The most common thing a client says after learning a claim is time-barred is that they did not know they had one. In Minnesota that is, as a rule, irrelevant.
The Minnesota Supreme Court has said so twice in language that leaves no room: in the absence of fraudulent concealment, “the running of the statute is not tolled by ignorance of the cause of action,” Herrmann v. McMenomy & Severson, 590 N.W.2d 641, 643 (Minn. 1999), and “[w]e have also rejected the discovery rule,” Antone v. Mirviss, 720 N.W.2d 331, 335 (Minn. 2006).
That leaves a short and technical list of things that do stop the clock. This article walks that list — Minn. Stat. § 541.15’s four disabilities, § 541.13, § 541.16, fraudulent concealment, and equitable estoppel — and flags the traps in each. Three of them are counterintuitive enough to be worth stating up front:
- Minority tolling protects the minor and nobody else. The parents’ own claim for the child’s medical expenses runs on the ordinary clock and dies while the child’s claim is still alive.
- Appointing a conservator does not end an incapacitated plaintiff’s disability. The statute names the disability as insanity, not inability to sue.
- Repair promises do not toll anything. The Supreme Court has said this is estoppel, not tolling — and estoppel requires the claimant to show due diligence after the reliance ended, which tolling does not.
For the periods themselves, see how long you have to sue in Minnesota. This article is about what interrupts them.
When does the clock start?
Minn. Stat. § 541.01 sets the frame: “Actions can only be commenced within the periods prescribed in this chapter, after the cause of action accrues, except where a different limitation is prescribed by the Uniform Commercial Code or, in special cases, by other statute”.
Accrual has a precise test:
A cause of action accrues and the statute of limitations begins to run when the cause of action will survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.
Herrmann, 590 N.W.2d at 643. And because every tort claim needs damages, accrual is really a question about when damage happened. Minnesota answers it with the “some damage” rule, which Antone placed between the two alternatives most states pick:
Minnesota has taken the middle ground by adopting the “damage” rule of accrual
Antone, 720 N.W.2d at 335–36. The court rejected the occurrence rule (clock starts at the negligent act, damage or not) and the discovery rule (clock starts when the plaintiff knows) and settled on the point where any compensable harm exists:
Accordingly, we conclude that the rule that is the most logical and consistent with our precedent is that a cause of action accrues, and the statute of limitations begins to run, on the occurrence of any compensable damage, whether specifically identified in the complaint or not.
Id. at 336. Any compensable damage — not the damage you are suing about. Antone’s lawyer drafted an antenuptial agreement that failed to protect the appreciation on his premarital property. Antone did not lose a dollar until a dissolution court divided that appreciation sixteen years later. The court held the clock started on his wedding day, because from that moment his property was exposed: “it was a fully-matured briar patch.” Id. at 338.
Two corollaries that decide cases:
- Not knowing the number does not help. “[t]he running of the statute does not depend on the ability to ascertain the exact amount of damages.” Herrmann, 590 N.W.2d at 643.
- Not knowing anything does not help either. Id. (“in the absence of fraudulent concealment, the running of the statute is not tolled by ignorance of the cause of action”).
Is there a discovery rule in Minnesota?
Only where the legislature wrote one. There is no general judicial discovery rule; Antone and Herrmann both refused to adopt one. What exists instead is a handful of statute-specific accrual provisions:
- Fraud. Minn. Stat. § 541.05, subd. 1(6), gives six years “for relief on the ground of fraud, in which case the cause of action shall not be deemed to have accrued until the discovery by the aggrieved party of the facts constituting the fraud”. This is a statutory accrual rule, not tolling — a distinction that matters when a defendant argues the plaintiff’s own negligence should defeat it.
- Improvements to real property. Minn. Stat. § 541.051, subd. 1(c), provides that “a cause of action accrues: (1) for a bodily injury or wrongful death action, upon discovery of the injury; and (2) for an action for injury to real or personal property, upon discovery of the injury,” subject to a floor at substantial completion, termination, or abandonment.
