Here’s a Minnesota rule most parents have never heard of. If your 15-year-old smashes the neighbor’s windshield on purpose, the statute that makes you pay for it stops at $1,000. If your 17-year-old wrecks the neighbor’s car by accident, driving the family car with your permission, there’s no statutory cap at all.
On paper, the law goes easier on parents when the kid meant it. That sounds backwards, and in a way it is. But it’s because the $1,000 statute, and two later statutes that borrow it, are the only Minnesota laws I found that make a parent pay simply for being the parent. Everything else that reaches a parent’s wallet runs through something the parent did, or owns. None of those routes has a cap.
What the statute actually says
Minnesota’s parental liability statute is one paragraph:
The parent or guardian of a minor who is under the age of 18 and who is living with the parent or guardian and who willfully or maliciously causes injury to any person or damage to any property is jointly and severally liable with such minor for such injury or damage to an amount not exceeding $1,000, if such minor would have been liable for such injury or damage if the minor had been an adult. Nothing in this subdivision shall be construed to relieve such minor from personal liability for such injury or damage. The liability provided in this subdivision is in addition to and not in lieu of any other liability which may exist at law. Recovery under this section shall be limited to special damages.
— Minn. Stat. § 540.18, subd. 1 (emphasis added)
Take it apart and there’s less there than you’d think.
The child has to be under 18 and “living with the parent or guardian”. A parent the child doesn’t live with isn’t reached by this statute at all. The act has to be willful or malicious; a careless kid isn’t covered. The parent is liable “jointly and severally” with the child, which means the injured person can collect from either one, but the parent’s share stops at $1,000. The child stays personally liable for every dollar, cap or no cap. And recovery is “limited to special damages”, a term the statute doesn’t define.
Then there’s the sentence that matters most: the liability is “in addition to and not in lieu of any other liability which may exist at law.” The $1,000 isn’t a shield. It’s a floor that happens to be very low.
Subdivision 2 carves out one group: the statute “shall not apply to persons having custody or charge of any minor under the authority of the Human Services or Corrections Department of the state.” Minn. Stat. § 540.18, subd. 2. That reads to me as protecting people who have a child through a state placement. It doesn’t say anything about a parent who lost custody in a divorce. That parent drops out for a different reason: the child isn’t living with him.
What does “willfully or maliciously” mean? I couldn’t find a published Minnesota appellate decision construing those words in this statute. I searched CourtListener three ways and the web, and the only published opinion I found that even mentions § 540.18 is a 2006 restitution case, which I’ll get to. The Revisor’s index turns up those exact words in exactly one Minnesota statute: this one.
It was $100 in 1967, and it was supposed to expire
The Legislature passed this law in a 1967 special session. The cap was $100, and the last line of the act read: “This act shall expire July 1, 1969.” 1967 Minn. Laws Ex. Sess. ch. 41, §§ 1, 3. In 1969 the Legislature struck the expiration date and kept the $100. 1969 Minn. Laws ch. 803, § 1.
In 1980 it went to $500, in a juvenile-corrections bill whose title listed “increasing civil liability of parents for intentional acts of their children”. 1980 Minn. Laws ch. 580, § 22. In 1993 it went to $1,000, tucked into a crime-prevention bill that ran to fourteen articles. 1993 Minn. Laws ch. 326, art. 6, § 5. That’s where it’s been for thirty-three years.
Somebody tried in 1999. Senate File 1598 would have made the cap “$5,000 per incident,” spelled out that property damage includes graffiti, and made parents liable for court-ordered restitution. It was introduced on March 10, 1999, referred to the Crime Prevention committee, and never moved again.
By the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ consumer price index, $1,000 in 1993 had about the buying power of $2,230 in 2025. The cap has been shrinking almost every year it sits still.
The same 1993 omnibus bill also created the crime of negligent firearm storage, which I’ll come back to. 1993 Minn. Laws ch. 326, art. 1, § 18.
The routes around the cap
If the $1,000 statute isn’t the only liability “which may exist at law”, what else is there? Here’s the map.
| Route | What has to be true | Cap on the parent |
|---|---|---|
| § 540.18 | Child under 18, living with the parent, willful or malicious act | $1,000, special damages only |
| The parent’s own negligence | Parent knew or should have known the child was dangerous, could control the child, and didn’t | None |
| The family car, § 169.09, subd. 5a | Anyone drives the parent’s car with consent and causes a crash | None in the statute |
| The family dog, § 347.22 | The dog injures someone acting peaceably where they may lawfully be, without provocation | None (“the full amount of the injury sustained”) |
| Theft, § 604.14 | Child steals personal property | $1,000, but not limited to special damages |
| Graffiti, § 617.90 | Child places graffiti on property | The § 540.18 amount |
The parent’s own negligence. The common-law rule is that being the parent isn’t enough. The supreme court said so in 1973: “Although parents under the common law are generally not held liable in damages for the torts of their minor children solely because of that relationship, where the parents cause the tort to occur through their own negligence, they may be held liable for the damages.” Republic Vanguard Ins. Co. v. Buehl, 295 Minn. 327, 330, 204 N.W.2d 426 (1973). The case involved a 16-year-old on a motorcycle his parents allegedly let him buy despite his “bad driving habits.” Id. at 328–30. The court laid out what has to be proved: the parents knew, or had reason to know, “of the necessity and opportunity for exercising such control” and were “chargeable with knowledge of the dangerous or violent propensities of the child.” Id. at 332. In the court’s short version, the liability “arises from his active parental misconduct in creating an unreasonable risk of harm to others by placing an instrumentality into the hands of a minor child who the parents know, or ought to know, is unable to utilize it without endangering innocent third parties.” Id.
