Rule 314.Parentage Proceedings
Last verified July 1, 2026
Full Text of Rule 314
Advisory Committee Comments
Plain-English Summary
Rule 314 collects the handful of ways a parentage case departs from an ordinary Family Court Action. It starts like a standard civil lawsuit rather than a family court petition: a summons and complaint, not a petition, opens the case.
The parties still go by petitioner and respondent, matching the labels used everywhere else in family court, but a parentage case can have more than one of each — a parent and a government agency might both be petitioners, for instance, or a case might name multiple respondents. Once the pleadings properly designate the parties that way, the case can also use the same descriptive shorthand every other family court case can, referring to people by their relationship rather than by title.
Parentage cases also keep a right most family court matters don't offer: a jury trial, available on proper demand. Everything else about running the case — motions, scheduling, pretrial conferences, and the rest of Title IV — works the same as it does in any other Family Court Action, since Rule 314 only lists what's different.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does a parentage proceeding begin in Minnesota?
With a summons and complaint, unlike most family court cases, which begin with a petition.
Can more than one person be a petitioner in a parentage case?
Yes. Rule 314 allows one or more petitioners and one or more respondents, since a parentage case can involve a parent, a government agency, or multiple alleged parents.
Is a jury trial available in a Minnesota parentage case?
Yes, on proper demand.
Can the parties in a parentage case use descriptive labels instead of petitioner and respondent?
Yes, once the initial pleadings properly designate them as petitioner and respondent, the same descriptive labels allowed elsewhere in family court can be used.
Do the other family court rules still apply to a parentage proceeding?
Yes. Rule 314 only adds a short list of differences; everything else in Title IV governs a parentage case the same way it governs any other Family Court Action.
Advisory Committee Comment—2012 Amendments
Rule 314 is a new rule, included to collect in one place the special procedures followed in parentage (paternity) cases. The rule is not the source of the procedures set forth in the rule; these procedures are either dictated by statute or common law. See, e.g., Minn. Stat. §§ 257.57, 257.67 (commencement of parentage action and specifying that the proper designation of parties in family court proceedings is as petitioner and respondent). Where a proceeding is commenced jointly, both parties may be designated as co-petitioners or as petitioner and co-petitioner. The rule permits the parties, once properly designated in the appropriate pleadings, to be designated by less formal terms that indicate their relationship. See Rule 302.02(a). Parentage proceedings may be brought by a parent as well as a governmental entity, thus the provision for plural petitioners in Rule 314(b); they are commonly brought against multiple respondents.
Rule 314 provides additional rules applicable to parentage proceedings. As to a wide array of procedural matters not addressed in this rule, other rules govern their use. Rule 301.01; see, e.g., Minn. R. Civ. P. 56 (summary judgment); Minn. R. Civ. P. 55 (default).