- Sexual abuse. Minn. Stat. § 541.073 sets its own periods, discussed in Minnesota’s civil statute for sexual abuse claims.
For the broader problem of deadlines that turn on a contested fact rather than a date, see the Minnesota deadlines that ruin cases.
What does § 541.15 actually suspend?
Minn. Stat. § 541.15, paragraph (a):
Except as provided in paragraph (b), any of the following grounds of disability, existing at the time when a cause of action accrued or arising anytime during the period of limitation, shall suspend the running of the period of limitation until the same is removed; provided that such period, except in the case of infancy, shall not be extended for more than five years, nor in any case for more than one year after the disability ceases:
(1) that the plaintiff is within the age of 18 years;
(2) the plaintiff’s insanity;
(3) is an alien and the subject or citizen of a country at war with the United States;
(4) when the beginning of the action is stayed by injunction or by statutory prohibition.
Four things in that text get missed.
First, the disability need not exist at accrual. It suspends the clock if it exists “at the time when a cause of action accrued or arising anytime during the period of limitation”. A plaintiff who is competent when injured and incapacitated eighteen months later gets the suspension from the date of incapacity. That language was added by amendment in 1974; before then, a disability arising after accrual did nothing. See Harrington v. County of Ramsey, 279 N.W.2d 791, 797 n.6 (Minn. 1979).
Second, clause (4) is not obsolete and not narrow. “[W]hen the beginning of the action is stayed by injunction or by statutory prohibition” covers the bankruptcy automatic stay, a receivership order barring suit, and any statute that forbids commencing an action until some prerequisite is met. It is the one clause in § 541.15 that regularly applies to sophisticated commercial parties, and it is the one nobody reads.
Third, coexisting disabilities do not run concurrently to the plaintiff’s detriment. “If two or more disabilities shall coexist, the suspension shall continue until all are removed.”
Fourth, the disability provisions are construed generously. The Court of Appeals has said the § 541.15 exceptions “are remedial, and should be liberally construed,” Talley ex rel. Talley v. Portland Residence, Inc., 582 N.W.2d 590, 591 (Minn. App. 1998) (quoting Nebola v. Minnesota Iron Co., 102 Minn. 89, 91, 112 N.W. 880, 880 (1907)).
The five-year cap, and the comma that exempts childhood
The proviso in paragraph (a) contains two separate ceilings and one exception:
- the suspension may not extend the period more than five years — “except in the case of infancy”; and
- it may not extend the period “in any case” more than one year after the disability ceases.
For an adult plaintiff under a mental disability, that produces arithmetic the Court of Appeals worked out explicitly. In Talley, a six-year personal-injury period plus the five-year cap meant “[t]he limitations period on his claims, therefore, expires 11 years (6 + 5 years) after the cause of action accrued in 1990.” 582 N.W.2d at 592.
For a minor, the five-year cap does not apply at all — the statute says so — but the one-year ceiling still does. The Supreme Court has stated the resulting rule directly:
Under the minority tolling statute, Minn. Stat. § 541.15(a)(1) (2000), when a negligence action accrues during a plaintiff’s infancy, the plaintiff must commence the action either within one year of reaching the age of majority or within the six-year period of limitation, whichever is later.
D.M.S. v. Barber, 645 N.W.2d 383, 386–87 (Minn. 2002).
Whichever is later is the operative phrase, and it cuts both ways. A child injured at age two under a six-year statute has until age nineteen — the tolling adds years. A person injured at seventeen and a half has until roughly age twenty-three and a half, because the ordinary six-year period runs longer than one year past majority, and § 541.15 only ever extends a period; it never shortens one. The mistake to avoid is assuming a minor plaintiff gets the full limitations period measured from the eighteenth birthday. That is not the rule.
(The other point D.M.S. is famous for — how § 541.073 treats a child’s knowledge of sexual abuse — should not be relied on today. Section 541.073 has been amended twice since that 2002 decision, at 2013 c 89 s 1 and 1Sp2021 c 11 art 4 s 31, and its current subdivision 2 no longer works the way the 2002 version did.)
