A boat crash on a Minnesota lake looks like a car crash. Two vehicles, an impact, injured people, an insurance adjuster on the phone within a week. Almost none of the law is the same.
There is no personal injury protection. There is no underinsured motorist claim against your own auto policy. There is no tort threshold to clear, because there is no no-fault bargain to be bought out of. What there is instead is a plain negligence case, governed by a chapter of the statutes most personal injury lawyers have never opened, containing one provision that is considerably more favorable to an injured plaintiff than anything in the traffic code — and another that quietly takes a piece of evidence away.
The favorable one is Minn. Stat. § 86B.341, subd. 2. It makes the owner of the boat liable for the negligence of whoever was driving it, jointly and severally, and it presumes consent when the driver was a family member. It is not § 86B.315, which is about water skiing, and it is not § 169.09, which is about roads. It sits in the chapter’s accident-duties section, in the subdivision immediately after the requirement that you stop and render assistance, and it is the first thing to look for in any Minnesota boating case.
Is a boat a “motor vehicle” for Minnesota no-fault purposes?
No. And the definition is not ambiguous about it.
Minn. Stat. § 65B.43, subd. 2 defines “motor vehicle” for the entire No-Fault Act — §§ 65B.41 to 65B.71 — as:
every vehicle, other than a motorcycle or other vehicle with fewer than four wheels, which (a) is required to be registered pursuant to chapter 168, and (b) is designed to be self-propelled by an engine or motor for use primarily upon public roads, highways or streets in the transportation of persons or property, and includes a trailer with one or more wheels, when the trailer is connected to or being towed by a motor vehicle.
A watercraft fails both halves. Boats are licensed and titled under chapter 86B, not registered under chapter 168. And no boat is designed for use primarily upon public roads.
That single definition removes three things at once:
No basic economic loss benefits. PIP medical and wage-loss benefits are owed for injury arising out of the maintenance or use of a motor vehicle. A boat crash does not qualify. The injured passenger’s medical bills go to health insurance, and health insurance will assert a subrogation interest.
No uninsured motorist claim. “Uninsured motor vehicle” means “a motor vehicle or motorcycle for which a plan of reparation security … is not in effect.” § 65B.43, subd. 16. A boat is neither a motor vehicle nor a motorcycle, so an uninsured boat is not an uninsured motor vehicle, and UM coverage — defined in subdivision 18 by reference to “uninsured motor vehicles and hit-and-run motor vehicles” — does not reach it.
No underinsured motorist claim. Same structure. “Underinsured motor vehicle” means “a motor vehicle or motorcycle to which a bodily injury liability policy applies at the time of the accident but its limit for bodily injury liability is less than the amount needed to compensate the insured for actual damages.” § 65B.43, subd. 17. UIM coverage under subdivision 19 protects persons “legally entitled to recover damages for bodily injury from owners or operators of underinsured motor vehicles.” An underinsured boat is not on the list.
This is the same structural gap that leaves snowmobile and ATV riders outside the no-fault system, and it is a cousin of the very different gap that the Act creates for motorcyclists — who are named in the definitions but written out of the benefits. If it helps to see what is being withheld, the no-fault basics article describes the benefits package that boating claims simply never enter.
One consequence is worth stating plainly for clients: nobody is required to insure a boat in Minnesota. Chapter 65B’s compulsory-insurance scheme runs on the “motor vehicle” definition too. Coverage for a boat crash comes, if it comes at all, from a homeowner’s policy, a stand-alone watercraft policy, or an umbrella — all of them voluntary, and all of them full of watercraft exclusions written by horsepower and length.
