609.2114 | negligent driving while under the influence, or alcohol concentration of 0.08 or more, or a listed drug in the body | Felony or gross misdemeanor by injury level | 112 113Cases show that gross negligence is judged by the driving and not by the result (Al-Naseer 2005), that a jury may need to be offered careless driving as a lesser choice, that dangerous passing can be enough (Kissner), and that leaving the scene requires knowledge of the accident (Al-Naseer 2007). 114 115## What this document does not cover 116 117- Sentencing details, including how guideline sentences are calculated. 118- How a prosecutor chooses between careless driving, reckless driving and other charges, and defenses. 119- License consequences of a conviction, and court procedure. 120- Court decisions not listed above. The list is a selection of leading decisions, not a complete one.
Lemon law and car sales (lemon-law.md)
MARKDOWN
1# Minnesota lemon law and car sale refunds 2 3This document is general legal information about Minnesota law on defective cars, warranties, refunds and misrepresentation in car sales, and the leading court decisions that apply it. It is not legal advice, and it does not cover every situation. 4 5## Sources and currency 6 7- Minn. Stat. § 325F.665 (new motor vehicle warranties; manufacturer's duty to repair, refund or replace, commonly called the lemon law), § 325F.662 (sale of used motor vehicles), § 325F.6655 (extension of warranty), § 325F.664 (new motor vehicle damage disclosures), § 325F.6641 (disclosure of vehicle damage), § 325F.6642 (title branding), § 325F.666 (unlawful reassignment of certain motor vehicle contracts), § 325F.69, subd. 1 (fraud and misrepresentation), § 8.31, subd. 3a (private remedies), and § 325G.19 (express warranties). 8- Uniform Commercial Code sales sections in Minn. Stat. chapter 336: §§ 336.2-313 (express warranties), 336.2-314 (implied warranty of merchantability), 336.2-316 (exclusion or modification of warranties), 336.2-608 (revocation of acceptance), 336.2-714 and 336.2-715 (buyer's damages). 9- Text taken from the 2025 Minnesota Statutes, as published by the Office of the Revisor of Statutes at https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/ and read on 2026-09-20. Laws passed in the 2026 legislative session may not be reflected. 10- Court decisions: Minnesota Supreme Court and Court of Appeals opinions, read in the Harvard Caselaw Access Project (https://case.law/). Every passage placed in quotation marks in the case sections below was checked against the opinion text. The summaries of holdings are my own reading and are short. Older opinions apply earlier versions of these statutes, so section numbers and subdivisions in them may differ from the current text. 11- Where a sentence below is my reading of how sections fit together, or my own arithmetic, and not a quotation, it says so. 12 13## Three different sets of rules 14 15Which rules apply depends on who sold the vehicle and whether it was new or used. 16 171. **New vehicles: the manufacturer lemon law, § 325F.665.** It puts the duty to repair, and then to refund or replace, on the manufacturer. 182. **Used vehicles sold by a dealer: the used vehicle warranty, § 325F.662.** It puts a written warranty duty on the dealer, and the dealer may repair, replace or refund. 193. **Any car sale: general warranty, fraud and disclosure law.** This includes the Uniform Commercial Code, the consumer fraud statutes, and the damage and title disclosure statutes. These apply alongside the two special statutes. Sections 325F.665, subd. 11, and 325F.662, subd. 11, both say the remedy is nonexclusive: "Nothing in this section limits the rights or remedies which are otherwise available to a consumer under any other law." 20 21## New vehicles: the lemon law (§ 325F.665) 22 23### Who and what is covered 24 25- **Consumer** (subd. 1(b)): "the purchaser or lessee, other than for purposes of resale or sublease, of a new motor vehicle used for personal, family, or household purposes at least 40 percent of the time, and a person to whom the new motor vehicle is transferred for the same purposes during the duration of an express warranty applicable to the motor vehicle." 26- **Motor vehicle** (subd. 1(f)): "a passenger automobile as defined in section 168.002, subdivision 24, including pickup trucks and vans", the self-propelled chassis or van portion of a recreational vehicle sold or leased to a consumer in this state, and the chassis or van portion of an ambulance. 27- **Manufacturer** (subd. 1(c)): a person engaged in the business of manufacturing, assembling or distributing motor vehicles who will "manufacture, assemble or distribute to dealers at least ten new motor vehicles" during the year under normal conditions. 28- **Lease** (subd. 1(e)): a contract for the use of personal property by a natural person for a period "exceeding four months", used for personal, family or household purposes at least 40 percent of the time. 29 30### The duty to repair (subd. 2) 31 32If a new vehicle "does not conform to all applicable express warranties, and the consumer reports the nonconformity to the manufacturer, its agent, or its authorized dealer during the term of the applicable express warranties or during the period of two years following the date of original delivery", whichever is earlier, the manufacturer, its agent or its dealer "shall make the repairs necessary to conform the vehicle to the applicable express warranties", even if the repairs are made after the warranty or two-year period ends. 33 34### The duty to refund or replace (subd. 3) 35 36Subd. 3(a): if the manufacturer, its agents or its dealers "are unable to conform the new motor vehicle to any applicable express warranty by repairing or correcting any defect or condition which substantially impairs the use or market value of the motor vehicle to the consumer after a reasonable number of attempts", the manufacturer "shall either replace the new motor vehicle with a comparable motor vehicle or accept return of the vehicle from the consumer and refund to the consumer the full purchase price". 37 38The refund includes: 39 40- the full purchase price, "including the cost of any options or other modifications arranged, installed, or made by the manufacturer, its agent, or its authorized dealer within 30 days after the date of original delivery"; 41- "all other charges including, but not limited to, sales or excise tax, license fees and registration fees, reimbursement for towing and rental vehicle expenses incurred by the consumer as a result of the vehicle being out of service for warranty repair"; and 42- less "a reasonable allowance for the consumer's use of the vehicle not exceeding ten cents per mile driven or ten percent of the purchase price, whichever is less". 43 44If the manufacturer offers a replacement, "the consumer has the option of rejecting the replacement vehicle and requiring the manufacturer to provide a refund." Refunds "must be made to the consumer, and lienholder, if any, as their interests appear on the records of the registrar of motor vehicles." Under subd. 3(h) the sales or excise tax refunded is the tax paid less the tax multiplied by a fraction in which the numerator is the use allowance deducted and the denominator is the purchase price. 45 46**Worked example (my own arithmetic, with made-up numbers, not from any source).** A consumer bought a new car for $30,000 and drove it 8,000 miles before returning it. Ten cents per mile is $800, and ten percent of the price is $3,000. The lesser figure is $800, so the maximum use allowance is $800. The refund would start from $30,000 plus the other listed charges, less $800. 