Minnesota Agencies

The Court of Administrative Hearings (CAH) was created by the Legislature in 1975 to provide fair, timely, and impartial administrative hearings and high-quality dispute resolution services to Minnesota residents, businesses, and government agencies. CAH's Administrative Law Judges preside over a wide variety of cases. They involve challenges to government action, such as utility rate-setting and route designation, professional licenses from medical practice to child care and foster care, veterans preference, occupational safety and health, nursing home regulatory compliance, environmental permits, human rights, and personnel disputes involving government employees. Judges also review the need for and reasonableness of all rules proposed by state agencies, and provide mediation services across Minnesota, including for disputes not pending before CAH. Administrative Law Judges also hear citizen-filed data practices complaints and fair campaign practices complaints. 

The Court of Administrative Hearings (known as the Office of Hearing Examiners from 1975-1981 and the Office of Administrative Hearings from 1981-2025) was created by the Legislature in 1975 (Laws of Minnesota 1975, chap. 380, sec. 16-18) as part of broader administrative procedures legislation. Minnesota was the second state to create a central administrative hearing office, following California. The office was established formally on July 1, 1975, but was not permitted to conduct administrative law hearings until January 1, 1976.

In 2025, the Legislature instructed the Revisor of Statutes to change all references to "Office of Administrative Hearings" to "Court of Administrative Hearings" in Minnesota Statutes (see Laws of Minn. 2025, chap. 39, art. 2, sec. 68).

A 2006 Bench and Bar article provides these details about CAH's history: "In January of 1976, when Wendell Anderson was governor, Robert J. Sheran was chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, and Butch Wynegar was an All-Star for the Minnesota Twins, the Office of Hearing Examiners began with Duane Harves as its first chief hearing examiner. The first significant expansion of OAH responsibilities after its creation was in 1981, when legislation transferred all workers' compensation hearing functions and the compensation judges who were performing those functions from the Department of Labor and Industry to the now renamed Office of Administrative Hearings. While OAH took on this high-volume caseload, the Department of Labor and Industry retained, for the time, the alternative dispute resolution functions and the quasijudicial settlement function. The Department of Labor and Industry continued to employ a cadre of compensation judges, known as "settlement judges," who presided over settlement conferences and certain other related prehearing proceedings. The two quasijudicial functions continued to be done in the two different state agencies until 1997, when the Legislature created a Settlement Division within OAH and transferred all of the settlement functions to OAH, along with the settlement judges who had been performing those functions."

Chief administrative law judge; appointed by governor; 6-year term; senate confirmation required.

Chief hearing examiner: Duane Harves, 1975-1988(?)

Chief administrative law judge: William Brown, 1988-1993; Kevin Johnson, 1993-1997; Kenneth Nickolai, 1997-2004; Raymond R. Krause, 2004-2013; Tammy Pust, 2013-2019; Jenny Starr, 2019-2025; Tim O'Malley (Temporary Chief Administrative Law Judge), 2025-