If you learned injunctions in federal court, you know an ex parte temporary restraining order dies in 14 days unless it’s extended. Minnesota’s Rule 65 contains no such number. Read 65.01 line by line. There’s no expiration period, no day count, and no automatic dissolution date anywhere in it. The subdivision heading includes the word “Duration,” but the text under it never supplies a term.
What Minnesota gives you instead is a duty. Once an ex parte TRO issues, the applicant has to proceed on the temporary injunction, and if the applicant doesn’t, the court “shall dissolve” the order. The restraint doesn’t run out on a calendar. It lives until somebody moves it forward or somebody moves to dissolve it. That changes the risk for both sides, and it’s the first thing to fix if you’re working off a federal template.
What does it take to get a TRO without notice?
Two showings, and Rule 65.01 requires both:
“A temporary restraining order may be granted without written or oral notice to the adverse party or that party’s attorney only if (1) it clearly appears from specific facts shown by affidavit or by the verified complaint that immediate and irreparable injury, loss, or damage will result to the applicant before the adverse party or that party’s attorney can be heard in opposition, and (2) the applicant’s attorney states to the court in writing the efforts, if any, which have been made to give notice or the reasons supporting the claim that notice should not be required.”
Four pieces of that sentence deserve a closer look.
“Only if.” Ex parte relief is the exception the rule carves out. It isn’t where you start.
“Specific facts shown by affidavit or by the verified complaint.” An unverified complaint doesn’t carry the showing. Neither does an affidavit that just recites conclusions. For what counts as an affidavit in Minnesota, including a declaration signed under penalty of perjury without a notary, see Minn. Gen. R. Prac. 15.
Injury “before the adverse party or that party’s attorney can be heard in opposition.” The irreparable harm has to land in the gap before a noticed hearing. Harm that’s coming next quarter doesn’t get you in the door without notice. It gets you a motion.
The certification is the attorney’s, in writing. Requirement (2) is aimed at “the applicant’s attorney,” and it asks for the efforts made to give notice “if any” (the rule allows that there may have been none) or the reasons supporting the claim that notice should not be required. It’s a separate written submission, and lawyers routinely leave it out.
The rule also adds a service requirement that follows the order out the door: “In the event that a temporary restraining order is based upon any affidavit, a copy of such affidavit must be served with the temporary restraining order.” Serve the order by itself and you haven’t complied.
How long does the TRO last?
Until the court dissolves it, modifies it, or decides the temporary injunction motion. Rule 65.01 doesn’t fix a term. What it fixes is a duty and a place in line:
“In case a temporary restraining order is granted without notice, the motion for a temporary injunction shall be set down for hearing at the earliest practicable time and shall take precedence over all matters except older matters of the same character; and when the motion comes on for hearing, the party who obtained the temporary restraining order shall proceed with the application for a temporary injunction, and, if the party does not do so, the court shall dissolve the temporary restraining order.”
Two things fall out of that. If you got the TRO, showing up at the hearing and asking for more time isn’t proceeding, and the rule tells the court what to do about it: “shall dissolve.” And the restrained party isn’t sitting around waiting on a clock. The rule hands it a way out right now: “On written or oral notice to the party who obtained the ex parte temporary restraining order, the adverse party may appear and move its dissolution or modification, and in that event the court shall proceed to hear and determine such motion as expeditiously as the ends of justice require.”
Notice for that motion may be written or oral, and the rule puts no minimum period on it. Federal practice specifies “2 days’ notice” in Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(b)(4). Minnesota’s rule has no matching number.
What does a temporary injunction require?
Notice, and “sufficient grounds” the rule never defines. Rule 65.02 has three parts:
“(a) No temporary injunction shall be granted without notice of motion or an order to show cause to the adverse party. (b) A temporary injunction may be granted if by affidavit, deposition testimony, or oral testimony in court, it appears that sufficient grounds exist therefor.”
Subdivision (b) names three ways to get the evidence in (affidavit, deposition testimony, or oral testimony in court) and then hands the standard to two words. The multi-factor test Minnesota courts apply to injunctive relief is judicially developed. It isn’t in Rule 65. If you’re briefing a temporary injunction, you have to argue the case-law factors. This piece doesn’t state them, because you can’t state them accurately from the rule text. Pull the controlling decisions before you brief the motion. Don’t treat “sufficient grounds” as the test.
Rule 65.02(c) is the consolidation provision, and it cuts both ways: “Before or after the commencement of the hearing on a motion for a temporary injunction, the court may order the trial of the action on the merits to be advanced and consolidated with the hearing on the motion.” Even without consolidation, “any evidence received upon a motion for a temporary injunction which would be admissible at the trial on the merits becomes part of the trial record and need not be repeated at trial.” Admissible testimony you put in at a temporary injunction hearing is trial evidence. Act like it. The subdivision closes by protecting jury rights: “This provision shall be so construed and applied as to preserve any rights the parties may have to trial by jury.”
Do I have to post security?