That last point is not hypothetical. In Torbert v. Anderson, 301 Minn. 339, 222 N.W.2d 341 (1974), a swimmer on Lake Pulaski was struck by a sixteen-foot inboard-outboard boat that the owner’s fourteen-year-old son was operating with permission. The homeowners policy excluded liability arising out of “watercraft owned by or rented to an Insured, while away from the premises, if with inboard motor power exceeding fifty horsepower.” The owner argued his “premises” included the whole lake. The supreme court rejected that — the policy’s reference to “private approaches,” it held, has a “plain meaning” that “does not include a public lake” — and it rejected the argument that the exclusion missed him because his own liability theory was negligent supervision rather than ownership or operation. The court affirmed that “Earl Anderson was not covered by his homeowners policy with respect to liability arising out of his son’s use of his boat away from the premises.” 301 Minn. at 346.
Read the declarations page and the watercraft exclusion before you tell a client there is coverage.
Who is liable when the owner handed the keys to somebody else?
Both of them. This is the provision that changes cases.
Minn. Stat. § 86B.341, subd. 2(a):
The owner and operator of a watercraft are jointly and severally liable for any injury or damage caused by the negligent operation of a watercraft whether the negligence consists of a violation of the provisions of the statutes of this state or neglecting to observe ordinary care in the operation as the common law requires. The owner is not liable if the watercraft is being operated without the owner’s express or implied consent. It is presumed that the operation of a watercraft is with the knowledge and consent of the owner if at the time of the injury or damage the watercraft is under the control of the owner’s spouse, father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, or other member of the owner’s immediate family.
Four things are packed into that paragraph, and each one does work.
Joint and several liability, stated in the statute. The owner is not a secondary defendant or a negligent-entrustment theory that has to be pleaded and proved. The owner is liable for the operator’s negligence directly. That matters because the owner is usually the one with the assets and the policy.
It reaches common-law negligence, not just statutory violations. The subdivision says so expressly — “whether the negligence consists of a violation of the provisions of the statutes of this state or neglecting to observe ordinary care in the operation as the common law requires.” Ordinary lookout, speed, and helm negligence are enough.
Consent is the only defense, and it is the owner’s to establish. The exemption is phrased as an exception: “The owner is not liable if the watercraft is being operated without the owner’s express or implied consent.” Implied consent is included, which is a broad standard. An owner who leaves the keys in the console at a shared dock is not obviously outside it.
A statutory presumption of consent for the immediate family. Spouse, father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, “or other member of the owner’s immediate family.” In the common fact pattern — the adult child, the sibling, the spouse at the wheel — the plaintiff does not have to prove permission at all. The owner has to overcome a presumption.
Subdivision 2(b) then adds two limits that are worth quoting to an adjuster who tries to read the provision as an exclusive remedy. The subdivision may not be construed to “(1) relieve other persons from liability which the persons would otherwise have; or (2) authorize or allow recovery in excess of the injury or damage actually incurred.” In other words: owner liability is additional, not substitutional. The rental company, the marina, the dram shop, and the manufacturer all remain on the hook for whatever they independently owe.
Why this is not the same as the rule for cars — or for snowmobiles
Minnesota’s auto analog is Minn. Stat. § 169.09, subd. 5a, and it is written differently: “Whenever any motor vehicle shall be operated within this state, by any person other than the owner, with the consent of the owner, express or implied, the operator thereof shall in case of accident, be deemed the agent of the owner of such motor vehicle in the operation thereof.” That is an agency deeming provision. It has no family presumption and it does not use the words “jointly and severally liable.” Section 86B.341, subd. 2 is the more direct instrument.
It is also worth noting what the legislature did not do in 2024. Section 169.09, subd. 19(c) — a paragraph titled “Terminology,” not owner liability — provides that “[f]or purposes of this section, motor vehicle includes off-highway vehicles, as defined in section 84.771, and snowmobiles, as defined in section 84.81.” That amendment is why the snowmobile and ATV analysis has changed. Watercraft are not in that list, and they did not need to be: boats have had their own owner-liability statute since 1990.
What counts as negligent operation on the water?
Chapter 86B supplies the rules of the road, and they are more specific than most people expect.