47 48### What counts as a reasonable number of attempts (subd. 3(b) to (f)) 49 50Subd. 3(b): "It is presumed that a reasonable number of attempts have been undertaken to conform a new motor vehicle to the applicable express warranties, if": 51 521. "the same nonconformity has been subject to repair four or more times by the manufacturer, its agents, or its authorized dealers within the applicable express warranty term or during the period of two years following the date of original delivery of the new motor vehicle to a consumer, whichever is the earlier date, but the nonconformity continues to exist"; or 532. "the vehicle is out of service by reason of repair for a cumulative total of 30 or more business days during the term or during the period, whichever is the earlier date." 54 55Other rules: 56 57- **Brakes and steering** (subd. 3(c)): if the nonconformity "results in a complete failure of the braking or steering system" and "is likely to cause death or serious bodily injury if the vehicle is driven", the presumption applies if the nonconformity has been subject to repair "at least once" and continues to exist. 58- **Written notice** (subd. 3(e)): the four-repairs or 30-days presumption applies against a manufacturer "only if the manufacturer, its agent, or its authorized dealer has received prior written notification from or on behalf of the consumer at least once and an opportunity to cure the defect alleged." A dealer that receives the notice "must forward it to the manufacturer by certified mail, return receipt requested." 59- **Three years** (subd. 3(f)): expiry of the periods in paragraph (b) "does not bar a consumer from receiving a refund or replacement vehicle" if the reasonable number of attempts "occur within three years following the date of original delivery", provided the consumer first reported the nonconformity during the term of the express warranty. 60- **Extensions** (subd. 3(d) and § 325F.6655): the warranty term and the time periods are extended by any period during which repair services are not available because of a war, invasion, strike, or fire, flood or other natural disaster. 61- **Notice given to the buyer** (subd. 3(g)): at the time of purchase or lease the manufacturer must give the consumer a separate written statement in ten-point capital type saying that if the vehicle is defective the consumer may be entitled under the lemon law to replacement or a refund, that the consumer must first notify the manufacturer, its agent or its dealer of the problem in writing and give them an opportunity to repair it, and that the consumer has a right to submit the case to the consumer arbitration program the manufacturer must offer in Minnesota. 62 63### Leased vehicles (subd. 4) 64 65A consumer who leases a new vehicle has the same rights, except that a lessee "is not entitled to a replacement vehicle, but is entitled only to a refund". The manufacturer refunds the lessee "the amount actually paid by the consumer on the written lease", including the additional charges, less the use allowance, and refunds the lessor the vehicle's original purchase price plus early termination costs "not to exceed 15 percent of the vehicle's original purchase price", less the amount the lessee actually paid. 66 67### Returned vehicles (subd. 5 and subd. 14) 68 69A vehicle returned under the lemon law may not be resold or re-leased in Minnesota unless the manufacturer provides the same express warranty, though it "need only last for 12,000 miles or 12 months after the date of resale, whichever is earlier", and gives the buyer a separate capital-letter statement that the vehicle was returned because it did not conform to the manufacturer's express warranty. A vehicle returned because of a complete failure of the braking or steering system likely to cause death or serious bodily injury "may not be resold in this state." Under subd. 14 the registrar records the term "lemon law vehicle" on the certificate of title and all later titles. 70 71### The manufacturer's arbitration program (subds. 6 to 8) 72 73Subd. 6(a): a manufacturer doing business in the state "shall operate, or participate in, an informal dispute settlement mechanism located in the state of Minnesota". Importantly, "The provisions of subdivision 3 concerning refunds or replacement do not apply to a consumer who has not first used this mechanism before commencing a civil action, unless the manufacturer allows a consumer to commence an action without first using this mechanism." 74 75Other features of the program: 76 77- The consumer may be charged a fee, but it "may not exceed the conciliation court filing fee in the county where the arbitration is conducted" (subd. 6(i)). 78- Any party may be represented by an attorney (subd. 6(j)). 79- The consumer must be given an adequate opportunity to have a technical expert selected and paid for by the consumer contest the manufacturer's claim that a problem falls within intended specifications (subd. 6(f)). 80- The decision "is nonbinding on the parties involved, unless otherwise agreed by the parties." Any party may remove the decision to district court for a trial de novo, and a manufacturer aggrieved by the decision must do so within 30 days after receiving it (subd. 7). A written decision is "admissible as nonbinding evidence in any subsequent legal action". 81- If a party removes a decision in bad faith, the court "shall award to the prevailing party three times the actual damages sustained, together with costs and disbursements, including reasonable attorney's fees" (subd. 8). 82 83### Suing, deadlines and the dealer's role 84 85- **Civil remedy** (subd. 9): "Any consumer injured by a violation of this section may bring a civil action to enforce this section and recover costs and disbursements, including reasonable attorney's fees incurred in the civil action." The attorney general may also act under § 8.31. 86- **Deadline** (subd. 10): a civil action "must be commenced within three years of the date of original delivery of the new motor vehicle to a consumer". If the consumer applies to the informal dispute settlement mechanism within three years of delivery and is aggrieved by the decision, the action must be commenced "within six months after the date of the final decision by the mechanism." 87- **Dealers** (subd. 13): "Nothing in this section imposes liability on a dealer or creates an additional cause of action by a consumer against a dealer, except for written express warranties made by the dealer apart from the manufacturer's warranties." The manufacturer cannot charge back to the dealer the cost of refunds or replacements unless the dealer failed to do the related repairs properly or in time. 88 89My reading: for a new vehicle, the lemon law refund claim is against the manufacturer and not the selling dealer. 90 91## Used vehicles: the dealer's warranty (§ 325F.662) 92 93### Who and what is covered 94 95- **Consumer** (subd. 1(a)): "the purchaser, other than for purposes of resale, of a used motor vehicle used primarily for personal, family, or household purposes." 96- **Dealer** (subd. 1(b)): a motor vehicle dealer or lessor, "whether licensed or unlicensed", or the dealer's agent, engaged in the business of selling or arranging the sale of used vehicles in this state. It excludes, for example, banks and licensed auctioneers whose vehicle sales are incidental. 97- **Used motor vehicle** (subd. 1(d)): a vehicle "driven more than the limited use necessary in moving or road testing a new motor vehicle prior to delivery to a consumer". A private seller is not a dealer under this section. 98 99### The required written warranty (subd. 2) 100 101Subd. 2(a): "Every used motor vehicle sold by a dealer is covered by an express warranty which the dealer shall provide to the consumer in writing." At a minimum: 102 103| Mileage at sale | Minimum warranty | 104|---|---| 105| Less than 36,000 miles | at least 60 days or 2,500 miles, whichever comes first | 106| 36,000 miles or more, but less than 75,000 miles | at least 30 days or 1,000 miles, whichever comes first | 107| 75,000 miles or more, but less than 200,000 miles (unless sold by a new motor vehicle dealer) | at least 15 days or 500 miles, whichever comes first | 108 109Subd. 2(b): the warranty must require the dealer, on a malfunction, defect or failure in a covered part, "to repair or replace the covered part, or at the dealer's election, to accept return of the used motor vehicle from the consumer and provide a refund to the consumer." My reading: the choice between repair, replacement and refund belongs to the dealer. 