Every court and judicial officer may punish a contempt by fine or imprisonment, or both. In addition, when the contempt involves the willful disobedience of an order of the court requiring the payment of money for the support or maintenance of a minor child, the court may require the payment of the costs and a reasonable attorney's fee, incurred in the prosecution of the contempt, to be paid by the guilty party. When it is a constructive contempt, it must appear that the right or remedy of a party to an action or special proceeding was defeated or prejudiced by it before the contempt can be punished by imprisonment or by a fine exceeding $50.
Minn. Stat. § 588.02
POWER TO PUNISH; LIMITATION.
Applied in 5 court decisions — leading case In Re Storberg (1988)
Most recently applied in In re Craig E. Cascarano, State of Minnesota v. Michael Demond Rashaun Mason (October 2015)
(9794) RL s 4640; 1945 c 434 s 1; 1983 c 359 s 85
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Reproduced from public-domain Minnesota statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.