Whose claim does minority tolling save?
Only the minor’s. This is the most expensive trap in the section, and the Supreme Court answered it on a certified question from the District of Minnesota.
A nineteen-month-old was severely burned. Nearly eight years later, the child and his parents sued the pajama manufacturers. Everyone agreed the child’s claim was timely. The parents also had claims — their own, for the medical expenses they paid and the services they lost. The court held those were gone:
Only those individuals possessing the disabilities described will have their claims, or causes of action, preserved by Minn. Stat. § 541.15.
Ostrander ex rel. Ostrander v. Cone Mills, Inc., 445 N.W.2d 240, 241 (Minn. 1989). Calling the parents’ claim derivative did not save it. That label, the court said, “may tell us that a plaintiff’s claim is dependent on proof of an underlying tort if that claim is to succeed,” but “it offers no reason why those who do not suffer from a disability should receive the benefit of the tolling statute.” Id. at 242.
The practical consequence for anyone handling an injury to a child: the parents’ medical-expense and loss-of-services claim has an ordinary deadline running from the injury. It has to be filed on that schedule or lost, even though the child’s claim can wait. Two dissenting justices in Ostrander pointed out that this forces duplicative litigation. The majority answered that the argument belonged in the legislature, and the legislature has not taken it up.
What counts as “insanity”?
The Supreme Court gave the definition in Harrington:
We hold that under the statute insanity means substantial inability, by reason of mental defect or deficiency, to understand one’s legal rights, manage one’s affairs, and prosecute the claim.
279 N.W.2d at 795. Three refinements from the same opinion and from Talley:
It does not require severe illness. The court said expressly that insanity in this context “need not be severe lunacy or idiocy.” But a brief episode qualifies “only if such short occasions substantially impair the general ability of the plaintiff to understand her rights, manage her affairs, and prosecute the claim,” and that turns on “the duration of the mental illness or defect as compared to the time within which suit must be brought.” Id. at 795–96.
Hiring a lawyer is evidence against it. “[R]etention of counsel is evidence, although not conclusive, of a person’s sanity or legal capacity for the purpose of the running of the statute of limitations.” Id. at 796. So is a guardianship or commitment record — as evidence, not as proof. Id.
Appointing a conservator does not end it. This is the holding practitioners get backwards. In Talley, the district court reasoned that once a conservator was appointed with authority to sue, the plaintiff’s disability was over and the clock resumed. The Court of Appeals reversed:
We hold, therefore, that legal disability, as defined by Minn. Stat. § 541.15(a), does not cease with the appointment of a conservator.
582 N.W.2d at 592. The reasoning is textual: the statute names the disability as insanity, not as an inability to sue, and appointing a conservator does not cure a mental impairment. The court also noted the parallel with minors, who may sue on reaching majority even though a parent or guardian could have sued for them all along, citing Cook v. Connolly, 366 N.W.2d 287, 289 (Minn. 1985).
The corollary matters for defense counsel: a conservator who sits on a claim for years does not start the clock by being appointed. It also matters for plaintiff’s counsel, who should not assume a late-appointed conservatorship rescued a claim — the disability, not the appointment, is what suspends.
Medical malpractice: the infancy exception disappears
Paragraph (b) of § 541.15 carves health care providers out of paragraph (a)’s scheme:
In actions alleging malpractice, error, mistake, or failure to cure, whether based on contract or tort, against a health care provider, the ground of disability specified in paragraph (a), clause (1), suspends the period of limitation until the disability is removed. The suspension may not be extended for more than seven years, or for more than one year after the disability ceases.
Read that against paragraph (a). In an ordinary case, infancy is the one disability with no outer cap on the length of the suspension. Against a health care provider, infancy gets a seven-year cap. The legislature took the exception away in the one category of case where it would most often be invoked — a birth injury, where the plaintiff is disabled from day one.
The definition of “health care provider” in paragraph (b) is its own subject: “a physician, surgeon, dentist, or other health care professional or hospital, including all persons or entities providing health care as defined in section 145.61, subdivisions 2 and 4, or a certified health care professional employed by or providing services as an independent contractor in a hospital.”
