Minnesota Statutes

Minn. Stat. § 169.42 (2026)

Littering; Dropping Object On Vehicle; Misdemeanor

✓ current as of May 2026

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Subdivision 1.Objects on highway.

No person shall throw, deposit, place, or dump, or cause to be thrown, deposited, placed, or dumped upon any street or highway or upon any public or privately owned land adjacent thereto without the owner's consent any snow, ice, glass bottle, glass, nails, tacks, wire, cans, garbage, swill, papers, ashes, cigarette filters, debris from fireworks, refuse, carcass of any dead animal, offal, trash or rubbish or any other form of offensive matter, or any other substance likely to injure any person, animal, or vehicle upon any such street or highway.

Subd. 2.

MS 1969 [Repealed, Ex1971 c 27 s 49]

Subd. 2.Dropping dangerous object on highway.

Any person who drops, or permits to be dropped or thrown, upon any highway any of the material specified in subdivision 1, shall immediately remove the same or cause it to be removed.

Subd. 3.Removing object; responsibility.

Any person removing a wrecked or damaged vehicle from a highway shall remove any glass or other injurious substance dropped upon the highway from such vehicle.

Subd. 4.Dropping object on vehicle.

No person shall drop or hurl any destructive or injurious material or object at or upon any motor vehicle upon any highway or the occupants thereof.

Subd. 5.Misdemeanor.

Any person who violates the provisions of this section is guilty of a misdemeanor. The record of any conviction of or plea of guilty under this section of a person operating a motor vehicle shall be immediately forwarded to the Department of Public Safety for inclusion upon that offender's driving record. Any second or subsequent offense under this section shall require a minimum fine in the amount of $400. Any judge may, for any violation of this section, order the offender to pick up litter along any public highway or road for four to eight hours under the direction of the Department of Transportation, with the option of a jail sentence being imposed.

Notes of Decisions

Cited in 3 cases, 1986–1998 · leading case: Wong v. Am. Fam. Mut. Ins. Co., 576 N.W.2d 742 (Minn. 1998).

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Wong v. Am. Fam. Mut. Ins. Co., 576 N.W.2d 742 (Minn. 1998). · cites it 38× “At trial, the district court instructed the jury on negligence and Minn.Stat. § 169.42 (1996), which prohibits persons from placing certain objects in the highway.”

State v. Combs, 394 N.W.2d 567 (Minn. Ct. App. 1986). · cites it 2× “50 (1984), and littering, Minn.Stat. § 169.42 (1984). The driver, respondent Debra Combs, was charged with fleeing a police officer, Minn.”

Wong v. Am. Fam. Mut. Ins. Co., 562 N.W.2d 813 (Minn. Ct. App. 1997). · cites it 15× “Does Minn.Stat. § 169.42, subds. 1 and 2 (1996), impose on a motorist whose vehicle has struck an animal a duty to remove the animal or cause it to be removed from the road when the animal constitutes a road hazard? II.”

Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.