110 111Covered parts include the engine's lubricated parts, block and cylinder head, the transmission's case and internal parts, the drive axle, brakes (master cylinder, wheel cylinders, hydraulic lines and fittings, and disc brake calipers), the steering gear housing and internal parts, the water pump and the externally mounted mechanical fuel pump. For vehicles with less than 36,000 miles, the list also includes the radiator and the alternator, generator and starter (subd. 2(c) and (d)). 112 113The dealer's obligations continue after the warranty period ends "if the consumer promptly notified the dealer of the malfunction, defect, or failure in the covered part within the specified warranty period and, within a reasonable time after notification, brings the vehicle or arranges with the dealer to have the vehicle brought to the dealer for inspection and repair" (subd. 2(e)(1)). The warranty does not cover defects "which result from collision, abuse, negligence, or lack of adequate maintenance following sale to the consumer" (subd. 2(g)). The terms must be disclosed on the front of the Buyers Guide (subd. 2(h)). 114 115### Vehicles a dealer need not warrant (subd. 3) 116 117A dealer is not required to give the express warranty for a used vehicle, for example, that: 118 119- was sold for a total cash sale price of less than $3,000 (except a vehicle of 75,000 miles or more that falls in the third mileage tier); 120- has a diesel engine, or a gross weight of more than 9,000 pounds; 121- was custom-built or modified for show or racing; 122- is eight years of age or older, calculated from the first day in January of the model year (with the same exception); 123- has 200,000 miles or more at the time of sale; or 124- has a title bearing a "salvage" brand under § 168A.151. 125 126### Waiver and automatic warranty (subds. 4 and 5) 127 128A consumer may waive the warranty for a covered part only if the dealer discloses "in a clear and conspicuous typed or printed statement on the front of the Buyers Guide that the waived part contains a malfunction, defect, or repair problem" and the consumer circles the statement and signs the Buyers Guide next to it. Under subd. 5: "If a dealer fails to give the express warranty required by this section, the dealer nevertheless is considered to have given the express warranty as a matter of law." 129 130### The refund (subd. 8) 131 132Subd. 8(a): a refund "must consist of the full purchase price of the used motor vehicle and all other charges, including but not limited to excise tax, registration tax, license fees, and reimbursement for towing expenses incurred by the consumer as a result of the vehicle being out of service for warranty repair, less a reasonable allowance for the consumer's use of the vehicle not exceeding ten cents per mile driven or ten percent of the purchase price, whichever is less." It "must include the amount stated by the dealer as the trade-in value of any vehicle traded in and applied to the purchase price". The dealer must give an itemized statement of the amounts refunded (subd. 8(c)). 133 134### Other used-vehicle rules 135 136- **Honoring warranties** (subd. 7): the dealer must honor every express warranty, and after a covered part is repaired or replaced "remains responsible under the express warranty for that covered part for one additional warranty period". A dealer "may limit the duration of implied warranties to the duration of the express warranty." 137- **Certified vehicles** (subd. 8a): it is unlawful to advertise or sell a used vehicle as certified if, for example, the dealer knows or should know the odometer was rolled back, the vehicle was reacquired under warranty laws, the title has a lemon law buyback, salvage, flood or similar brand, the vehicle has frame damage, the dealer fails to provide a completed inspection report, the dealer disclaims the warranty of merchantability, or the vehicle is sold as is. 138- **Remedies and deadline** (subds. 9 and 10): a dealer that violates the section "is subject to the penalties and remedies, including a private right of action, as provided in section 8.31", and a violation of subd. 7 is also a violation of § 325F.69. A private civil action on a warranty claim "must be commenced within one year of the expiration of the express warranty." 139 140### How the new and used rules differ (my summary) 141 142| Question | New vehicle (§ 325F.665) | Used vehicle from a dealer (§ 325F.662) | 143|---|---|---| 144| Who owes the remedy | The manufacturer | The dealer | 145| Refund available | After a reasonable number of repair attempts; presumed after four repairs or 30 business days out of service | At the dealer's election, if the dealer chooses to accept return instead of repairing or replacing a covered part | 146| Use allowance | Up to ten cents a mile or ten percent of price, whichever is less | The same | 147| Deadline to sue | Three years from delivery (six months after arbitration) | One year after the express warranty expires | 148| Notice or arbitration first | Written notice before the presumption applies; arbitration before the refund claim if the manufacturer runs a program | Prompt notice within the warranty period | 149 150## Disclosure of damage and title history 151 152- **New vehicle damage** (§ 325F.664, subd. 2(a)): before the sale of a new vehicle a dealer "must disclose and describe to the buyer, in a clear and conspicuous written statement and orally in the course of the sales presentation, any damage to the vehicle of which the dealer had actual knowledge, if the dealer's cost of repairs exceeded four percent of the manufacturer's suggested retail price, or $500, whichever is greater." 153- **Prior damage** (§ 325F.6641, subd. 1): "If a vehicle has sustained damage by collision or other occurrence which exceeds 80 percent of its actual cash value immediately prior to sustaining damage, the seller must disclose that fact to the buyer, if the seller has actual knowledge of the damage." Under subd. 2, a licensed dealer must give a written disclosure, and orally except for online sales, of prior damage, of any title brand it actually knows of, and of flood submersion above the bottom dashboard while parked on the dealer's lot. The buyer must sign the written disclosure. 154- **Title brands** (§ 325F.6642): the registrar records brands such as "flood damaged", "salvage", "prior salvage" and "reconstructed" on the certificate of title, and "each brand designation ... must be made by the registrar of motor vehicles in a clear and conspicuous manner". 155- **Reassignment** (§ 325F.666, subd. 2): a person who is not a party to a vehicle contract, and who has not first obtained written authorization from the secured creditor, lessor or lienholder, may not, if the person receives consideration, "get control of the motor vehicle and then sell, transfer, assign, or lease it to another person", or assist in such a transfer. Under subd. 3 an injured person may recover actual damages, costs and reasonable attorney fees. 156 157## Warranty and fraud law that applies to any car sale 158 159**Express warranty** (§ 336.2-313): "Any affirmation of fact or promise made by the seller to the buyer which relates to the goods and becomes part of the basis of the bargain creates an express warranty that the goods shall conform to the affirmation or promise." But "an affirmation merely of the value of the goods or a statement purporting to be merely the seller's opinion or commendation of the goods does not create a warranty." 160 161**Implied warranty of merchantability** (§ 336.2-314): "a warranty that the goods shall be merchantable is implied in a contract for their sale if the seller is a merchant with respect to goods of that kind." Goods must, among other things, be "fit for the ordinary purposes for which such goods are used". 