Every party in a Minnesota civil case gets one peremptory removal of the assigned judge. No cause, no showing, no explanation. It’s one of the few unqualified rights in the rules, and it’s the one most often lost by not paying attention, because nothing in the process tells you it’s about to end. There’s no order, no notice, and no docket entry marking the moment it lapses.
Two independent conditions close it. Ten days from the party’s notice of who will preside, and never later than the commencement of the trial or hearing. And separately: once the judge “has presided at a motion or any other proceeding of which the party had notice,” the peremptory right is gone no matter what the calendar says. A routine scheduling motion argued in week two can end a right you thought you had until trial.
What exactly does Rule 63.03 require, and when?
Three acts, one deadline with two ends. The first paragraph of Rule 63.03:
“Any party or attorney may make and serve on the opposing party and file with the administrator a notice to remove. The notice shall be served and filed within ten days after the party receives notice of which judge or judicial officer is to preside at the trial or hearing, but not later than the commencement of the trial or hearing.”
Read the verbs. You must make the notice, serve it on the opposing party, and file it with the administrator. Service and filing both have to happen inside the ten days. The rule ties them together: “The notice shall be served and filed within ten days.”
The trigger is “after the party receives notice of which judge or judicial officer is to preside.” That’s a receipt trigger, not a filing trigger or a hearing trigger. In practice it’s whatever document first tells you the assignment, which is why the assignment notice is something you calendar the day it lands, not something you skim. On what generates that notice in the ordinary course, see the cover sheet and scheduling rules.
The backstop is absolute on its face: “but not later than the commencement of the trial or hearing.” Even if fewer than ten days have run, the right ends when the proceeding starts.
Notice, too, who holds the right. The rule says “[a]ny party or attorney may make and serve” the notice. It isn’t limited to a party appearing pro se or to counsel of record acting with a signed authorization.
What kills the right before the ten days run?
Presiding. The second paragraph of Rule 63.03 is the one that quietly shuts the door:
“No such notice may be filed by a party or party’s attorney against a judge or judicial officer who has presided at a motion or any other proceeding of which the party had notice, or who is assigned by the Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court. A judge or judicial officer who has presided at a motion or other proceeding or who is assigned by the Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court may not be removed except upon an affirmative showing that the judge or judicial officer is disqualified under the Code of Judicial Conduct.”
“A motion or any other proceeding.” The rule doesn’t distinguish dispositive from nondispositive, contested from uncontested, or substantive from scheduling. A discovery motion is a motion. Under Rule 115, nondispositive motions are heard on a 21-day track and are entirely routine. So the most common way to lose the peremptory right is to bring or oppose an ordinary motion before you’ve decided whether you want a different judge.
“Of which the party had notice.” That qualifier matters. The bar attaches to proceedings the party had notice of, not to every docket event in the file.
“Or who is assigned by the Chief Justice.” A judge specially assigned by the Chief Justice is outside the peremptory right from the start. The 2000 advisory committee comment to Rule 63.03 states that the amendment was made “to make clear the fact that a judge specially assigned by the Chief Justice to hear cases originally pending in more than one district cannot be removed by mere filing of a notice to remove,” and that “even a judge assigned by the Chief Justice may be removed for cause.” That assignment mechanism lives in Minn. Gen. R. Prac. 113.03.
Once either bar applies, the only way out is a for-cause showing under the Code of Judicial Conduct.
Can I remove the second judge too?
Only for cause. The third paragraph: “After a party has once disqualified a presiding judge or judicial officer as a matter of right, that party may disqualify the substitute judge or judicial officer, but only by making an affirmative showing that the judge or judicial officer is disqualified under the Code of Judicial Conduct.”
One peremptory per party. After that, the standard is the Code, which Rule 63.02 also makes the general disqualification standard: “No judge shall sit in any case if disqualified under the Code of Judicial Conduct.” Rule 63.02 adds an administrative step for small districts: “If there is no other judge of the district who is qualified, or if there is only one judge of the district, such judge shall forthwith notify the Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court of that judge’s disqualification.”
