Which Thirty Does Minnesota's Tolling Clause Extend, Calendar Days or Business Days?

Minnesota's lemon law is one section long. Minnesota Revisor of Statutes, Minnesota Statutes section 325F.665 runs from a definition of "consumer" to a title-branding rule, and inside it the number 30 appears five times. Three of them are stated in plain days. One says "business days." And the fifth, in the paragraph that lengthens periods of time, points at "the 30-day period" without naming a unit or saying which period it means.

The out-of-service branch of the presumption is the branch that turns a stack of repair orders into a refund claim, and it is the branch stated in business days. If the extension clause reaches that count, a strike or a flood that closes a service department raises the number of days a file has to accumulate. If it reaches the other 30 instead, the threshold never moves.

A number that does four jobs in one section

The first 30 sits in the money paragraph. Subdivision 3(a) directs a refund of "the full purchase price, including the cost of any options or other modifications arranged, installed, or made by the manufacturer, its agent, or its authorized dealer within 30 days after the date of original delivery," and the same sentence goes on to subtract "a reasonable allowance for the consumer's use of the vehicle not exceeding ten cents per mile driven or ten percent of the purchase price, whichever is less." A calendar window from delivery, and a refund figure that is not the sticker price.

The second sits in the presumption. Subdivision 3(b) reads: "It is presumed that a reasonable number of attempts have been undertaken to conform a new motor vehicle to the applicable express warranties, if (1) the same nonconformity has been subject to repair four or more times by the manufacturer, its agents, or its authorized dealers within the applicable express warranty term or during the period of two years following the date of original delivery of the new motor vehicle to a consumer, whichever is the earlier date, but the nonconformity continues to exist, or (2) the vehicle is out of service by reason of repair for a cumulative total of 30 or more business days during the term or during the period, whichever is the earlier date."

Two markers there. Clause (1) ends with "but the nonconformity continues to exist"; clause (2) does not repeat it, which is the question we worked through in Does Ohio Still Require a Live Defect After Eight Repair Attempts? Clause (2) also says "out of service by reason of repair," with no adjective, though subdivision 3(a) elsewhere says "out of service for warranty repair."

The third 30 is this post's subject. Subdivision 3(d), in full: "The term of an applicable express warranty, the two-year period and the 30-day period shall be extended by any period of time during which repair services are not available to the consumer because of a war, invasion, strike, or fire, flood, or other natural disaster."

The fourth and fifth are one period stated twice in subdivision 7. An application to remove a nonbinding arbitration decision must be filed "within 30 days after the date the decision is received by the parties," and if it "is not made within 30 days," the court confirms the decision.

What the record has to show

The presumption has three branches, not two. Paragraph (b)(1) needs four or more repairs of the same nonconformity, the defect still in existence. Paragraph (b)(2) needs 30 or more business days out of service. Paragraph (c) needs one repair, but only for one kind of defect: "If the nonconformity results in a complete failure of the braking or steering system of the new motor vehicle and is likely to cause death or serious bodily injury if the vehicle is driven," a single repair suffices, and it too requires that "the nonconformity continues to exist."

All three run on one clock, and that clock is not simply two years. It is "the applicable express warranty term or during the period of two years following the date of original delivery of the new motor vehicle to a consumer, whichever is the earlier date." A three-year warranty does not buy three years of presumption time.

The Minnesota Attorney General, Minnesota's Car Laws guide states the third threshold as "A car that has been out of service due to warranty repairs for 30 or more cumulative business days." Note the adjective. Clause (2) says only "by reason of repair." The guide's reading is fair, but the words are not the same, and a contested file gets argued on clause (2).

A gate stands in front of paragraph (b), and in front of nothing else. Subdivision 3(e): "The presumption contained in paragraph (b) applies against a manufacturer only if the manufacturer, its agent, or its authorized dealer has received prior written notification from or on behalf of the consumer at least once and an opportunity to cure the defect alleged."