Minn. Stat. § 86B.311, subd. 1 provides that a person may not operate or allow the operation of a watercraft:
(1) in a careless or heedless manner in disregard of the rights or safety of others;
(2) in a reckless or grossly negligent manner that causes personal injury to another or damage to the property of another;
(3) upon the waters of this state without the equipment required by this chapter and the rules adopted under this chapter; or
(4) that is loaded with passengers or cargo beyond the watercraft’s safe carrying capacity or is equipped with a motor or other propulsion machinery beyond the watercraft’s safe power capacity.
Note the phrase “or allow the operation of” in the opening line. It appears again in the personal watercraft section and again in the permit section. Chapter 86B repeatedly imposes duties on the person who lets the boat be operated, not only on the person at the wheel — which is the statutory hook for a claim against the owner who was sitting in the back of the boat.
Subdivision 5 of the same section also prohibits riding or sitting “on (i) the starboard or port gunwales; (ii) the decking over the bow, sides, or stern; or (iii) the transom, of a motorboat while underway unless the motorboat is provided with adequate guards or railing to prevent passengers from falling overboard” — and prohibits the operator from operating while someone is doing so. Bow-riding falls-overboard cases are common and this is the provision that governs them.
For personal watercraft, § 86B.313, subd. 1(a) is a checklist of eleven prohibitions. The ones that produce injuries: every person aboard must wear a Coast Guard–approved wearable flotation device labeled for PWC use; no operation “between one hour before sunset and 9:30 a.m.”; no more than slow-no wake speed within 150 feet of a shoreline, a dock, a swimmer, a swim or dive raft, or a moored, anchored, or nonmotorized watercraft; the lanyard-type engine cutoff switch must be attached to the operator if the machine came with one; and no operation “in a manner that unreasonably or unnecessarily endangers life, limb, or property, including weaving through congested watercraft traffic, jumping the wake of another watercraft within 150 feet of the other watercraft, or operating the watercraft while facing backward.” Clause (10) is a catch-all: no operation “in any other manner that is not reasonable and prudent.” The list does not close there — an eleventh clause follows, requiring the personal watercraft to display a commissioner-issued rules decal in full view of the operator.
Towing is its own section — and it is the section people are reaching for when they cite § 86B.315 in a crash case. Under § 86B.315, subd. 1, a person may not create a wake for a wake surfer or tow a person on water skis, an aquaplane, a surfboard, a saucer, or a similar device unless there is a second person aboard “in a position to continually observe the person being towed” or the boat has “a mirror providing the operator a wide field of vision to the rear.” Subdivision 2 bans wake surfing, being towed, and towing “from one-half hour after sunset to sunrise of the following day.”
Life jackets for children have their own rule. Under § 86B.501, subd. 3 — the Grant Allen Law — “[n]o person may operate a watercraft under way with a child under ten years of age aboard unless the child is: (1) wearing an appropriate personal flotation device approved under subdivision 1; or (2) below the top deck or in an enclosed cabin,” with exceptions for licensed commercial passenger carriage and for a boat anchored for swimming or diving. A violation is a petty misdemeanor.
The 2023 permit law is phasing in right now — and it creates a claim against the owner
This is the newest thing in the chapter and the least known.
Minnesota now requires a watercraft operator’s permit. Under § 86B.303, subd. 1, an “adult operator” may not operate a motorboat, including a personal watercraft, unless the operator holds a valid permit, is an “exempt operator,” or has an “accompanying operator” aboard. The permit is issued under § 86B.302, subd. 1 to a person twelve or older who completes a water safety course and written test.
The trick is in the definition. “Adult operator” in § 86B.30, subd. 3 is not defined by age alone. It is a rolling birth-year phase-in: a motorboat operator twelve or older who was effective July 1, 2025, born on or after July 1, 2004; effective July 1, 2026, born on or after July 1, 2000; effective July 1, 2027, born on or after July 1, 1996; and effective July 1, 2028, born on or after July 1, 1987.
