STATE LAW – MINNESOTA LIBRARY – GUIDE 18
Minnesota Crash Investigation & Evidence Preservation
Minnesota crash evidence should be preserved before litigation because statutory crash reports have evidentiary limits and vehicles, video, app data, and business records can disappear quickly.
Evidence
Use the crash report as a lead, not as the entire evidentiary record
Minn. Stat. § 169.09, subd. 13 limits discovery and admissibility of statutory crash reports, subject to the statute’s access provisions. Independently known facts and other evidence remain separately provable.
Preserve original sources
- Vehicle EDR and diagnostic data.
- Dashcam, traffic, business, residential, and transit video.
- Phone, navigation, telematics, and app data where relevant and lawfully obtainable.
- TNC ride and status records.
- Commercial dispatch, ELD, route, employment, and maintenance records.
- Scene measurements, roadway controls, and weather/visibility evidence.
Spoliation is fact dependent
Minnesota authorities including the Patton and Miller line address preservation, adverse inferences, and sanctions when relevant evidence is destroyed or unavailable. The remedy depends on duty, culpability, relevance, prejudice, and the available corrective options; every lost item does not produce an automatic sanction.
Preservation letters should identify systems, not just documents
For businesses, TNCs, employers, and fleet operators, identify the specific databases, devices, cameras, telematics systems, retention cycles, and custodians likely to hold crash evidence. Early specificity is more useful than a generic request to ‘preserve everything.’
Authorities
Primary Minnesota authority for this topic
Use the current statute, controlling decisions, and operative policy before legal reliance.