After all, this wasn't some activist judge with a history of hippie advocacy. Robiner was appointed by Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota's rather Republican former governor.

Minneapolis City Attorney Susan Segal has decided to appeal Robiner's ruling, and is seeking an accelerated review of the case by the Minnesota Supreme Court.

"With the request for accelerated review," reads Segal's statement from earlier this week, "we are hopeful that we can obtain a definitive ruling… in a timely fashion for this fall's election.

"We remain of the strong conviction," Segal continued, "that the petition to place a minimum wage ordinance on the ballot for inclusion in the City's Charter is in conflict with Minnesota Statutes and the Minneapolis Charter which contains no provision for such initiatives."

Appealing the county judge's decision means Segal can win, politically, even if she loses legally. Mitchell Hamline law professor David Larson views her move through both prisms.

"When you're talking about things that are political in nature, sometimes the pressure… that, 'We want you to go ahead, and take the shot,' can dictate matters," Larson says. "I have to believe she heard people saying that this is that important to us that if there's any possibility [to overturn it], you must go ahead and pursue it."

By pursuing the appeal, he adds, Segal gives herself political cover with the city council, which, not coincidentally, is responsible for her reappointment to that job.

The high court, like Robiner, skews more centrist and righty than liberal, according to Larson: "We don't have a slam-dunk liberal court."

One way for the court to side with the city would be to spot something Robiner missed, or erroneously interpreted, in the facts presented on appeal, an unlikely outcome, Larson says.The city's appeal could rest in the state high court's willingness to deem the minimum wage issue an overreach of local government.

"The real question is whether local governments can act when there's a state minimum wage," Larson says. "Did local governments have the authority, the ability to act when the state has already decided? Can the city then say, well, we think it should be higher when the state has already spoken?"

At the legislative level, House Republicans have tried in recent years to pass a law prohibiting local governments from enacting their own minimum wage or employment benefits standards.

With no law in place, Larson calls it an "unsettled question."

The city's got an uphill battle ahead of it. Only a small percentage of appeals cases are even accepted by the Minnesota Supreme Court, and of those, the justices side with the lower court in the vast majority of cases. But at least now they've got a chance.

"In litigation, a next-to-nothing shot of winning is not nothing," Larson says. "There are very few things that are absolutely certain."