162 163**Disclaiming warranties** (§ 336.2-316(3)(a)): "unless the circumstances indicate otherwise, all implied warranties are excluded by expressions like 'as is,' 'with all faults' or other language which in common understanding calls the buyer's attention to the exclusion of warranties and makes plain that there is no implied warranty". Section 325G.19, subd. 1, adds that "No express warranty arising out of a consumer sale of new goods shall disclaim implied warranties of merchantability". A dealer's used vehicle warranty under § 325F.662 is separate, and § 325F.662, subd. 8a, treats an "AS IS" sale as disqualifying a vehicle from being called certified. 164 165**Revoking acceptance** (§ 336.2-608): "The buyer may revoke an acceptance of a lot or commercial unit whose nonconformity substantially impairs its value to the buyer if it was accepted (a) on the reasonable assumption that its nonconformity would be cured and it has not been seasonably cured; or (b) without discovery of such nonconformity if the acceptance was reasonably induced either by the difficulty of discovery before acceptance or by the seller's assurances." It "must occur within a reasonable time after the buyer discovers or should have discovered the ground for it and before any substantial change in condition of the goods which is not caused by their own defects. It is not effective until the buyer notifies the seller of it." 166 167**Damages** (§§ 336.2-714 and 336.2-715): "The measure of damages for breach of warranty is the difference at the time and place of acceptance between the value of the goods accepted and the value they would have had if they had been as warranted, unless special circumstances show proximate damages of a different amount." In a proper case incidental and consequential damages may also be recovered. 168 169**Consumer fraud** (§ 325F.69, subd. 1): "The act, use, or employment by any person of any fraud, unfair or unconscionable practice, false pretense, false promise, misrepresentation, misleading statement or deceptive practice, with the intent that others rely thereon in connection with the sale of any merchandise, whether or not any person has in fact been misled, deceived, or damaged thereby, is enjoinable as provided in section 325F.70." 170 171**Private lawsuit for consumer fraud** (§ 8.31, subd. 3a): "any person injured by a violation of any of the laws referred to in subdivision 1 may bring a civil action and recover damages, together with costs and disbursements, including costs of investigation and reasonable attorney's fees, and receive other equitable relief as determined by the court." 172 173## Leading cases 174 175I searched for published Minnesota appellate decisions on the lemon law and found one, Pfeiffer. The search service limited how many queries I could make, so that is not proof that no others exist. The remaining cases concern warranty and dealer conduct in vehicle sales. 176 177**Pfeiffer v. Ford Motor Co., 517 N.W.2d 76 (Minn. App. 1994).** Frederick and June Pfeiffer bought a Ford F-250 pickup in January 1990, believing it provided 200 horsepower for camping and towing. After Ford's informal dispute mechanism denied relief under the lemon law, they sold the truck and sued in conciliation court about 75 days later. The district court granted Ford summary judgment, finding the suit untimely. The Court of Appeals observed that "the Lemon Law was poorly drafted and is susceptible to two meanings" on the time limit, and concluded that the correct limit was six months. But it still affirmed the dismissal of the lemon law claim, because the Pfeiffers had sold the truck and so could not return it: "as with Minnesota's Lemon Law, there is a requirement for return of the vehicle prerequisite to remedy." It reversed on the Pfeiffers' Uniform Commercial Code claims, saying "The allegations, supporting affidavits and documentary evidence raise clear fact questions under the UCC", including whether they properly revoked acceptance. It also held they could not recover lemon law attorney fees because they "have not prevailed in their Lemon Law cause of action". The opinion applied the 1992 version of the statute, which had a subdivision numbered 3a, and the current § 325F.665, subd. 10, now provides a three-year limit and a six-month period after arbitration. Holding: a consumer who sells the vehicle before suing loses the lemon law refund claim, but can still pursue Uniform Commercial Code warranty claims. 178 179**Jacobs v. Rosemount Dodge-Winnebago South, 310 N.W.2d 71 (Minn. 1981).** George and Laura Jacobs bought a new Midas motorhome for $27,269 and it had defects the dealer and manufacturer failed to cure despite several returns for repair. The jury awarded $16,621 and the trial court cut it to $3,309.77. The Minnesota Supreme Court reinstated the jury verdict. It held: "we hold that the trial court did not err in finding that the exclusive remedies of the warranty had failed in their essential purposes and that other U.C.C. remedies, such as damages and revocation, were available to the Jacobs." It said, "If the seller refuses to repair or replace within a reasonable time, the buyer is deprived of the exclusive remedy. Commendable efforts alone do not relieve a seller of his obligation to repair." It also held that "other remedies of Chapter 336, including consequential damages, are available to them" and that evidence on consequential damages for loss of use was properly submitted to the jury. This decision came before the lemon law and is an example of the warranty law that still applies alongside it. 180 181**International Financial Services, Inc. v. Franz, 534 N.W.2d 261 (Minn. 1995).** This case concerned a photoplotter, not a car, but the Supreme Court applied the same warranty principles. It affirmed the determination that the repair or replacement remedy in the purchase agreement had failed of its essential purpose, and affirmed in part and reversed in part on damages. It agreed "with the trial court that the consequential damage exclusion effectively barred claims for such damages", but held the trial court "erred in denying Franz the opportunity to prove damages resulting from the construction of the 'clean room.'" It is included because it addresses when a limited warranty remedy fails and what damages remain. 182 183**Mashlan v. E.M. Trucks, Inc., 443 N.W.2d 226 (Minn. App. 1989).** A jury found that a truck dealer breached express warranties and that the Mashlans properly revoked acceptance of a defective truck. But the Mashlans had signed a 48-month lease with a financing company, United General Leasing, not a purchase agreement. The Court of Appeals held that "In all respects the contract between appellants and United is an express lease", and affirmed judgment "that appellants were lessees not entitled to recover damages from the dealer." Holding: warranty and revocation remedies against a dealer were not available to a person who was legally a lessee of a finance company and not a buyer from the dealer. The structure of the transaction matters. 184 185**Carousel Automobiles, Inc. v. Gherity, 527 N.W.2d 813 (Minn. 1995).** Dealer Daniels signed an Odometer Statement and Assignment by Seller form as the transferor of a Mercedes he never owned, so that a buyer could purchase it through a statutory dealer-resale provision. The Minnesota Supreme Court framed the issue as "whether Daniels, in signing as transferor on an Odometer Statement and Assignment by Seller form, thereby warranted title to the motor vehicle. We conclude he did and affirm." It reasoned that "Daniels' fraudulent act of signing as transferor was essential to this transaction". Holding: a dealer who signs as transferor warrants title, even when the dealer never owned the car. 186 187**Scott v. Forest Lake Chrysler-Plymouth-Dodge, 598 N.W.2d 713 (Minn. App. 1999).