The underlying periods are elsewhere and are not uniform. Minn. Stat. § 541.076(b) requires an action against a health care provider alleging “malpractice, error, mistake, or failure to cure” to be commenced “within four years from the date the cause of action accrued.” Section 541.07(1) still supplies a two-year period for the professionals § 541.076 does not cover — it names veterinarians expressly. Anyone computing a minor’s malpractice deadline should run both caps in paragraph (b) and take the earlier result. See Minnesota medical malpractice deadlines.
Section 541.13: absence from the state is not the safety net people think
This section is often described as repealed or dead. It is neither — Minn. Stat. § 541.13 is in force, last amended in 1976. But the 1976 amendment narrowed it so severely that it almost never applies to a modern defendant:
When a cause of action accrues against a person who is out of the state and while out of the state is not subject to process under the laws of this state or after diligent search the person cannot be found for the purpose of personal service when personal service is required, an action may be commenced within the times herein limited after the person’s return to the state; and if, after a cause of action accrues, the person departs from and resides out of the state and while out of the state is not subject to process under the laws of this state or after diligent search the person cannot be found for the purpose of personal service when personal service is required, the time of the person’s absence is not part of the time limited for the commencement of the action.
Being out of state is not the trigger. The defendant must also be either (a) not subject to process under Minnesota law, or (b) unfindable for personal service after diligent search. Minnesota’s long-arm statute reaches most out-of-state defendants who did anything here, and once long-arm jurisdiction exists, the defendant is subject to process and § 541.13 does nothing. Treat this section as a doctrine for absconding individual defendants, not for corporate defendants headquartered elsewhere.
Section 541.16: what a death does to the clock
Two separate rules, one in each direction:
If the death of a person occurs within the last year of the period of limitation for the commencement of an action, the action may be commenced by the personal representative at any time within one year after such death. If a cause of action survives against a decedent, which is not required by law to be presented as a claim against the decedent’s estate, an action may be brought thereon against the personal representative of the decedent at any time within one year after death or within the limitation period otherwise prescribed, whichever is longer.
Minn. Stat. § 541.16. The first sentence helps a plaintiff’s estate only if the death falls in the final year of the period — a death in year two of a six-year claim buys nothing. The second helps a claimant suing a decedent’s estate, but only for causes of action not required to be presented as claims in the probate proceeding, which is a narrower set than it sounds.
Note also that a wrongful death action is not governed by § 541.16 at all. Minn. Stat. § 573.02, subd. 1, sets the periods: three years from death for a death caused by professional negligence of the listed providers, “but in no event shall be commenced beyond the time set forth in section 541.076”; any time for a death caused by an intentional act constituting murder; and for everything else, three years from death “provided that the action must be commenced within six years after the act or omission.” That last clause is an outer bar measured from the conduct, not the death.
Fraudulent concealment
This is the doctrine Herrmann was carving out when it said ignorance does not toll “in the absence of fraudulent concealment”. The Supreme Court set out the general rule in Wild v. Rarig, 302 Minn. 419, 234 N.W.2d 775 (1975), cataloguing authority “for the general rule that for most causes of action fraudulent concealment of the existence of a cause of action will toll the statute of limitations, postponing the commencement of the running of the statute until discovery or reasonable opportunity for discovery of the fact by the exercise of ordinary diligence.” 302 Minn. at 450, 234 N.W.2d at 795. In the defamation context before it, the court put the same rule this way:
Fraudulent concealment of a defamatory publication will toll the 2-year statute of limitations until discovery or reasonable opportunity for discovery of the publication by the exercise of ordinary diligence.
Id. The party asserting concealment carries the burden of showing that reasonable diligence would not have turned it up sooner and that the failure was not the party’s own negligence. 302 Minn. at 450–51, 234 N.W.2d at 795.
Fifteen years later the court narrowed the doctrine in a way that defeats most attempts to use it:
However, it does so only if it is the very existence of the facts which establish the cause of action which are fraudulently concealed.
