Your state’s pack. New issues arrive periodically on Mondays. Bookmark it. I built this for the Minnesota T&E solo who knows the Uniform Probate Code (Minn. Stat. ch. 524) cold but still loses an afternoon a week hunting the current homestead number, the Medical Assistance (DHS) slot posture, whether the latest OLPR / LPRB (Rules of Professional Conduct) guidance changes how you scope an engagement, or whether a recent Minnesota Court of Appeals decision just moved the law on capacity, undue influence, or a trustee’s duties. What’s below is what mattered in Minnesota lately — the week’s developments and the recent rulings from the bench.
For licensed attorneys. This pack is general legal information and professional commentary for practicing attorneys — it is not legal advice, does not apply to any specific matter, and creates no attorney-client relationship. Verify every authority against the cited primary source before relying on it with a client. Published by Mike Moss, a Utah-admitted attorney, as an AI-enablement information product; it is not an offer of legal services and is not a representation that the author is admitted to practice in your jurisdiction.
Three developments from the last several weeks that I think actually matter to a Minnesota T&E solo. Each one has a read that lands on your practice specifically — and each one comes with the citation so you can verify the detail yourself before you use it with a client.
The UEEPDA (2026 Minn. Laws ch. 45 / S.F. 3602, approved April 14, 2026), effective August 1, 2026 as new Minn. Stat. ch. 533, validates electronic execution and e-signatures for nontestamentary estate-planning documents — trusts, powers of attorney, advance directives — allows witnessing in each other’s “electronic presence,” permits electronic notarization, and lets a person create certified paper copies presumed accurate. Wills are excluded: Minn. Stat. 524.2-502 execution formalities are unchanged.
From August 1 you can execute a client’s trust, POA, and directives electronically with statutory backing — but do not let the tooling sweep in the will, which still needs wet-ink execution. Update your signing-ceremony checklist to draw that line explicitly.
2026 Minn. Laws ch. 45 (S.F. 3602), Minn. Stat. ch. 533, eff. Aug. 1, 2026 · revisor.mn.gov
For the spousal-impoverishment year July 1, 2026–June 30, 2027, the MMMNA is $2,705 and the shelter standard is $812; the community-spouse resource allowance maximum is $162,660 and the home-equity limit is $752,000. Minnesota administers Medical Assistance (MA) through the Department of Human Services.
These are the numbers that drive every community-spouse and home-equity analysis you run for the coming year. Update your spend-down worksheets and your community-spouse income/resource allocation models off the DHS figures before your next MA application — carrying last year’s MMMNA or CSRA into a 2026–2027 plan will misstate what the community spouse keeps.
Minn. DHS — income/asset limits (7/1/2026–6/30/2027) · mn.gov/dhs · income/asset limits
The Department of Human Services reorganization completed with the Department of Direct Care and Treatment operating as its own agency (effective January 1, 2025), which took the state-operated behavioral-health and treatment facilities. Medical Assistance eligibility, waivers, and estate recovery remain DHS functions — the split did not move MA.
Make sure your intake materials, client letters, and referral routing still point MA questions to DHS, not to the new Direct Care and Treatment agency. The reorganization is the kind of structural change that quietly dates a form-letter or a website link — a misdirected client on a time-sensitive MA application is an avoidable cost.
Minn. Dept. of Human Services (MA program; DCT split eff. Jan. 1, 2025) · mn.gov/dhs
Decisions that bind a Minnesota practitioner — Minnesota’s appellate courts and the federal courts covering Minnesota, including the U.S. Eighth Circuit — read for what actually changes how you draft, advise, and plan. Trusts and estates broadly, not Medicaid alone: wills and capacity, undue influence, fiduciary duty, trust construction, and estate recovery. One read, the holding, and the official cite.
A daughter held roughly a quarter of a closely held family pharmaceutical company as beneficial owner through five trusts, with an independent trustee; her father and brother controlled the board. After they sold part of the business and reorganized the rest into a new entity, she sued, including a claim under Minn. Stat. § 302A.751, which authorizes “an action by a shareholder.” Months after trial ended and while the case was under advisement, the family defendants argued for the first time that she lacked “statutory standing” because she was only a beneficial owner. The district court granted her relief anyway; the court of appeals held she lacked standing and that standing, being jurisdictional, cannot be waived. The Supreme Court reversed. Because she had injury-in-fact standing, whether she qualifies as a “shareholder” goes to whether she stated a claim on which relief can be granted — and that is forfeitable. The respondents forfeited it, so the court did not reach whether a beneficial owner may bring a § 302A.751 action at all.
Most closely held business interests in an estate plan end up titled in a trust, which puts this fight in the path of nearly every Minnesota family-business dispute. The practical holding cuts both ways and both directions matter. If you represent the entity or the controlling family, the “she is not a shareholder” defense is not a jurisdictional trump card you can hold in reserve — plead it, or lose it, as happened here after a full trial. If you represent the beneficiary, do not concede that the label decides whether you can be in court at all. And note what the court expressly left open: whether a beneficial owner can bring a § 302A.751 buyout action remains undecided in Minnesota. Until it is answered, the safer structure is to have the trustee join or bring the claim, and to say in the trust instrument who is expected to enforce the beneficiary’s interest in the business.
Serene E. Warren, as beneficiary of the 2011 Arizona NG Trust 102 et al. v. ACOVA, Inc., Mark B. Evenstad, et al., No. A24-0450 (Minn. Aug. 5, 2026) — reversed and remanded to the court of appeals. · MN.GOV · official opinion
This week in Minnesota for the T&E solo with Minnesota Medical Assistance clients: the developments from the Minnesota State Bar Association (Probate & Trust Law Section) and the Minnesota DHS (Medical Assistance) that actually moved your practice this period — each one primary-source verified.
Bar and Medicaid changes land on different schedules and aren't indexed by practice focus. Every item here was checked against its primary source, with the link, so you can verify before relying on it.