** Raymond Scott bought a Dodge Caravan under a retail installment contract, and the dealer also had him sign a conditional delivery agreement. When financing approval failed, a second contract was made at a higher interest rate and total price. The Court of Appeals held: "We hold that use of the conditional delivery agreement violated Minn.Stat. § 168.71(a)(1)." It also held that the dealer "violated Minn.Stat. § 168.71(a)(1) by failing to provide Scott with copies of the retail installment contracts that were signed by Forest Lake Chrysler". It reversed and remanded those claims but affirmed summary judgment for the dealer on Scott's consumer fraud claim. Holding: a dealer cannot use a side agreement that defeats the installment contract's disclosure of the cost of credit, and must give the buyer a copy of the contract the dealer has signed. 188 189**Holiday Recreational Industries, Inc. v. Manheim Services Corp., 599 N.W.2d 179 (Minn. App. 1999).** A dealer bought a 1992 Saturn at auction for $4,665, made $1,105.36 in repairs, and never received title. The vehicle turned out to have a salvage title. The Court of Appeals affirmed that the auctioneer violated the title branding law: "Because appellant failed to disclose that the vehicle had branded title, we affirm." It concluded that the auctioneer, as an auctioneer, "was a licensed motor vehicle dealer under the title branding act". It affirmed the award of treble damages, saying the district court found "deliberate attempts to mislead" and "conscious disregard" of the buyer's rights, and affirmed attorney fees, noting the statute cited in the opinion, § 325F.6643(b), says an injured party "shall recover * * * reasonable attorney fees." The section numbers in that opinion are those in force in 1999, and I did not check whether they have since been renumbered. Holding: failing to disclose a branded title can lead to treble damages and mandatory attorney fees. 190 191**Sorchaga v. Ride Auto, LLC, 909 N.W.2d 550 (Minn. 2018).** Esmeralda Sorchaga bought a pickup from a dealer that had purchased it from a salvage yard for $6,770 knowing it needed engine repairs. The purchase agreement disclaimed all warranties and stated the truck was sold "AS IS, NO WARRANTY". The Minnesota Supreme Court asked "whether a seller's fraudulent statements about the condition and fitness of a vehicle being sold prevent the seller from enforcing disclaimers in purchase documents stating that the buyer purchased the vehicle 'as is.'" It held: "we hold that Ride Auto's fraudulent statements about the fitness of the truck for the purpose for which a truck is purchased are a circumstance that make the 'as is' disclaimers of implied warranties in the purchase documents ineffective under Minn. Stat. § 336.2-316(3)(a)." The Court explained that "simply because the UCC permits parties to exclude or modify warranties does not mean that Ride Auto can 'disclaim its obligation to deliver the product which formed the basis of the parties' bargain.'" It also held the district court did not err in awarding recovery on both fraud and breach of warranty claims, since "so long as the plaintiff is not allowed 'double recovery,' a district court may conclude that the evidence supports separate claims for both common-law fraud and breach of contract", and "Sorchaga did not receive a double recovery." The Court added that "not all misstatements will constitute fraud." Holding: an "as is" clause does not protect a dealer who lied about the vehicle's condition. 192 193## How this fits together (my summary) 194 195- A buyer of a new car with a repeated, unfixed defect has a claim against the manufacturer for a refund or replacement, with the refund reduced by a small per-mile use allowance. The four-repair and 30-day presumptions need written notice, and a manufacturer's arbitration program must generally be used first. The buyer must be able to return the vehicle (Pfeiffer). 196- A buyer of a used car from a dealer gets a written warranty of at least a minimum length based on mileage, and the dealer can choose to repair, replace or refund. A dealer that gives no warranty is treated as having given one. 197- A buyer can also rely on general warranty, revocation of acceptance, consumer fraud and disclosure statutes. "As is" language does not protect a seller who made fraudulent statements (Sorchaga), and a limited repair remedy that fails opens the door to other remedies (Jacobs). 198- The form of the deal matters: a lessee from a finance company is not a buyer from the dealer (Mashlan), and a dealer who signs as transferor warrants title (Carousel). 199- Lawsuit deadlines differ: three years from delivery for the new vehicle lemon law claim, one year after the warranty expires for the used vehicle warranty claim. 200 201## What this document does not cover 202 203- Federal warranty law, except as mentioned in the cases above, and federal used-car Buyers Guide rules beyond the reference in § 325F.662. 204- Motorcycles, boats and other vehicles not within the statutory definitions, and business vehicles used for personal purposes less than 40 percent of the time. 205- Financing and retail installment sales rules beyond the Scott case, and repossession. 206- The procedure of arbitration hearings and conciliation court. 207- Court decisions not listed above. The list is a selection, and I found only one published Minnesota appellate decision applying the lemon law itself.
Car accidents (car-accidents.md)
MARKDOWN
1# Minnesota car accident law: duties, fault, no-fault insurance and leading decisions 2 3This document is general legal information about what Minnesota law requires of drivers after a collision, how fault is decided in a civil claim, how the no-fault insurance system works, and the leading court decisions that apply them. It is not legal advice, and it does not cover every situation. 4 5## Sources and currency 6 7- Minn. Stat. § 169.09 (collisions: duty to stop, give information and report), § 169.96 (effect of traffic law violations in civil cases), §§ 169.685 and 169.686 (seat belts), §§ 604.01 and 604.02 (comparative fault and joint liability), § 541.05 (six-year limitation), and the no-fault act: §§ 65B.44 (basic economic loss benefits), 65B.46 (right to benefits), 65B.47 (priority of security), 65B.49 (uninsured and underinsured coverage), 65B.51 (tort threshold and deduction of benefits) and 65B.61 (benefits primary). 8- Minn. Stat. §§ 609.2112 to 609.2114 (criminal vehicular homicide and operation), which are covered in more detail in the reckless driving document. 9- Text taken from the 2025 Minnesota Statutes, as published by the Office of the Revisor of Statutes at https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/ and read on 2026-09-20. Laws passed in the 2026 legislative session may not be reflected. 10- Court decisions: Minnesota Supreme Court and Court of Appeals opinions, read in the Harvard Caselaw Access Project (https://case.law/). Every passage placed in quotation marks in the case sections below was checked against the opinion text. The summaries of holdings are my own reading and are short. The no-fault act has been amended many times since the older decisions, including in 1985, so older opinions may describe rules that no longer apply. Each case section says when that matters. 11- Where a sentence below is my reading of how sections fit together, and not a quotation, it says so. 12 13## What a driver must do after a collision (§ 169.09) 14 15- **Stop and investigate** (subds. 1, 2 and 4): "The driver of any motor vehicle involved in a collision shall immediately stop the vehicle at the scene of the collision, or as close to the scene as possible, and reasonably investigate what was struck." The stop "must be made without unnecessarily obstructing traffic." 16- **Remain at the scene** (subd. 1): if the driver "knows or has reason to know the collision resulted in injury to or death of another, the driver in every event shall remain at the scene of the collision until the driver has fulfilled the requirements of this section as to the giving of information." Subd. 2 says the same where the collision involves damage to a vehicle driven or attended by another. 