Yes. Rule 65.03(a) is written as a prohibition, not a condition the court can take or leave:
“No temporary restraining order or temporary injunction shall be granted except upon the giving of security by the applicant, in such sum as the court deems proper, for the payment of such costs and damages as may be incurred or suffered by any party who is found to have been wrongfully enjoined or restrained.”
The amount is discretionary: “in such sum as the court deems proper.” The requirement isn’t written that way. Take on security yourself in your moving papers and propose a number. Don’t wait for the other side to raise it against you. As written, Rule 65.03(a) states no exception for any class of applicant, governmental ones included. Whether some other statute supplies one is a separate question this rule doesn’t answer. (Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(c) does carry an express exemption for the United States, its officers, and its agencies. Minnesota’s subdivision has no matching sentence.)
Rule 65.03(b) is the enforcement piece, and it’s why a bond is worth more than a promise. Where security is given by bond or other undertaking with sureties, “each surety submits to the jurisdiction of the court and irrevocably appoints the court administrator as the surety’s agent upon whom any documents affecting liability on the bond or undertaking may be served.” The subdivision then provides that “[t]he surety’s liability may be enforced on motion without the necessity of an independent action,” with the motion and the prescribed notice served on the court administrator, who sends copies to the sureties if their addresses are known. A party who was wrongfully restrained collects by motion in the same case.
What must the order itself say?
Four things, and under Rule 65.04 the fourth decides who’s actually bound:
“Every order granting an injunction and every restraining order shall set forth the reasons for its issuance; shall be specific in terms; shall describe in reasonable detail, and not by reference to the complaint or other document, the act or acts sought to be restrained; and is binding only upon the parties to the action, their officers, agents, servants, employees, and attorneys, and upon those persons in active concert or participation with them who receive actual notice of the order by personal service or otherwise.”
An order that restrains “the conduct described in the Complaint” doesn’t satisfy the third clause, and a proposed order drafted that way is an invitation to fight later about what got enjoined. Write the restrained acts into the order itself.
The binding clause matters when the real target isn’t a party. It reaches the parties’ officers, agents, servants, employees, and attorneys, and those “in active concert or participation with them” — but only those “who receive actual notice of the order by personal service or otherwise.” If you need a non-party restrained, notice is the operative step. Rule 65.04 was added effective March 1, 2001, and the advisory committee comment says it “is drawn directly from Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(d).”
How does this fit into Minnesota motion practice?
A motion for temporary relief is nondispositive. Minn. Gen. R. Prac. 115.01(a)(2) defines nondispositive motions as “all other motions, including but not limited to discovery, third party practice, temporary relief, intervention or amendment of pleadings.” That puts a temporary injunction motion on the 21-day track: the movant serves and files at least 21 days before the hearing, the response is due at least 14 days before, and any reply at least 7 days before. See the Rule 115 article for the full schedule and the 35-page limit.
That schedule plainly doesn’t work for real emergency relief, and that’s what Rule 115.07 is for: “If irreparable harm will result absent immediate action by the court, or if the interests of justice otherwise require, the court may waive or modify the time limits established by this rule.” Ask for the waiver expressly and say why. Don’t assume the emergency speaks for itself.
Two more practical points. Rule 115.10 requires the parties to confer before any motion is heard, requires the moving party to start that conference, and requires the moving party to certify compliance “or any reasons for not complying” — a live issue when you’re moving without notice. And because Minnesota commences a civil action by service, not by filing, be clear about where the action stands when you ask for relief in it; see serving the summons.
Rule 65 isn’t the only road to an injunction in Minnesota. Harassment restraining orders run under their own statute and procedure (see harassment restraining orders), and restrictive-covenant disputes bring their own substantive law before you ever get to the injunction standard; see noncompete alternatives.
Madgett Law, LLC associates with out-of-state and newly admitted counsel on Minnesota district court matters. Send us a message.
Sources: Minn. R. Civ. P. 65.01 (ex parte TRO conditions (1) and (2); service of supporting affidavit with the order; precedence and duty to proceed on the temporary injunction; motion to dissolve or modify), 65.02(a), (b), (c) (notice; “sufficient grounds”; consolidation and preservation of jury rights), 65.03(a), (b) (mandatory security; sum in the court’s discretion; surety jurisdiction and enforcement on motion), 65.04 (form and scope; persons bound) and the Advisory Committee Comment — 2000 Amendment to Rule 65.04; Minn. Gen. R. Prac. 115.01(a)(2), 115.04(a)–(c), 115.07, 115.10; Minn. Gen. R. Prac. 15. Federal comparison: Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(b)(2) (14-day expiration), 65(b)(4) (2 days’ notice), 65(c) (security; United States exemption), 65(d). Minnesota rule text: the Minnesota Judicial Branch rules text, 2026-08-10; federal rule text: the Cornell Legal Information Institute, 2026-08-10. This article states no case-law standard for injunctive relief; the governing multi-factor test is judicially developed and appears nowhere in Rule 65.
General legal information about Minnesota law, not legal advice. No attorney–client relationship is created by this article, and no outcome is promised or implied.