Frequently Asked Questions

See FAQ – Appellate E-Filing for more information.

If you cannot find an answer to your question in this Frequently Asked Questions section or elsewhere in the E-MACS documentation, contact the eFS Support Center at:

612-902-9585 (if calling from metro area codes 612, 651, 763, 952)

1-844-918-1724 (if calling from all other area codes) or contact the Clerk of Appellate Courts office at 651-291-5297.

 

Anyone filing in the Minnesota Court of Appeals or Minnesota Supreme Court may e-file with E-MACS.

See E-MACS Overview for information about e-filing requirements.

No. When attorneys register for an E-MACS account, they have the option of including a secondary email address. An attorney can list an assistant’s email address as the secondary email address for the account. This will ensure that the assistant also receives notification of all e-filings and e-service associated with the attorney’s account. Legal support staff can log in to E-MACS using the attorney’s credentials to create new filings and view service documentation.

Please note that the use of E-MACS to submit documents to the courts in no way changes the responsibilities and obligations, under applicable court rules, of the attorney signing the document.

Attorneys can e-file immediately after completing the registration process.

All other user accounts will be reviewed within 1 business day after registration. Users will be notified via email whether or not their account has been approved.

See Registering for E-MACS for more information.

To promote understanding of the rules and methods for using E-MACS, users are required to take and pass a short test before using E-MACS.

You can take the test an unlimited number of times.

Any username you create in E-MACS cannot be in use by another E-MACS user. We recommend that Minnesota attorneys use their Bar ID numbers as their usernames.

Passwords must be 6 to 8 characters long.

Go to the Login screen of E-MACS and click Forgot Password?. Enter the email address you registered with to request a new password. If you no longer have access to the primary email address, you must call the clerk’s office to change your password.

Log in to E-MACS, click your name in the upper-right corner of the screen and select My Account to access the User Administration screen. From there, you can change your password.

While in E-MACS, click your name in the upper-right corner of the screen and select My Account to access the User Administration screen. From there, you can change your personal account information.

See Maintaining Account Information for more information.

Update the information in your E-MACS account.

See Maintaining Account Information for more information.

 

Set up a second E-MACS account and retake the test. You must use a different primary email address (i.e., with gmail, yahoo, etc.) for the self-represented litigant account.

The time it takes to file an appeal will vary based on a number of factors. If this is your first time filing an appeal, and/or you need to enter party details or upload a large number of documents, it could take more than an hour to file an appeal.

Note that if you're not an attorney, you will not be able to file until the clerk's office reviews and approves your account. Allow at least one business day before filing deadlines for the clerk’s office to review and approve new accounts.

Use the New Case option for cases that have not yet been opened in the appellate courts and do not have an appellate case number. Documents that open a new case include, for example, a notice of appeal to the court of appeals or supreme court, or a petition for a writ to either court.

See Selecting E-MACS Filing Types and Subtypes for more information.

If you don't know the case number, use the Minnesota Appellate Courts Case Management System to look up the case number. You can also find the case number on all documents that you receive from the appellate courts. The case number appears in the format: Axx-xxxx or ADMxx-xxxx.

An e-filing that has been "submitted" has been sent electronically to the clerk's office for review. It is not yet approved or rejected.

An e-filing that is "filed" has been approved by the clerk's office.

After submitting an e-filing, you will receive a confirmation email regarding your submission. You will receive a second email once the clerk’s office approves or rejects the filing.

A filing must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. in order to be considered submitted on that business day.

Filings designated as "Received - No Further Action" have not been approved or rejected. However, they will appear in the Rejected filing queue, and it is important to note that the submission has not been filed with the courts.

See the Using the Filing Queues topic for more information.

Please do not respond to any e-mails you receive from E-MACS.

If filing a Petition for Further Review (PFR), e-filers may select either Court of Appeals or Supreme Court in the Court Level drop-down menu. If the Court of Appeals is selected, the e-filer must select Existing Case, followed by Petition and the Subtype Further Review. If the Supreme Court is selected, the e-filer must select New Case, Petition, and Further Review, and then must enter all of the case participant and party information in order to initiate the PFR in the Supreme Court. The e-filer should also, when initiating the PFR in the Supreme Court, provide the Court of Appeals file number in the Comments box on the Filing Information screen.

• For filings in cases that were entirely confidential in the district court (e.g., adoption, paternity).

• For in forma pauperus applications that contain personal financial information.

• If you aren’t sure if a document should be confidential, call the clerk’s office for assistance.

For further assistance, please contact the clerk's office at 651-291-5297 or emacs@courts.state.mn.us from 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m., Monday - Friday.

25MB. If a document is larger than 25MB, you must divide the document into separate parts and upload each part separately. Use the Add Another link on the appropriate document upload screen to upload additional parts of a document.

Most documents filed with the appellate courts will be accessible by the public at the Judicial Center and county courthouses statewide. E-filed documents are accessible to the e-filer and to those who were served with those documents. Some documents may be available to the public online.

E-MACS accepts the following document types:

1. • Microsoft Word
   • PDF
   • WordPerfect
   • RTF
   • .txt

Sign all documents using black ink. Ink in other colors does not always show up when the documents are scanned.

Briefs must be e-filed and submitted in paper form. Please refer to the Clerk of Appellate Courts web page for links to the current standing order regarding the number of briefs to be filed for both the supreme court and court of appeals.

For all other documents, do not submit paper copies of documents that have been e-filed, unless otherwise ordered by the court. Any unrequested paper copies of e-filed documents submitted to the clerk's office will be discarded with no notice to the filer.