Hydra-Mac, Inc. v. Onan Corp., 450 N.W.2d 913, 918–19 (Minn. 1990) (citing Wild). And:
Merely establishing that a defendant had intentionally concealed the alleged defects is insufficient; the claimant must establish that it was actually unaware that the defect existed before a finding of fraudulent concealment can be sustained.
Id. at 919. The claimant in Hydra-Mac knew its engines were defective; what it said was concealed was that the defect was permanent. That was not enough:
A party need not know the details of the evidence establishing the cause of action, only that the cause of action exists.
Id. Concealment of the extent, the severity, or the incurability of a known problem is not fraudulent concealment. Concealment of the existence of the claim is.
Equitable estoppel is not tolling — and the difference is a due-diligence requirement
Litigants routinely say a defendant’s repair promises or settlement assurances “tolled” the statute. The Supreme Court has said that is the wrong label, and the labeling is not academic.
In Hydra-Mac the court declined to decide whether promises to repair toll a limitations period and resolved the case on estoppel instead, explaining in a footnote that “we deem this not to be a tolling question but rather an estoppel issue.” 450 N.W.2d at 920 n.5. It also flagged that the underlying premise had never been adopted here: “We have never specifically held that promises by a seller to make repairs may give rise to equitable estoppel or toll the statute of limitations.” Id. at 919.
The elements it applied, in the limitations context, are three:
A party seeking to invoke the doctrine of equitable estoppel has the burden of proving three elements: (1) that promises or inducements were made; (2) that it reasonably relied upon the promises; and, (3) that it will be harmed if estoppel is not applied.
Id. (citing Northern Petrochemical Co. v. U.S. Fire Ins. Co., 277 N.W.2d 408, 410 (Minn. 1979)).
Element two is where cases are lost. Reasonableness of reliance imports a diligence inquiry that has no analogue in tolling:
Thus, invocation of equitable estoppel may be denied when the party asserting it has failed to exercise due diligence in filing its action after the grounds giving rise to the claimed estoppel have ceased to exist.
Id. The court remanded for a trial limited to whether the plaintiff acted diligently after it knew the repair promises had been breached — and instructed that if the jury found it had not, the claims were barred. That is a burden a tolling statute would never impose. Under § 541.15 the plaintiff shows a disability and the clock stops; under estoppel the plaintiff shows reliance and has to explain the delay after the reliance ended.
The Court of Appeals applied the doctrine to a residential construction defect in Rhee v. Golden Home Builders, Inc., 617 N.W.2d 618 (Minn. App. 2000), where a builder made repeated repair attempts and assurances while the limitations period ran:
When a party allegedly responsible for remedying a defect in real property makes assurances or representations that the defect will be repaired, that party may be estopped from asserting a statute-of-limitations defense if the injured party reasonably and detrimentally relied on the assurances or representations.
Id. at 622 (citing Hydra-Mac and Mutual Service Life Insurance Co. v. Galaxy Builders, Inc., 435 N.W.2d 136, 140–41 (Minn. App. 1989)). Two procedural points from Rhee are worth more to a practitioner than the holding:
- “Estoppel depends on the facts of each case and ordinarily presents a question for the jury.” Id. (quoting Brenner v. Nordby, 306 N.W.2d 126, 127 (Minn. 1981)).
- “The application of equitable estoppel is a question of fact unless only one inference can be drawn from the facts.” Id.
Which means an estoppel argument, properly pleaded with evidence of specific assurances, is usually enough to survive summary judgment — the opposite of the tolling arguments in this article, most of which are decided as questions of law.
The classic long-form statement of the elements, which Rhee quoted, comes from Lunning v. Land O’Lakes, 303 N.W.2d 452, 457 (Minn. 1980), a statute-of-frauds case. It begins: “There must be conduct — acts, language or silence — amounting to a representation or a concealment of material facts.” Lunning also confirms the element defendants attack first: a “representation or concealment of material fact is an indispensable element of equitable estoppel.” Id. at 458 (quoting W. H. Barber Co. v. McNamara-Vivant Contracting Co., 293 N.W.2d 351, 357 (Minn. 1979)). Silence alone can satisfy it, but only where the circumstances make silence a representation.