That’s a real hurdle. A parent whose kid has never done anything like this before has a good answer. A parent who handed the keys, or the gun, to a kid with a track record doesn’t. And when it works, there’s no $1,000 anywhere in it.
Guns. Minnesota makes it a gross misdemeanor to negligently store or leave a loaded firearm “in a location where the person knows, or reasonably should know, that a child is likely to gain access, unless reasonable action is taken to secure the firearm against access by the child.” Minn. Stat. § 609.666, subd. 2. That section is a crime and says nothing about a civil claim. The civil claim is the Buehl theory, and the supreme court recognized it for firearms back in 1931, in a case about a father who gave his son a .22-caliber pistol. Buehl, 295 Minn. at 331 (discussing Clarine v. Addison, 182 Minn. 310, 234 N.W. 295 (1931)). The father won that one, but only because the record didn’t show the son was careless with guns. Id.
The family car. When anyone drives your car with your consent, “express or implied,” the driver “shall in case of accident, be deemed the agent of the owner”. Minn. Stat. § 169.09, subd. 5a. There’s no dollar figure in that subdivision. I wrote about how far it reaches at /news/minnesota-vehicle-owner-liability/.
The family dog. If a dog, without provocation, attacks or injures someone “acting peaceably in any place where the person may lawfully be,” the owner is liable “to the full amount of the injury sustained”, and “owner” includes anyone “harboring or keeping a dog”. Minn. Stat. § 347.22. If the family dog is the problem, that statute is the one to worry about, not § 540.18. More at /news/minnesota-dog-bite-statute/.
Shoplifting and graffiti. The Legislature wrote § 540.18 into two later statutes, and gave it two different effects. The civil theft statute applies § 540.18 “except that recovery is not limited to special damages.” Minn. Stat. § 604.14, subd. 3. I covered how that plays out at /news/minnesota-conversion-civil-theft-604-14/. The graffiti statute lets a property owner recover “three times the cost of restoring the property” from the person who did it, and from “the parent of a minor individual”, but “[t]he liability of the parent is limited to the amount specified in section 540.18.” Minn. Stat. § 617.90, subd. 2. So the kid owes triple. The parent owes up to $1,000.
Does signing your teenager’s license application make you liable?
Not in Minnesota, as far as I can find. Minnesota does require a parent’s sign-off: a minor’s application “must be approved by” a parent, guardian, or another listed adult. Minn. Stat. § 171.05, subd. 2(a)(4). But I couldn’t find any statute that attaches liability to that signature. I read the application sections and searched the Revisor’s index of the 2026 statutes three ways, for “imputed to the person”, “negligence of the minor”, and every section making someone “jointly and severally liable” with a minor. The last search returns one statute: § 540.18.
That doesn’t mean the parent is off the hook in the crash. If the parent owns the car, § 169.09, subdivision 5a does the work the signature doesn’t.
Juvenile court restitution runs against the kid
If the child is charged and found delinquent, the juvenile court has its own remedy. If the child “is found to have violated a state or local law or ordinance which has resulted in damage to the person or property of another, the court may order the child to make reasonable restitution for such damage”. Minn. Stat. § 260B.198, subd. 1(a)(5). Notice who the order runs against. The child. The 1999 bill would have let the court make parents liable for restitution too. It never moved past the committee it was referred to.
Restitution doesn’t cost the victim the lawsuit. The court “may not require that the victim waive or otherwise forfeit any rights or causes of action as a condition of granting restitution or partial restitution.” Minn. Stat. § 611A.04, subd. 1(c).
The one published opinion I found mentioning § 540.18 shows both tracks running at once. A dispute over fireworks in June 2002 ended with a teenager punching another person, whose skull fractured on the pavement; he needed emergency brain surgery and spent ten days in a medically induced coma. He sued the teenager, and sued the teenager’s parents as his guardians under § 540.18. The suit settled for $50,000, releasing the teenager and his parents. Then the juvenile court ordered the teenager to pay the victim’s own parents $10,663.49 in restitution, including the value of the accrued leave his father used to be with him in the hospital. The Court of Appeals affirmed: the victim’s parents weren’t parties to the settlement, so it didn’t cover them. In re Welfare of M.R.H., 716 N.W.2d 349, 350–53 (Minn. Ct. App. 2006). The three recoveries a crime victim has, and how they offset each other, are at /news/minnesota-crime-victim-civil-remedies-611a/.