Then the hard part: the section never says what a business day is. Subdivision 1(a) reads, "For the purposes of this section, the terms in paragraphs (b) to (i) have the meanings given them," and those eight paragraphs define consumer, manufacturer, manufacturer's express warranty and warranty, lease, motor vehicle, informal dispute settlement mechanism, motor vehicle lessor and early termination costs. "Business day" is not among them, and the legislature's general list of defined words in section 645.44 does not include it either.

The nearest general rule, Minnesota Revisor of Statutes, Minnesota Statutes section 645.15, answers a different question. Where a period is fixed by law, the time "except as otherwise provided in sections 645.13 and 645.14, shall be computed so as to exclude the first and include the last day of the prescribed or fixed period or duration of time." It continues: "When the last day of the period falls on Saturday, Sunday, or a legal holiday, that day shall be omitted from the computation." Those rules govern the endpoints of a running period. The out-of-service threshold is a cumulative total scattered across two years, so 645.15 settles a deadline landing on a Saturday, not whether a Saturday the vehicle spent on a lift counts toward the 30.

The record therefore has to carry facts, not a conclusion: date in and date out for every visit, plus enough of the shop's calendar to classify the days between. We took the same problem apart, under a statute that does define its unit, in Counting Fifteen Business Days, Then Seven More, on the Massachusetts Lemon Law Calendar.

Two candidates for "the 30-day period"

Paragraph (d) lengthens three things: the express warranty term, "the two-year period," and "the 30-day period." The first two come straight out of the presumption's clock. The section holds three periods of 30 days the third item could name: the options window in 3(a), the out-of-service count in 3(b)(2), and the window in subdivision 7 for removing an arbitration decision to district court. That last one sits outside subdivision 3 while the extension clause sits inside it, which is a reason to set it aside and not a rule the text states.

Three things point at the count. The company the item keeps: a list whose first two members are the halves of paragraph (b)'s clock is most naturally completed by the other number in paragraph (b). The trigger: the extension runs for time "during which repair services are not available to the consumer," which bears on days a vehicle waits for repair and not on the date an option was installed. And placement: (d) sits between the presumption in (b) and (c) and the notification condition in (e).

One thing points the other way. Extending a warranty term or the two-year period helps the consumer. Extending a threshold count does the opposite, because a file then needs more than 30 business days out of service when a flood shut the dealership. Reading the third item as the options window keeps the list pulling one direction. What it cannot explain is why a war, a strike or a flood should bear on when an option was installed.

A trap sits one paragraph down. Subdivision 3(f) is a separate outer limit: the expiration of the paragraph (b) periods does not bar relief if the attempts occur within three years of original delivery, "provided the consumer first reported the nonconformity to the manufacturer, its agent, or its authorized dealer during the term of the applicable express warranty." That proviso asks for the express warranty term alone. It does not repeat the "whichever is the earlier date" formula.

The chaptered text settles the list, not the unit

The history note lists fifteen session laws. Four matter here, and only the chaptered text shows the drafting choice.

Session Laws 1983, chapter 108, created the section. The out-of-service branch already read "the vehicle is out of service by reason of repair for a cumulative total of 30 or more business days." The clock was then one year rather than two. And the extension clause read: "The term of an express warranty, the one-year period and the 30-day period shall be extended by any period of time during which repair services are not available to the consumer because of a war, invasion, strike, or fire, flood, or other natural disaster."

So the mismatch is original. Session Laws 1985, chapter 284, left that clause as it stood. Then Minnesota Revisor of Statutes, Session Laws 1987 chapter 52, section 1, lengthened the clock, and in the chaptered text the struck and the new words stand side by side: "the one-year two-year period and the 30-day period." The act that rewrote the first item of the list, in the same sentence, left the third alone. Session Laws 1990, chapter 408, section 2, reprinted subdivision 3 whole and carried paragraph (d) forward word for word from the 1987 act, which is the wording in force.

That answers one question, not the other. The list tracks the presumption's machinery, since a member of it was updated when the clock changed. It does not supply the unit of the extension. Paragraph (d) adds "any period of time during which repair services are not available," and plain time added to a threshold in business days is arithmetic the paragraph does not perform.