Attach a statement of case to your filing on the Statement of the Case screen.

You must attach the statement of the case as a separate document – do not combine it in the same file as the notice of appeal, addendum, or any other document in the filing.

Attach service documents on the Service screen, in the designated area. A cover letter is not required, but may be helpful to ensure that all contact information on file is up to date. Add a cover letter to your filing by attaching it on the Upload Other screen.

To file an errata sheet, use the filing type of Correspondence and the subtype of Incoming. Attach the errata sheet to the e-filing. If e-filing the errata sheet for a brief, be sure to submit the required number of paper copies.

No. Once a case is referred to mediation, all submissions from the parties are strictly confidential and are not made part of the appellate file. All mediation forms (confidential information form, mediator selection form) MUST be mailed or faxed as instructed on the applicable form. DO NOT e-file mediation forms with the Clerk of Appellate Courts.

No. Petitions for certiorari and proposed writs of certiorari should be e-filed as separate PDF documents. The clerk's office will issue the writ of certiorari and return it to the appealing party's (relator’s) attorney electronically. If e-filing a petition and proposed writ on the last day, be sure to e-file no later than noon on a business day, when the clerk's office is open, and check the box requesting expedited handling.

No. If you are requesting transcripts from multiple court reporters, you must submit separate e-filings for each court reporter. If you sent the same letter to multiple court reporters, you can upload the PDF repeatedly, once for each e-filing that you create.

The e-filer is responsible for redacting documents.

See Rule 112 of the Minnesota Rules of Civil Appellate Procedure (click the Adobe PDF link) for details on confidential information that should be redacted from submitted documents.

Some of this confidential information includes:

1. • Names and identifying information of crime victims and alleged victims of sexual or domestic assault.

   • Financial identifiers, such as social security numbers and bank account information.

   • Names of parents and children in juvenile protection cases.

Failure to redact sensitive information could result in your filing being rejected or in other sanctions.

No.

No. If your filing is rejected for any reason, your original date of submission will not be preserved.

If you resubmit a rejected filing and it is approved, the new date of submission will be the date you resubmitted the filing.

Yes. Click the Edit/Resubmit button from Rejected Filing Queue to correct the errors found by the clerk's office. Note that the original date of submission will not be preserved unless otherwise directed by the court.

Please see the payment questions in this FAQ for info on how payment will be handled on rejected filings.

A rejected filing stays in the Rejected queue after being resubmitted. If the resubmitted filing is approved, the filing will display in the Approved queue, with the approved date. The rejected document remains in the rejected queue.

No. E-MACS can only be used for filing and serving documents in the court of appeals and supreme court.

No. However, under Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 103.01, the appellant may use eFS to serve a copy of the notice of appeal on the trial court administrator and the adverse parties. In that case, the appellant must file proof of service with the appellate court, using any of the service methods authorized by Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 125.03.

All documents must be served on all parties to the appeal. If the filer selects E-MACS Service for a registered user when completing the filing on E-MACS, service will be accomplished when the filing is submitted. All other parties must be served by conventional means, and proof of service must be submitted to the appellate court.

 

If the document is served through E-MACS, no other proof of service is required.

When using conventional service methods (in person, by U.S. Mail, or by electronic means other than E-MACS), an affidavit or certificate of service is required.

In appellate courts e-filing, “Electronic service” and “E-MACS service” have the same meaning; both refer to service accomplished by the E-MACS e-filing system. Electronic or E-MACS service occurs when:

1. The party or case participant being served is a registered e-filer,

2. The party or participant being served displays in the “E-MACS Service Recipients” section on the e-filing Service Information screen, and

3. The e-filer selects “E-MACS Service” for that party or participant.

If a party is served electronically, no further action is required by the e-filer, and no proof of service is required. A party or participant who has created an E-MACS account has consented to be served electronically, and no additional consent or agreement is required.

“Email service” occurs when the filer serves a document by sending an email to the party or participant being served, with the document attached. “Email service” is a form of conventional service that is available when the party or participant being served is not a registered e-filer. Email service may only occur with the consent of the party or participant being served. Service by email requires the filer to file either an affidavit or certificate of service with the clerk’s office.

Once a party or participant is attached to the case by the clerk’s office, if the party or participant is not registered with E- MACS, they will appear in the list of “Conventional Service Recipients” on the Service Information screen. To serve a party or participant by email, the filer must select “Email” from the service option drop-down menu on the Service Information screen.

Supreme Court Filing Fees

1. • Notice of Appeal/Petition for Writ of Certiorari/Rule 105 Petition for Discretionary Review - $550

   • Petition for Further Review - $550

   • Petition for Rehearing - $100

   • Petition for Accelerated Review - $100

   • Extraordinary Writs (mandamus/prohibition) - $550

Court of Appeals Filing Fees

1. • Notice of Appeal/Petition for Writ of Certiorari - $550

   • Notice of Related Appeal - $100

   • Extraordinary Writs (mandamus/prohibition) - $550

   • Petition for Discretionary Review - $550

Yes. U.S. Bank charges a convenience fee for payments made through E-MACS.

If the court has waived a portion of your filing fee, select Fees waived by court order from the Fees Not Required drop-down menu. Explain in the Fees Not Required Comments field that the court has partially waived your fees and how you will be paying the partial fee.

You must also attach the fee waiver order on the Upload Other screen (if you have more than one “Other” document to attach, use the Add Another Part feature). Once it has processed your filing, the clerk’s office will issue a deficiency notice, setting a deadline for payment of the filing fee.

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