Tolling does not reach a statute of repose
A limitations period governs when you may file. A repose period governs whether a claim comes into existence at all. Section 541.15 by its terms suspends only “the running of the period of limitation”.
Minnesota’s best-known repose provision is written to sit outside that language. Minn. Stat. § 541.051, subd. 1(a), gives two years from accrual for construction-defect claims and then adds: “nor in any event shall such a cause of action accrue more than ten years after substantial completion of the construction.” The section then forecloses borrowed extensions: “Nothing in this section shall be construed as extending the period prescribed by the laws of this state for the bringing of any action.” Subd. 3. See Minnesota’s construction defect repose provision.
No decision retrieved for this article squarely holds that § 541.15 cannot reach § 541.051’s ten-year clause, and a practitioner should treat the question as one to brief rather than one to assume. But the structural evidence is strong, and it comes from the legislature itself: where Minnesota has wanted a repose period suspended, it has said so in terms. Minn. Stat. § 327A.02, subd. 4(b) — added to the statutory home-warranty scheme — provides that “[t]he applicable statute of limitations and statute of repose for an action based on breach of a warranty imposed by this section, or any other action in contract, tort, or other law for any injury to real or personal property or bodily injury or wrongful death arising out of the alleged loss or damage, is tolled” from the date the owner’s written notice is postmarked or received until the later of completion of the § 327A.051 dispute resolution process or 180 days. A legislature that names statutes of repose expressly when it wants them tolled has told you something about the statutes where it did not.
The step that saves more claims than any tolling doctrine
Before litigating tolling, check whether the case was actually commenced when everyone assumes. In Minnesota, filing is not commencement:
A civil action is commenced against each defendant:
(a) when the summons is served upon that defendant; or
(b) at the date of signing a waiver of service pursuant to Rule 4.05; or
(c) when the summons is delivered for service to the sheriff in the county where the defendant resides personally, by U.S. Mail (postage prepaid), by commercial courier with proof of delivery, or by electronic means consented to by the sheriff’s office either in writing or electronically; but such delivery shall be ineffectual unless within 60 days thereafter the summons is actually served on that defendant or the first publication thereof is made.
Minn. R. Civ. P. 3.01 (amended effective September 1, 2020). Two practical consequences:
- You do not need the court to save a claim on the last day. Serving the summons stops the clock. There is no filing fee to pay and no clerk to reach.
- Delivery to the sheriff buys sixty days — conditionally. Subdivision (c) treats the action as commenced on delivery to the sheriff of the county where the defendant resides, but the delivery “shall be ineffectual” unless actual service or first publication follows within sixty days. The 2020 amendment spelled out the acceptable delivery methods; the committee comment notes the rule “intentionally does not authorize delivery to the sheriff in the proper county by facsimile.”
Rule 3.01 also cross-references the filing obligation: “Filing requirements are set forth in Rule 5.04, which requires filing with the court within one year after commencement for non-family cases.” Timely service without timely filing produces a different disaster, but not a limitations one.
The order to check things in
- When did some damage occur? Not when it was discovered, not when it was quantified. Antone, 720 N.W.2d at 336.
- Is there a statute-specific accrual rule? § 541.05, subd. 1(6) for fraud; § 541.051, subd. 1(c) for improvements to real property; § 541.073 for sexual abuse.
- Was there a § 541.15 disability at accrual or during the period? Minority, insanity, enemy alien status, or a stay by injunction or statutory prohibition.
- Whose claim is it? § 541.15 saves only the disabled person’s claim. Ostrander, 445 N.W.2d at 241.
- Which cap applies? Five years for adults with the one-year-after-removal ceiling; no five-year cap for infancy but still the one-year ceiling, and the deadline is one year after majority or the ordinary period, whichever is later; seven years where the defendant is a health care provider. §§ 541.15(a), (b); D.M.S., 645 N.W.2d at 386–87.