So as of this summer, every operator born on or after July 1, 2000 needs a permit, an exemption, or a qualified adult in the boat. By July 1, 2028 the requirement reaches everyone born on or after July 1, 1987. An “accompanying operator” under subdivision 2 must be twenty-one or older, in the boat, “within immediate reach of the controls of the motor,” and either permitted or exempt — sitting on the swim platform does not count. “Exempt operator” under subdivision 4 covers Coast Guard–licensed maritime personnel and holders of a Canadian marine certificate, certain nonresidents using state waters for no more than sixty days, operation under a dealer’s license, and operation during an emergency.
Two age rules run alongside it. A “young operator” — under twelve, per § 86B.30, subd. 7 — “may not operate a personal watercraft or any motorboat powered by a motor with a factory rating of more than 75 horsepower.” § 86B.303, subd. 2(a). For a non-PWC motorboat rated above 25 but no more than 75 horsepower, a young operator may operate it only with an accompanying operator aboard. § 86B.303, subd. 2(b). That accompanying-operator requirement drops out entirely at the bottom of the range: under subdivision 5, a person of any age — including a young operator — may operate a non-PWC motorboat of 25 horsepower or less without a permit and without an accompanying operator.
Now the liability piece. Section 86B.303, subd. 4 provides: “An owner or other person in lawful control of a motorboat may not allow the motorboat to be operated contrary to this section.” That is a duty running directly to the boat owner, breached the moment the owner hands the wheel to an unpermitted twenty-four-year-old. Combined with the evidentiary rule discussed next, it converts a permit violation into prima facie evidence of negligence against the owner — without any need to plead negligent entrustment as a common-law theory.
Does a boating citation prove the case? And can you use the BWI conviction?
Two separate questions, and the second one has a wrinkle nobody expects.
The citation is evidence, not the verdict. Minn. Stat. § 86B.815, subd. 1:
In all civil actions, a violation of this chapter by a party is not negligence per se but is prima facie evidence of negligence.
That is the same treatment traffic violations get. Minn. Stat. § 169.96(b) provides that “[i]n 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.” So a boating violation does not decide liability by itself — but it shifts real weight, and it does so for every prohibition in the chapter: careless operation, overloading, the PWC 150-foot rule, the missing observer while towing, the child without a life jacket, the unpermitted operator.
The conviction record is not evidence. Section 86B.815, subd. 2:
The record of the conviction of a person for a violation of this chapter is not admissible as evidence in a court in a civil action.
Again, this mirrors the traffic rule. Minn. Stat. § 169.94, subd. 1 bars the record of a chapter 169 conviction from any civil action, and subdivision 2 adds a credibility protection — chapter 86B has no counterpart to that second piece.
Here is the wrinkle. Boating while impaired is no longer prosecuted under chapter 86B. Section 86B.33, subd. 2(b), enacted in 2021, provides that “[a] person who operates or is in physical control of a motorboat on waters of the state is subject to chapter 169A” — the DWI chapter. A BWI conviction is therefore a conviction for a violation of chapter 169A, not “a violation of this chapter” within the meaning of § 86B.815, subd. 2. On the text, the bar does not reach it. That is a textual reading, not a holding; no Minnesota decision resolving the point was located for this article, and a defendant will argue the opposite.
It may not matter much either way, because the ordinary evidentiary rules do their own work. Minn. R. Evid. 803(22) admits a judgment of previous conviction only where the crime was “punishable by death or imprisonment in excess of one year” — so a misdemeanor or gross misdemeanor BWI judgment does not come in under that exception regardless. A felony-level offense would. And the Committee Comment to Rule 803(22) records the background rule that “[g]uilty pleas could be received in a subsequent civil action as party admissions,” which is a different route to a different piece of evidence.
The practical takeaway is to build the impairment case out of the underlying facts — the officer’s observations, the test results, the bar tab, the witnesses — rather than resting on the judgment.
Chapter 86B also puts a duty on the person who lets an impaired operator take the wheel. Section 86B.33, subd. 2(a): “An owner or other person having charge or control of a motorboat must not authorize or allow an individual the person knows or has reason to believe is under the influence of alcohol, a controlled substance, or an intoxicating substance to operate the motorboat in operation on waters of the state.” Violation is a misdemeanor under subdivision 3(a) — and, being a chapter 86B violation, prima facie evidence of negligence under § 86B.815, subd. 1.