What about the school?
I looked for a statute giving a school district a special remedy against a student or parent for damaging school property. I searched the Revisor’s index for “damage to school property” and two broader phrasings and didn’t find one. What chapter 123B does say is narrower: a school board “may charge fees for textbooks, workbooks, and library books, lost or destroyed by students”, and must notify parents of that policy every year. Minn. Stat. § 123B.37, subd. 1(b). And a district can’t hold a kid’s grades or diploma hostage over unpaid fees: “No pupil’s rights or privileges, including the receipt of grades or diplomas may be denied or abridged for nonpayment of fees”. Id., subd. 2. Beyond that, a district damaged by a student is a property owner like any other, and § 540.18 doesn’t exclude it.
Will homeowner’s insurance cover it?
Sometimes, and Buehl is the reason a negligence theory matters so much here. Buehl was an insurance case. The parents’ homeowner’s policy excluded injuries from motor vehicles away from the premises, and the carrier refused to defend. The supreme court held the carrier had no duty to defend the claims built on the son’s driving, but it did have to defend the claim against the parents for their own negligent supervision, “even though such action may prove to be ‘groundless, false or fraudulent.’” 295 Minn. at 333.
A willful act is a harder fight. Expect the carrier to point to whatever its policy says about injury the insured intended or expected. Whether a teenager’s “willful” act falls inside that language turns on the policy’s own words, so read the actual policy, not a summary of it.
How long the injured person has
The clock depends on the claim. Actions “for libel, slander, assault, battery, false imprisonment, or other tort resulting in personal injury” generally have two years. Minn. Stat. § 541.07(1). Actions “for taking, detaining, or injuring personal property” have six. Minn. Stat. § 541.05, subd. 1(4). A negligence claim for the injury itself falls under the six-year catch-all for “any other injury to the person or rights of another, not arising on contract, and not hereinafter enumerated”. Minn. Stat. § 541.05, subd. 1(5). Those are the starting points, not the whole answer; I covered the rest of Minnesota’s limitation periods at /news/minnesota-statutes-of-limitations-civil-claims/.
The bottom line is a little upside down. Minnesota’s statute about parents paying for their kids caps the bill for the kid who meant it. The parent who should lose sleep is the one who handed over the keys.
Madgett Law, LLC
Madgett Law, LLC represents people hurt in Minnesota, and the question of who besides the person who caused the harm can be made to pay is often the one that decides whether a claim is worth bringing. That can be a parent, a vehicle owner, a dog owner, or an insurer. Read about our personal injury practice, then send us a message.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 540.18, subd. 1 (parent or guardian of a minor living with them; willful or malicious; joint and several to $1,000; minor remains liable; in addition to other liability; special damages), subd. 2 (persons with custody under Human Services or Corrections authority); 1967 Minn. Laws Ex. Sess. ch. 41, §§ 1–3 ($100; expiration July 1, 1969); 1969 Minn. Laws ch. 803, § 1 (expiration struck); 1980 Minn. Laws ch. 580, § 22 ($500) and title; 1993 Minn. Laws ch. 326, art. 6, § 5 ($1,000), art. 1, § 18 (enacting § 609.666); S.F. 1598, 81st Leg. (1999) (bill text and Senate status page); U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI-U, U.S. city average, all items (series CUUR0000SA0), 1993 and 2025 annual averages; Minn. Stat. § 609.666, subd. 2 (negligent storage of firearms); Minn. Stat. § 169.09, subd. 5a (driver deemed agent of owner); Minn. Stat. § 347.22 (dog owner liable for the full amount of the injury); Minn. Stat. § 604.14, subd. 3 (§ 540.18 applies to civil theft without the special-damages limit); Minn. Stat. § 617.90, subd. 2 (graffiti; treble damages; parent’s liability limited to the § 540.18 amount); Minn. Stat. § 171.05, subd. 2(a)(4) (parental approval of a minor’s application); Revisor of Statutes search index, 2026 Minnesota Statutes, searched for “imputed to the person”, “negligence of the minor”, “jointly severally liable minor”, “willfully or maliciously”, “damage to school property”, and related phrasings; Minn. Stat. § 260B.198, subd. 1(a)(5) (restitution by the child); Minn. Stat. § 611A.04, subd. 1(c) (restitution not conditioned on waiver of causes of action); Minn. Stat. § 123B.37, subd. 1(b) (fees for lost or destroyed books), subd. 2 (grades and diplomas); Minn. Stat. § 541.07(1) (two years); Minn. Stat. § 541.05, subd. 1(4) (six years), subd. 1(5) (six years; any other injury to the person or rights of another); Republic Vanguard Ins. Co. v. Buehl, 295 Minn. 327, 328–33, 204 N.W.2d 426 (1973); In re Welfare of M.R.H., 716 N.W.2d 349, 350–53 (Minn. Ct. App. 2006). This article is general information about Minnesota law, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship, and no outcome is promised or implied.