- Was the existence of the claim concealed — not just its severity? Hydra-Mac, 450 N.W.2d at 918–19.
- Were there assurances? If so, plead equitable estoppel, and be prepared to account for the time after the assurances stopped. Id. at 919–20; Rhee, 617 N.W.2d at 622.
- Is the outer bar a limitations period or a repose period? They behave differently, and the tolling arguments that work on one may not reach the other.
- Was the action commenced by service, and when? Minn. R. Civ. P. 3.01.
For federal civil rights claims, which borrow Minnesota’s personal-injury period, see the limitations period for section 1983 claims in Minnesota.
The observation
Minnesota’s tolling law reflects a choice courts here have made repeatedly and explicitly: between a plaintiff who did not know and a defendant who would have to defend a stale claim, the defendant wins unless a statute says otherwise or the defendant caused the ignorance. Antone rejected the discovery rule while acknowledging that Antone himself had no way to know his antenuptial agreement was defective. Herrmann barred a claim the clients could not have discovered until the IRS told them. Neither result is an accident.
The practical lesson is not that tolling arguments are hopeless. It is that they are narrow and provable — a birth certificate, a physician’s records, a bankruptcy stay order, a letter promising repairs — and that a lawyer who is thinking about tolling is already too late to the calendar. The best tolling doctrine in Minnesota is service of a summons.
Madgett Law, LLC litigates limitations and accrual questions on both sides — establishing that a claim was timely commenced, and defending claims that were not. That work includes disability tolling under Minn. Stat. § 541.15, fraudulent concealment, equitable estoppel arising from repair or settlement assurances, and the accrual analysis that decides most of these disputes before any tolling doctrine is reached. If a deadline may already have passed, the analysis is worth doing now rather than after a motion is filed. Send us a message or call 612-470-6529.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 541.01 (actions commenced only within the periods prescribed, after accrual; UCC and special-statute exceptions); § 541.05, subd. 1(5) (six years for other injury to the person or rights of another), subd. 1(6) (fraud; accrual on discovery of the facts constituting the fraud); § 541.051, subd. 1(a) (two-year period and the ten-year no-accrual clause), subd. 1(c) (accrual upon discovery of the injury), subd. 3 (nothing in the section extends any other period); § 541.07(1) (two years for the listed torts and for veterinarian malpractice); § 541.073, subd. 2 (current limitations periods for sexual abuse claims; history line 1989 c 190 s 2; 1991 c 232 s 1; 2013 c 89 s 1; 1Sp2021 c 11 art 4 s 31, showing two amendments after D.M.S. was decided); § 541.076(b) (four years for actions against a health care provider); § 541.13 (absence from the state; tolling only where the absent person is not subject to process or cannot be found for personal service after diligent search; history line (9200) RL s 4082; 1976 c 153 s 1; 1986 c 444 — the section is in force, not repealed); § 541.15, paragraph (a) (the four grounds of disability; suspension where the disability exists at accrual or arises during the period; the five-year cap with its infancy exception; the one-year-after-removal ceiling; coexisting disabilities), paragraph (b) (health care provider actions; seven-year cap on infancy tolling; definition of health care provider; history line ending 1993 c 326 art 8 s 14 — no later amendment); § 541.16 (one year after death where death occurs in the last year of the period; one year after death or the ordinary period, whichever is longer, for surviving claims not required to be presented against the estate); § 573.02, subd. 1 (wrongful death: three years from death for the listed professional-negligence defendants but no later than § 541.076; any time for murder; three years from death but within six years of the act or omission for all other cases); § 327A.02, subd. 4(b) (statute of