Where the alcohol came from a licensed vendor, the dram shop claim is a separate and independent path, with its own notice deadline that runs from the date counsel is retained. Do not let the boating analysis push that deadline out of view.
What are the operator’s duties at the scene?
Minn. Stat. § 86B.341, subd. 1 sets them out, and they are close to the road rules.
Under paragraph (a), the operator of a watercraft “involved in an accident or incident resulting in injury or death to a person or in damage to property shall, if possible without serious danger to the watercraft or the persons aboard, immediately stop at the scene of the accident or incident and render assistance as may be practicable and necessary.”
Under paragraph (b), the operator “must give the operator’s name, address, and license number of the watercraft and the name and address of the owner of the watercraft to the person injured or the operator or occupants of the other watercraft or owner or occupant of the property involved,” and “must promptly report the accident or incident to the sheriff of the county where the accident or incident occurred.” Sheriffs must report to the commissioner of natural resources, who transmits summaries to the commissioner of public safety and boating accident statistics to the United States Coast Guard.
That reporting chain is a discovery roadmap. The county sheriff’s file is the primary investigative record, DNR holds the aggregated report, and the incident may also appear in Coast Guard statistics. Send preservation letters to the sheriff’s office and to DNR early — and remember that on a busy lake, the best evidence is often on a phone belonging to somebody who was never a party.
How is fault apportioned, and who else can be sued?
Ordinary Minnesota comparative fault applies. There is no boating-specific apportionment rule, no boating-specific damages cap, and no boating-specific statute of limitations. A boat case is reduced, offset, and sequenced the same way any other negligence verdict is — the mechanics are set out in the article on comparative fault and collateral sources, and the ordering of those reductions is worth real money.
Section 86B.341, subd. 2(b)(1) preserves every other defendant’s liability. In practice the additional targets are:
- The rental or livery business. Section 86B.501, subd. 2 requires the owner of a business that “rents, leases, or hires out watercraft” to provide a flotation device of the required type “for each person on board.” Chapter 86B also regulates motorboat rental businesses separately, and § 86B.313, subd. 4 requires personal watercraft dealers to distribute a summary of the PWC laws and to have each purchaser sign an acknowledgment, retained for six months.
- A host or landowner. Where the injury involves lake access, a dock, or shoreline use, the recreational land use statute may or may not shield the landowner, depending on permission and charge.
- The manufacturer. Ordinary product liability. The lanyard cutoff switch, the capacity plate under § 86B.505, the carbon monoxide detection system required by § 86B.532, and the backfire arrester under § 86B.525 are all statutory equipment points with product analogues.
- A liquor vendor, under the dram shop act.
Does federal admiralty law take over?
Usually not, but check before assuming.
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1333(1), the federal district courts have original jurisdiction, “exclusive of the courts of the States,” of “[a]ny civil case of admiralty or maritime jurisdiction, saving to suitors in all cases all other remedies to which they are otherwise entitled.” The saving-to-suitors clause is why an ordinary in personam boating claim can be brought in state court even where admiralty jurisdiction would exist. But whether federal maritime law supplies the rule of decision on navigable waters is a genuine question with real consequences — different damages rules, different apportionment, and potentially the shipowner’s limitation of liability statute. Lake Superior, the Mississippi, the St. Croix, and the boundary waters are where this arises. A crash on an inland recreational lake ordinarily does not raise it.
Flag it early, because the answer changes the forum analysis and, occasionally, the value of the case.
What to do in the first two weeks
- Identify the registered owner, not just the driver. Section 86B.341, subd. 2 is the reason. Pull the watercraft license and title records; “owner” is defined in § 86B.005, subd. 12 and includes a person entitled to use or possession subject to a security interest, but excludes a lessee under a lease not intended as security.