17- **Give information and help** (subd. 3(a)): the driver "shall give the driver's name, date of birth, mailing address or email address, and the registration plate number of the vehicle being driven", must exhibit a license on request to a peace officer, and "shall render reasonable assistance to any individual injured in the collision." 18- **Insurance details** (subd. 3(b)): if not given at the scene, "within 72 hours after the accident" the driver must give, on request, "the name and address of the insurer providing vehicle liability insurance coverage, and the local insurance agent for the insurer." 19- **Unattended vehicle** (subd. 4): the driver must locate and notify the driver or owner, report the information to a peace officer, or leave "in a conspicuous place in or secured to the vehicle struck, a written notice giving the name and address of the driver and of the registered owner". 20- **Notice of injury** (subd. 6): after complying with the section, the driver of a vehicle in a collision resulting in bodily injury or death "shall ... by the quickest means of communication, give notice of the collision to the local police department if the collision occurs within a municipality, to a State Patrol officer if the collision occurs on a trunk highway, or to the office of the sheriff of the county." 21- **Which accidents are reported** (subd. 8(b)): accidents on public rights-of-way must be reported if they result in a fatality; bodily injury to a person who immediately receives medical treatment; a vehicle so damaged it must be towed; or damage to fixtures, infrastructure or other property alongside or on a highway. 22- **Agent of the owner** (subd. 5a): when a vehicle is operated by someone other than the owner, with the owner's consent, "the operator thereof shall in case of accident, be deemed the agent of the owner of such motor vehicle in the operation thereof." 23- **Accident reports are not evidence** (subd. 13(b)): "Accident reports and data contained in the reports are not discoverable under any provision of law or rule of court. A report must not be used as evidence in any trial, civil or criminal, or any action for damages or criminal proceedings arising out of an accident." Subd. 13(c) says this does not prevent a person from testifying "as to facts within the individual's knowledge." 24 25### Penalties for leaving the scene (§ 169.09, subd. 14) 26 27- If the driver violates subd. 1 or 6 and did not cause the collision, and it results in the death of another, the driver is guilty of a felony and may be sentenced to "not more than three years, or to payment of a fine of not more than $5,000, or both". 28- If it results in great bodily harm: a felony with "not more than two years, or ... a fine of not more than $4,000, or both". 29- If it results in substantial bodily harm: "not more than 364 days, or ... a fine of not more than $3,000, or both". 30- If the collision results in bodily harm to another and the driver violates subd. 1 or 6, the driver "may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 364 days, or to payment of a fine of not more than $3,000, or both" (subd. 14(b)). 31- A violation of subd. 3, 5, 8, 11 or 12 is a misdemeanor. A driver who violates subd. 2 after damage to an attended vehicle, or subd. 4 after damage to an unattended vehicle, is guilty of a misdemeanor (subd. 14(c) to (e)). 32- A driver who causes the collision and leaves the scene can be charged under the criminal vehicular statutes: § 609.2112, subd. 1(a)(7), covers "where the driver who causes the collision leaves the scene of the collision in violation of section 169.09, subdivision 1 or 6", with a maximum of ten years or a $20,000 fine, or both. See the reckless driving document. 33 34## Criminal vehicular crimes after a crash 35 36When a crash kills or injures someone, a driver can also be charged under §§ 609.2112 to 609.2114 if the driving was grossly negligent, or negligent while impaired, or the driver was over the alcohol limit or left the scene. The maximum sentence is up to ten years for a death, five years for great bodily harm, three years for substantial bodily harm and 364 days for bodily harm. These are covered in the reckless driving document, which also explains gross negligence. 37 38## Fault in a civil claim 39 40### Violating a traffic law is evidence, not automatic negligence (§ 169.96) 41 42Section 169.96(b): "In all civil actions, a violation of any of the provisions of this chapter, by either or any of the parties to such action or actions shall not be negligence per se but shall be prima facie evidence of negligence only." My reading: running a red light or speeding does not by itself decide a civil case, but it is evidence of negligence that the jury can weigh, and the other side can show an excuse. 43 44### Comparative fault (§ 604.01) 45 46Subd. 1: "Contributory fault does not bar recovery in an action by any person or the person's legal representative to recover damages for fault resulting in death, in injury to person or property, or in economic loss, if the contributory fault was not greater than the fault of the person against whom recovery is sought, but any damages allowed must be diminished in proportion to the amount of fault attributable to the person recovering." 47 48My reading: an injured person can recover if the person's own fault is equal to or less than the fault of the person being sued, and the recovery is reduced by the injured person's percentage. If the injured person is more at fault than the defendant, the person recovers nothing from that defendant. Subd. 1a defines "fault" to include "acts or omissions that are in any measure negligent or reckless toward the person or property of the actor or others", and adds that "The doctrine of last clear chance is abolished." 49 50### Who pays when several people share fault (§ 604.02) 51 52Subd. 1: "When two or more persons are severally liable, contributions to awards shall be in proportion to the percentage of fault attributable to each, except that the following persons are jointly and severally liable for the whole award": a person "whose fault is greater than 50 percent", persons acting in a common scheme, a person who commits an intentional tort, and certain environmental liabilities. My reading: a driver who is more than 50 percent at fault can be made to pay the whole award, and others pay only their share. 53 54### Time limit (§ 541.05) 55 56Subd. 1 gives six years for several kinds of actions, including "any other injury to the person or rights of another, not arising on contract, and not hereinafter enumerated", for "taking, detaining, or injuring personal property", and for "a liability created by statute". My reading: a claim for personal injury or vehicle damage from ordinary negligence generally falls within this six-year period, but other statutes set different periods for specific claims, such as death claims and claims against governments, and I did not research them. 57 58### Seat belts (§§ 169.685 and 169.686) 59 60Subd. 1(a) of § 169.686 requires a properly adjusted and fastened seat belt to be worn by the driver and passengers of a passenger vehicle. A person 15 or older who violates it is "subject to a fine of $25", and the Department of Public Safety "must not record a violation of this subdivision on a person's driving record" (subd. 1(b)). 61 62In a civil injury case, § 169.685, subd. 4(a): "proof of the use or failure to use seat belts or a child passenger restraint system ... is not admissible in evidence in any litigation involving personal injuries or property damage resulting from the use or operation of any motor vehicle." Subd. 4(b) preserves claims about a defectively designed, manufactured, installed or operating seat belt. 63 64## The no-fault system 65 66### Basic economic loss benefits (§ 65B.44) 67 68- **Right to benefits** (§ 65B.46, subd. 1): "If the accident causing injury occurs in this state, every person suffering loss from injury arising out of maintenance or use of a motor vehicle or as a result of being struck as a pedestrian by a motorcycle has a right to basic economic loss benefits." 