The 2018 amendments made this the operative standard on purpose. The advisory committee comment states that Rule 63 “is amended to apply the disqualification standard of the Minnesota Code of Judicial Conduct to disqualification under the civil rules,” and that the prior juror-based standard “does not accurately state the correct standard.” Hang on to that. The statute discussed below still carries the old formulation.
Who gets the case after removal?
Two provisions point in somewhat different directions, and both are in the rule. Rule 63.03’s final paragraph: “Upon the filing of a notice to remove or if a litigant makes an affirmative showing that a substitute judge or judicial officer is disqualified under the Code of Judicial Conduct, the chief judge of the judicial district shall assign any other judge of any court within the district, or a judicial officer in the case of a substitute judicial officer, to hear the cause.”
Rule 63.04: “Upon receiving notice as provided in Rules 63.02 and 63.03, the chief justice shall assign a judge of another district, accepting such assignment, to preside at the trial or hearing, and the trial or hearing shall be postponed until the judge so assigned can be present.”
Both are current rule text. Don’t assume which one applies to you. Ask the court administrator how reassignment is handled in the district, and expect the within-district route of 63.03 in the ordinary case.
How is a for-cause removal actually heard?
In the first instance, by the judge you’re asking to step aside. Minn. Gen. R. Prac. 106:
“All motions for removal of a judge, referee, or judicial officer, on the basis of actual prejudice or bias shall be heard in the first instance by the judge sought to be removed. If that judge denies the motion, it may subsequently be heard and reconsidered by the Chief Judge of the district or another judge designated by the Chief Judge upon a motion filed and served within 7 days of the judge’s order.”
That 7-day window for seeking Chief Judge review came in with the 2019 amendment, and the advisory committee comment gives the reason: “The absence of a deadline hinders efficient case processing and the importance of the recusal or disqualification issue merits prompt resolution.” Seven days is short, and it runs from the order. Calendar it when you file the motion, not when you lose it.
The 1991 task force comment to Rule 106 adds something worth knowing: the rule “does not require the party seeking removal to bring the motion for reconsideration before the chief judge; it merely permits that reconsideration,” and “[b]ringing the motion for reconsideration should not be construed as any condition precedent to appellate review, whether by appeal or extraordinary writ.”
Does the statute say something different from the rule?
Yes, and the gap is a trap for anyone who researches this by statute. Minn. Stat. § 542.16, subd. 1, still on the books, provides that the notice to remove “must be served and filed within ten days after the party receives notice of which judge or judicial officer is to preside at the trial or hearing, or, if no notice of a hearing is served with the summons, then within the time to answer the summons, whichever is later” (emphasis added).
That alternative, running to the answer deadline, appears nowhere in Rule 63.03. The rule instead cuts the period off at “the commencement of the trial or hearing,” and adds the presided-at-a-motion bar and the Chief-Justice-assignment bar, and neither of those is in the statute. The statute also excepts proceedings under Minn. Stat. § 484.702, which the rule doesn’t mention. And its subdivision 2 keeps the older “affirmative showing of prejudice” standard, including that “[a] showing that the judge might be excluded for bias from acting as a juror in the matter constitutes an affirmative showing of prejudice” — the very formulation the 2018 advisory committee comment to Rule 63 says “does not accurately state the correct standard.”
Minnesota handles this kind of conflict directly, by statute. Minn. Stat. § 480.051 gives the supreme court “the power to regulate the pleadings, practice, procedure, and the forms thereof in civil actions in all courts of this state,” provided that “[s]uch rules shall not abridge, enlarge, or modify the substantive rights of any litigant.” And Minn. Stat. § 480.056 provides that pre-existing procedural laws “shall be effective as rules of court until modified or superseded by subsequent court rule, and upon the adoption of any rule pursuant to sections 480.051 to 480.058 such laws, in so far as they are in conflict therewith, shall thereafter be of no further force and effect.”