- Establish the family relationship if there is one. Spouse, parent, sibling, or child at the controls triggers the statutory presumption of consent, and the owner has to rebut it.
- Get the sheriff’s report and send preservation letters to the sheriff’s office, the DNR, and any marina or rental business involved.
- Ask for every policy, not just the boat policy. Homeowners, umbrella, and any watercraft policy. Then read the watercraft exclusion by horsepower and length — Torbert is what happens when nobody does.
- Do not open a no-fault claim, and tell the client why. There is no PIP. Health insurance is primary, and the subrogation lien needs to be identified now rather than at mediation.
- Check the operator’s permit status. Under the § 86B.30, subd. 3 phase-in, an operator born on or after July 1, 2000 needs a permit this season — and § 86B.303, subd. 4 makes the owner’s decision to let that person drive a violation in its own right.
- Preserve the video. Dock cameras, other boats’ phones, and marina fuel-dock footage all overwrite quickly.
The short version: chapter 86B gives the plaintiff a better owner-liability statute than the traffic code does, chapter 65B takes away every first-party benefit the client expects, and the case gets decided on ordinary negligence with a citation as prima facie evidence. Knowing which chapter answers which question is most of the work.
Madgett Law, LLC represents people injured in boating, personal watercraft, and other recreational vehicle crashes in Minnesota — including the owner-liability, coverage, and dram shop pieces that decide whether a serious injury case has a source of recovery at all. If you or a family member was hurt on the water, call 612-470-6529 or send us a message.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 86B.005, subds. 9 (motorboat), 10 (operate), 12 (owner), 14a (personal watercraft), 18 (watercraft), 19 (waters of this state). § 86B.30, subds. 2 (accompanying operator), 3 (adult operator — birth-year phase-in), 4 (exempt operator), 7 (young operator). § 86B.302, subds. 1, 3 (watercraft operator’s permit). § 86B.303, subds. 1, 2, 4, 5 (permit requirement; young-operator horsepower limits; owner may not allow operation contrary to the section; 25-horsepower exception). § 86B.311, subd. 1 (careless/heedless and reckless operation; equipment; capacity), subd. 5 (gunwales and decking). § 86B.313, subd. 1(a) (personal watercraft prohibitions), subd. 4 (dealer duties). § 86B.315, subds. 1–2 (observer or mirror when towing; night prohibition). § 86B.33, subds. 2(a)–(b), 3(a) (owner must not allow an impaired operator; motorboat operators subject to chapter 169A; misdemeanor). § 86B.341, subd. 1(a)–(b) (stop, render assistance, exchange information, report to the sheriff; reporting chain to DNR, DPS, and the Coast Guard), subd. 2(a)–(b) (owner and operator jointly and severally liable; consent exception; family presumption; other persons’ liability preserved). § 86B.501, subds. 1–3 (flotation devices; rental businesses; Grant Allen Law). § 86B.815, subds. 1–2 (violation is prima facie evidence of negligence, not negligence per se; conviction record inadmissible). § 65B.43, subds. 2 (motor vehicle), 16 (uninsured motor vehicle), 17 (underinsured motor vehicle), 18–19 (UM and UIM coverage). § 169.09, subd. 5a (driver deemed agent of owner), subd. 19(c) (off-highway vehicles and snowmobiles included as motor vehicles for purposes of that section). § 169.94, subd. 1 (conviction record inadmissible); § 169.96(b) (traffic violation is prima facie evidence of negligence). Minn. R. Evid. 803(22) and Committee Comment (judgment of previous conviction; guilty pleas as party admissions). 28 U.S.C. § 1333(1) (admiralty jurisdiction; saving to suitors). Torbert v. Anderson, 301 Minn. 339, 346, 222 N.W.2d 341 (1974) (homeowners watercraft exclusion; “premises” does not include a public lake; exclusion applies to a negligent-supervision theory). This article is general legal information about Minnesota law. It is not legal advice, it does not create an attorney–client relationship, and no outcome is promised or implied.