limitations and statute of repose tolled from the postmark or receipt of the owner’s written notice until the later of completion of the § 327A.051 process or 180 days) — all from the Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes, 2025 Minnesota Statutes, retrieved August 22, 2026. Minn. R. Civ. P. 3.01 (commencement by service, by waiver of service under Rule 4.05, or by delivery to the sheriff subject to the 60-day condition; cross-reference to the Rule 5.04 one-year filing requirement; amended effective September 1, 2020; 2020 advisory committee comment on delivery methods), Minnesota Court Rules, Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Cases, all read in full at the Caselaw Access Project archive (static.case.law): Herrmann v. McMenomy & Severson, 590 N.W.2d 641, 643 (Minn. 1999) (accrual when the claim would survive a Rule 12.02(e) motion; ignorance does not toll absent fraudulent concealment; exact damages need not be ascertainable; refusal to adopt the discovery rule); Antone v. Mirviss, 720 N.W.2d 331, 335–38 (Minn. 2006) (rejection of the occurrence and discovery rules; the “damage” rule of accrual; accrual on any compensable damage whether pleaded or not); Ostrander ex rel. Ostrander v. Cone Mills, Inc., 445 N.W.2d 240, 241–42 (Minn. 1989) (§ 541.15 preserves only the claims of persons possessing a listed disability; parents’ derivative claims not tolled by the child’s minority); Talley ex rel. Talley v. Portland Residence, Inc., 582 N.W.2d 590, 591–92 (Minn. App. 1998) (disability exceptions remedial and liberally construed, quoting Nebola v. Minnesota Iron Co., 102 Minn. 89, 91, 112 N.W. 880, 880 (1907); appointment of a conservator does not end the disability; six-year period plus the five-year cap equals eleven years); Harrington v. County of Ramsey, 279 N.W.2d 791, 795–96, 797 n.6 (Minn. 1979) (definition of insanity under § 541.15; short episodes; retention of counsel as nonconclusive evidence of capacity; the 1974 amendment reaching disabilities arising after accrual); D.M.S. v. Barber, 645 N.W.2d 383, 386–87 (Minn. 2002) (minority tolling: one year after majority or the ordinary period, whichever is later); Wild v. Rarig, 302 Minn. 419, 450–51, 234 N.W.2d 775, 795 (1975) (fraudulent concealment tolls until discovery or reasonable opportunity for discovery by ordinary diligence; burden on the party asserting concealment); Hydra-Mac, Inc. v. Onan Corp., 450 N.W.2d 913, 918–20, 920 n.5 (Minn. 1990) (concealment must go to the existence of the facts establishing the cause of action; knowledge of the claim’s existence is enough to start the clock; three elements of equitable estoppel, citing Northern Petrochemical Co. v. U.S. Fire Ins. Co., 277 N.W.2d 408, 410 (Minn. 1979); due-diligence limit on estoppel; repair promises treated as an estoppel question rather than a tolling question); Rhee v. Golden Home Builders, Inc., 617 N.W.2d 618, 622 (Minn. App. 2000) (repair assurances and estoppel; estoppel ordinarily a jury question, quoting Brenner v. Nordby, 306 N.W.2d 126, 127 (Minn. 1981)); Lunning v. Land O’Lakes, 303 N.W.2d 452, 457–58 (Minn. 1980) (the six classic conditions of equitable estoppel; representation or concealment of material fact as an indispensable element). Nebola v. Minnesota Iron Co., 102 Minn. 89, 91, 112 N.W. 880, 880 (1907); Northern Petrochemical Co. v. U.S. Fire Ins. Co., 277 N.W.2d 408, 410 (Minn. 1979); Brenner v. Nordby, 306 N.W.2d 126, 127 (Minn. 1981); Cook v. Connolly, 366 N.W.2d 287, 289 (Minn. 1985); and Mutual Service Life Insurance Co. v. Galaxy Builders, Inc., 435 N.W.2d 136, 140–41 (Minn. App. 1989), are cited only as they appear in the opinions above and were not independently retrieved. W. H. Barber Co. v. McNamara-Vivant Contracting Co., 293 N.W.2d 351, 357 (Minn. 1979) — quoted within Lunning at 458 — was independently retrieved and verified at https://static.case.law/nw2d/293/html/0351-01.html.
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. Whether a particular claim is timely depends on facts and on which statute governs it, and the analysis should be done on the specific case rather than from a general article.