69- **Minimum amounts** (§ 65B.44, subd. 1(a)): "a minimum of $40,000 for loss arising out of the injury of any one person, consisting of": "$20,000 for medical expense loss" and "a total of $20,000 for income loss, replacement services loss, funeral expense loss, survivor's economic loss, and survivor's replacement services loss". 70- **Medical expenses** (subd. 2): reimburse "all reasonable expenses for necessary" medical, surgical, x-ray, optical, dental, chiropractic and rehabilitative services, prescription drugs, ambulance and other transportation to receive covered care, and hospital, extended care and nursing services. 71- **Income loss** (subd. 3(a)): "compensation for 85 percent of the injured person's loss of present and future gross income from inability to work proximately caused by the nonfatal injury subject to a maximum of $500 per week." 72- **Funeral and burial** (subd. 4): "reasonable expenses not in excess of $5,000". 73- **Replacement services** (subd. 5): reimburse the reasonable expenses of "usual and necessary substitute services" the injured person would have performed for the household. 74- **Primary** (§ 65B.61, subd. 1): "Basic economic loss benefits shall be primary with respect to benefits, except for those paid or payable under a workers' compensation law, which any person receives or is entitled to receive from any other source as a result of injury arising out of the maintenance or use of a motor vehicle." 75 76### Whose insurance pays (§ 65B.47, subd. 4) 77 78For cases other than business use, the priorities are: 79 80- (a) for injury to an insured, "the security under which the injured person is an insured"; 81- (b) for injury to the driver or other occupant of an involved motor vehicle who is not an insured, "the security covering that vehicle"; and 82- (c) for a person not otherwise covered who is not the driver or other occupant of an involved motor vehicle (for example a pedestrian), "the security covering any involved motor vehicle". 83 84Under subd. 1, if the vehicle is being used in the business of transporting persons or property, the security is that covering the vehicle or, if none, the security under which the injured person is an insured. 85 86### Suing the at-fault driver: the tort threshold and the offset (§ 65B.51) 87 88Subd. 1: the court "shall deduct from any recovery the value of basic or optional economic loss benefits paid or payable". Subd. 3 limits recovery for pain and other noneconomic harm: "no person shall recover damages for noneconomic detriment unless" either: 89 90(a) medical expenses, including "reasonable medical expense benefits paid, payable or payable but for any applicable deductible" and certain other listed amounts, exceed $4,000, excluding diagnostic x-rays and rehabilitation; or 91 92(b) the injury results in "permanent disfigurement", "permanent injury", "death", or "disability for 60 days or more". 93 94"Disability" means "the inability to engage in substantially all of the injured person's usual and customary daily activities." Subd. 2 allows a negligence action for economic loss that is not covered by first-party benefits, for example above the daily or weekly limits or because of an exclusion. Subd. 4 says the section does not limit the liability of a person in the business of manufacturing, distributing, retailing, repairing or servicing motor vehicles for a defect. 95 96### Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage (§ 65B.49, subd. 3a) 97 98Auto policies must include "separate uninsured and underinsured motorist coverages", and "Each coverage, at a minimum, must provide limits of $25,000 because of injury to or the death of one person in any accident and $50,000 because of injury to or the death of two or more persons in any accident." Under subd. 3a(4), "No recovery shall be permitted under the uninsured and underinsured motorist coverages of this section for basic economic loss benefits paid or payable". Under subd. 4a, the underinsured motorist insurer's maximum liability "is the amount of damages sustained but not recovered from the insurance policy of the driver or owner of any underinsured at fault vehicle", and "in no event shall the underinsured motorist carrier have to pay more than the amount of its underinsured motorist limits." 99 100## Leading cases on fault and the civil claim 101 102**Pouliot v. Fitzsimmons, 582 N.W.2d 221 (Minn. 1998).** Sharon Fitzsimmons lost control of her vehicle in inclement weather on County Road 42 in Prior Lake and collided with Janice Pouliot's stopped vehicle on the opposite side of the road. The jury found Fitzsimmons was not negligent and the trial court denied a judgment notwithstanding the verdict, but the court of appeals reversed, calling the evidence of negligence "so overwhelming that reasonable minds could not differ." The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals and reinstated the trial court's order, saying the court of appeals "inappropriately substituted its judgment for that of both the jury and the trial court". It held "that the jury could have reasonably inferred from the evidence that the deteriorating weather and road conditions due to freezing rain excused or justified Fitzsimmons' violation of section 169.18, subd." (subdivisions 1 and 2 of § 169.18, the rules on keeping to the right and passing to the right of oncoming traffic). Holding: a traffic law violation is not conclusive negligence, and a jury may find it excused by conditions such as freezing rain, consistent with § 169.96. 103 104**Daly v. McFarland, 812 N.W.2d 113 (Minn. 2012).** Two snowmobilers collided. The jury found both negligent, found that Daly's negligence was not a direct cause of the accident, and yet allocated 30 percent of the fault to Daly. The Minnesota Supreme Court held that "the doctrine of primary assumption of risk does not apply to preclude Daly's claims that McFarland owed a duty of reasonable care in the operation of his snowmobile." It also found that the district court abused its discretion in how it reconciled the jury's directly contradictory answers: "We agree with McFarland that the district court abused its discretion in reconciling the directly contradictory jury verdict." Because a new trial "unfairly prejudices Daly, because the jury found that McFarland was, at a minimum, 70% responsible for the accident", the court ordered a remittitur, so that Daly could choose to accept 70 percent of the damages or a new trial. It is a snowmobile case, but it shows how comparative fault percentages are applied to a damages award. 105 106**Imlay v. City of Lake Crystal, 453 N.W.2d 326 (Minn. 1990).** The plaintiffs were injured in a collision with an uninsured, intoxicated motorcyclist who had been served by the city's liquor store. The jury found the city 20 percent at fault and the motorcyclist 80 percent, and awarded over $2.2 million. The Minnesota Supreme Court held that "section 604.02, subdivision 1, does not violate equal protection guarantees" and affirmed in part and reversed in part. The version of § 604.02 involved in that case limited the joint liability of municipalities, and the statute has been amended since, so the current text above controls. 107 108**Cressy v. Grassmann, 536 N.W.2d 39 (Minn. App. 1995).