Those sections don’t settle this conflict by themselves. Section 480.056 speaks to laws in force when it was enacted in 1947, and the legislature has amended § 542.16, subd. 1 since then, most recently in 2000. Section 480.058, subd. 1 also provides that §§ 480.051 to 480.058 “shall not abridge the right of the legislature to enact, modify, or repeal any statute or modify or repeal any rule of the supreme court adopted pursuant thereto.” The closest decision is a criminal case. There, the Supreme Court held that the criminal rule’s notice-to-remove deadline, not § 542.16’s, controls, because removal of a judge is procedural and “the rules of criminal procedure supersede conflicting statutes.” State v. Azure, 621 N.W.2d 721, 723–24 (Minn. 2001). This article doesn’t predict how a court would apply that reasoning to Rule 63.03 and the civil sentence of § 542.16. You don’t need it to answer the practical question, because under the two texts the rule’s deadline is never later than the statute’s. The rule runs ten days from notice and ends no later than the commencement of the trial or hearing. The statute runs ten days from notice or, where no notice of a hearing is served with the summons, to the answer deadline, “whichever is later.” File within the rule’s period and you’re timely under either text. Count to the rule, not the statute.
Does the assigned judge’s standing order matter here?
Less directly than for a motion, but check anyway. Rule 63.03’s deadlines run from the rule itself, and nothing in the rule gives a judge discretion to lengthen or shorten them. Where a district’s standing orders or practice pointers can matter is upstream of the clock: how and when the parties are told about the judge assignment in the first place, since receiving that notice is what starts the ten days. Those practices are published on the judicial district’s pages at mncourts.gov, and they’re worth checking before you assume you know when your ten days began. Nothing here describes what any particular judge or district requires.
How do I count the ten days?
Forward from receipt, under Rule 6. Ten days isn’t “less than 7 days,” so the exception in Rule 6.01(a)(2) doesn’t apply, and Rule 6.01(a)(1) governs: exclude the day of the triggering event, “count every day, including intermediate Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays,” and include the last day unless it’s a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, in which case “the period continues to run until the end of the next day that is not a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday.”
Watch the three-day mail extension. Rule 6.01(e) adds three days where a party must act “within a prescribed period after the service of a notice or other document upon the party” and that document is served by United States Mail. Rule 63.03’s period runs from when “the party receives notice” of the assignment (emphasis added). That’s a different formulation from service. Don’t build your calendar on the assumption that three days get added. Count from receipt and file early. More on the mechanics in computing time under Rule 6.
One structural note for out-of-state counsel: Minnesota commences a civil action by service of the summons, not by filing, which is why the statute’s alternative deadline is keyed to the answer period at all. See serving the summons.
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. 63.02 (Code of Judicial Conduct standard; notice to the Chief Justice), 63.03 (ten-day period; service and filing; commencement cutoff; bar where the judge has presided at a motion or other proceeding of which the party had notice; bar where the judge is assigned by the Chief Justice; one peremptory per party; assignment by the chief judge of the district) and its Advisory Committee Comment — 2000 Amendment and Advisory Committee Comment — 2018 Amendments, 63.04 (assignment by the chief justice); Minn. R. Civ. P. 6.01(a)(1), 6.01(a)(2), 6.01(e); Minn. Gen. R. Prac. 106 (for-cause removal heard first by the judge; 7 days to seek Chief Judge review) with its Task Force Comment — 1991 Adoption and Advisory Committee Comment — 2019 Amendment; Minn. Gen. R. Prac. 113.03 (Chief Justice assignment); Minn. Gen. R. Prac. 115.01(a)(2), 115.04. Statutes: Minn. Stat. § 542.16, subds. 1 and 2 (subd. 1 last amended 2000 c 372 s 1); § 480.051; § 480.056 (1947 c 498 s 6); § 480.058, subd. 1. Rule text: Minnesota Judicial Branch rules text; statutes: Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes; 2026-08-10. Case: State v. Azure, 621 N.W.2d 721, 723–24 (Minn. 2001) (criminal notice-to-remove rule controls over § 542.16; removal is procedural) (Caselaw Access Project).
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.