Numbers to Re-check

30 in 3(a) against 30 in 3(b)(2). A calendar window from delivery that decides which options are refundable, against a cumulative total in business days that decides whether the presumption applies.

The clock. The earlier of the express warranty term and two years from original delivery, in subdivisions 2, 3(b) and 3(c).

Four against one, and the live defect. Four or more repairs under (b)(1); at least one under (c), for a complete failure of the braking or steering system. The continuing-defect condition appears in (b)(1) and in (c), and is not repeated in (b)(2).

Three years, twice. Paragraph (f) governs when the attempts may occur. Subdivision 10 separately sets a three-year limitation from original delivery, with a six-month tail measured from a mechanism's final decision, open only where the consumer applied to the mechanism inside those three years and is aggrieved by its decision.

The federal counts underneath. Subdivision 6(a) requires a mechanism "which complies with the provisions of the Code of Federal Regulations, title 16, part 703, and the requirements of this section." Office of the Federal Register, 16 CFR 703.5 wants a decision "at least within 40 days of notification of the dispute, except as provided in paragraph (e) of this section," and asks the mechanism to check performance "within 10 working days of the date for performance." Days in one paragraph, working days in another, and 16 CFR 703.1 defines eight terms, none of them "day," "working day" or "business day." The authority for conditioning suit on a mechanism sits in Office of the Law Revision Counsel, 15 U.S.C. 2310, subsection (a)(3).

Where this framework does not apply

Two definitions set the reach, and the first has three branches. A "consumer" is a purchaser or lessee, other than for resale or sublease, "of a new motor vehicle used for personal, family, or household purposes at least 40 percent of the time"; a transferee for the same purposes during an applicable express warranty; and, outside the personal-use test altogether, the term "also includes an ambulance service licensed under chapter 144E that has purchased or leased a new motor vehicle of the type specified in paragraph (f)." The lease definition repeats that 40 percent test and adds a floor, a term "exceeding four months."

The vehicle definition is narrower still. "Motor vehicle" means a passenger automobile as defined in section 168.002, subdivision 24, including pickup trucks and vans; the self-propelled motor vehicle chassis or van portion of a recreational vehicle; and the same portion of an ambulance. For a motor home, coverage stops at the chassis or van portion. The borrowed definition of passenger automobile excludes motorcycles, motor scooters, buses, school buses and commuter vans.

The dealer is not the target. Subdivision 13: "Nothing in this section imposes liability on a dealer or creates an additional cause of action by a consumer against a dealer, except for written express warranties made by the dealer apart from the manufacturer's warranties."

The arbitration prerequisite is narrower than it first reads. Subdivision 6(a) puts it this way: "The provisions of subdivision 3 concerning refunds or replacement do not apply to a consumer who has not first used this mechanism before commencing a civil action, unless the manufacturer allows a consumer to commence an action without first using this mechanism." It withholds those provisions and nothing else, and subdivision 11 adds: "Nothing in this section limits the rights or remedies which are otherwise available to a consumer under any other law."

One provision runs the other way and reaches past the state line. Subdivision 5(a) blocks resale or re-lease in Minnesota of a vehicle "returned under the provisions of subdivision 3 or a similar statute of another state, whether as the result of a legal action or as the result of an informal dispute settlement proceeding," unless the manufacturer supplies the same express warranty, whose term "need only last for 12,000 miles or 12 months after the date of resale, whichever is earlier," plus the prescribed disclosure. That cross-border phrase is the device we took apart in New Jersey's Resale Rule Counts Four Kinds of Return: Other States' Statutes Included.

Back to the number. On the text, the third item in section 325F.665, subdivision 3(d), is the out-of-service count in paragraph (b)(2): the company the item keeps, the extension's trigger and the paragraph's placement all point there. That count is stated in business days, and the section does not define the unit. A manuscript that states the Minnesota threshold as 30 days out of service has already conceded the argument it will have to make.