** Pamela Cressy and her son were injured when a bus struck her car from behind. The bus company's defense was that Cressy and her son were not wearing seat belts. The Court of Appeals upheld the law that bars that evidence, § 169.685, subd. 4: "Thus, we hold that the legislature did not, with the enactment of the mandatory seat belt and comparative fault statutes, implicitly repeal section 169.685, subdivision 4." It reasoned that "appellants' right to present a defense is not at risk. Although unable to reduce awards to the extent of damages that are attributable to seat-belt nonuse, appellants may still present evidence of respondents' comparative fault — if any — in causing the accident." Holding: not wearing a seat belt cannot be used to reduce a damages award in a civil injury case. 109 110## Leading cases on no-fault insurance 111 112**Haagenson v. National Farmers Union Property & Casualty Co., 277 N.W.2d 648 (Minn. 1979).** Gerald Haagenson was seriously injured under unusual circumstances and claimed no-fault benefits under the policies on both his pickup truck and his automobile. A jury found the injuries covered under the pickup policy, and the trial judge stacked the coverage of both vehicles for a total of $60,000. The Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed that award. The jury had also awarded $50,000 for emotional distress and $300,000 as punitive damages for the insurer's nonpayment. The Court reversed those awards, holding that such damages "are not recoverable for bad-faith breach of contract", but remanded "for assessment of the 10-percent statutory penalty for delay in payment of no-fault benefits". Holding: an insurer's delay in paying no-fault benefits is met by the statutory penalty and not by punitive damages. The stacking result was later changed by the 1985 anti-stacking amendment, described in Meister below. 113 114**Holman v. All Nation Insurance Co., 288 N.W.2d 244 (Minn. 1980).** After a serious one-vehicle accident, Lawrence Holman sued his insurer for optional coverages that he said had not been offered as required by § 65B.49, subd. 6. The district court found that underinsured motorist benefits had not been offered. The Supreme Court held: "We hold that the mandatorily-offered coverages, which are implied by law in the Holman policy, may be stacked, to the amount of Holman's damages." It also held that "the Lick rule is inapplicable for accidents occurring after the effective date of the No Fault Act", so that "Lawrence Holman is entitled to recover underinsured motorist benefits in addition to bodily injury liability benefits to the extent of his damages." Holding: when an insurer fails to offer mandatory optional coverage, it is implied by law. 115 116**Tlougan v. Auto-Owners Insurance Co., 310 N.W.2d 116 (Minn. 1981).** Carrie Tlougan, a five-year-old, was burned while playing with a book of matches left on the dashboard of a truck. The trial court found the injuries covered by the no-fault policy. The Supreme Court reversed: "Since we find the injuries did not arise out of the use or maintenance of a motor vehicle, we reverse." It explained that "coverage is not established since there is an insufficient causal connection between use of the vehicle for transportation purposes and the injury." Holding: no-fault benefits cover injuries that arise out of use of the vehicle for transportation, and not every injury that happens in or near a vehicle. 117 118**Nemanic v. Gopher Heating & Sheet Metal, Inc., 337 N.W.2d 667 (Minn. 1983).** Lance Nemanic received a $65,000 jury verdict for injuries in a collision. He claimed his agoraphobia was triggered by the accident, and the trial court directed a verdict for him on the tort threshold of permanency and causation because the defense offered no adverse medical witness. The Supreme Court reversed, saying: "we hold that the trial court erred in not submitting the issue of permanence to the jury." It said there was evidence in the record "that plaintiff was recovering from his agoraphobia and that the condition was not permanent". Holding: even when the defense presents no expert, the jury decides whether the plaintiff meets the § 65B.51 tort threshold. 119 120**Meister v. Western National Mutual Insurance, 479 N.W.2d 372 (Minn. 1992).** Michael Meister suffered severe head injuries when he was thrown from the back of his employer's pickup truck. The employer's insurer paid the basic economic loss benefits, and the question was whether Meister's own insurer, Western National, owed the additional optional benefits his father had bought, given the 1985 anti-stacking amendment. The Supreme Court affirmed the court of appeals. It said "this case does not pose a stacking issue", because the additional coverage "covers the persons under the policy; it does not follow the vehicle." It held that Meister could recover that additional coverage from his own insurer, "absent the business loss exclusion", and held the exclusion inapplicable because the legislature "mandated the availability of additional benefits without restriction". Holding: optional additional no-fault coverage a family buys for a person is not blocked by the anti-stacking amendment or by a business-use exclusion. 121 122**Nelson v. American Family Insurance Group, 651 N.W.2d 499 (Minn. 2002).** Sharon Nelson received $20,000 in no-fault income loss benefits after a 1990 Minnesota accident. After a second accident she sued the tortfeasor in South Dakota, and the jury awarded $37,000 for past income loss, paid by American Family as the tortfeasor's insurer; after her one-third attorney fee she netted $24,666.67. She then sued American Family in Minnesota for further no-fault benefits. The district court and court of appeals held that any further recovery would be a double recovery. The Supreme Court reversed, saying that American Family's position "would impose on Nelson the cost of recovering in her tort action amounts that essentially represent the no-fault benefits covered by her American Family policy." It concluded: "To avoid these improper results, we conclude that Nelson is entitled to receive $6,666.67 from American Family", which "represents American Family's proportionate share of the attorney fees charged in the South Dakota action." Holding: the no-fault insurer must pay its proportionate share of the attorney fees when the injured person's tort recovery duplicates no-fault benefits. 123 124## How this fits together (my summary) 125 126- After any collision a driver must stop, investigate, give name and other information, and help injured people. Leaving after an injury crash can be a felony, and a driver who caused the crash and left can face criminal vehicular charges. 127- A traffic law violation is evidence of negligence in a civil case and not automatic negligence, and a jury can find it excused (Pouliot, § 169.96). 128- Fault is shared by percentage. An injured person can recover unless the person is more at fault than the defendant, and the recovery is reduced by the person's share (§ 604.01, Daly). 129- Seat belt evidence cannot be used in a civil injury case to reduce damages (§ 169.685, subd. 4; Cressy). 130- No-fault benefits pay medical and income loss regardless of fault, up to $20,000 medical and $20,000 for other losses as a minimum, with income loss at 85 percent up to $500 per week. To sue the at-fault driver for pain and suffering, the injured person must pass the tort threshold: more than $4,000 in medical expenses, or permanent injury, disfigurement, death, or 60 days of disability (§ 65B.51, Nemanic). 131- The injury must arise from the use of the vehicle for transportation for no-fault benefits to apply (Tlougan). 132 133## What this document does not cover 134 135- Wrongful death claims, claims against governments and other special time limits and notice rules. 136- Property damage claims and insurance claims handling rules beyond what is quoted above, and rules about total losses and rental cars. 137- Optional coverages beyond the mandatory uninsured and underinsured coverage, and how stacking works today beyond the cases above. 138- Workers' compensation and motorcycle, commercial and rideshare insurance rules. 139- Criminal defenses to hit-and-run and criminal vehicular charges, beyond the cross references above. 140- Court decisions not listed above. The list is a selection of leading decisions, not a complete one.