UPDATE: Brett Bacon Moves To Dismiss Federal Civil Rights Case
Date: September 02, 2025
On September 2, 2025, Ramsey County Assistant Attorney Brett Bacon filed a Motion to Dismiss in Strickland v. Ramsey County, et al., Case No. 25-cv-02056 (DWF/DJF). This marks the County's first formal attempt to shut down the federal civil rights case arising from service failures, ADA violations, unsigned and altered orders, and the cascading misconduct inside the HRO proceedings.
Bacon's filing includes a sworn declaration and a 3,700+ word memorandum. Together, they argue that:
- Ramsey County cannot be responsible for the conduct of referees or judges;
- Deputy Corina Loya acted appropriately in February 2025;
- and the Amended Complaint should be dismissed in its entirety, with prejudice.
Summary In Context
This motion sits at the end of a tightly sequenced chain of filings that began on August 14:
- August 14: Manderfeld files a continuance request written as if on Plaintiff's behalf, an estoppel memo, and an evidence packet containing a signed December 12 HRO and an unsigned May 23 denial.
- August 15: Plaintiff files an objection and corrected evidence showing both orders in unsigned form, matching the docket.
- August 19: Judge Starr holds a hearing and issues a Finding of Fact quoting Manderfeld's memo and treating both disputed orders as judge-signed despite no such signed versions existing in the evidence record.
- August 29: Bacon sends a meet-and-confer email but refuses to provide a Notice of Appearance.
- September 2: Bacon files the Motion to Dismiss containing the laundered evidence and a wildly outdated Register of Actions.
The result is a single narrative pipeline: Rueger - Manderfeld - Starr - Bacon. Each actor relied on the altered or incomplete record introduced by the previous one.
Why It Matters
1. Ramsey County disclaims responsibility while relying on disputed documents
Bacon's memo argues the County cannot be liable for decisions made by state-level judicial officers. But the federal complaint alleges a county-facilitated pattern of irregularities- including service failures, unsigned orders, late-added signatures, a falsified July 24 filing date, and selective evidence adoption. The County cannot disclaim responsibility while simultaneously relying on that same distorted record.
2. Deputy Loya's involvement is reframed as minimal
The motion reduces Deputy Loya's actions to a brief encounter: she took a report, issued a warning, and advised Plaintiff to seek legal help. What it omits is critical:
- Loya disclosed an address Plaintiff had never been given.
- That information was then transmitted back to Lee.
- The interaction set the stage for the February-March cascade.
Bacon's framing avoids the operational failures that created these risks.
3. The federal complaint is branded "speculative"
As expected in any 12(b)(6) motion, the memo labels the allegations as "insufficient" or "conclusory." But here the language functions as a shield: if the court does not examine the docket, it will not see the unsigned orders, metadata anomalies, or contradictory ROA entries already filed into the federal record.
Analysis Across the Three Cases
By attaching a large portion of the Register of Actions, Bacon imported the state-court timeline directly into the federal case- including the same omissions and inaccuracies Plaintiff has already identified.
This now places in one location:
- Starr's August 19 Finding of Fact built on altered orders,
- the July 14/July 24 metadata-blacked-out notice,
- and the unsigned orders that contradict the evidence relied upon by the County.
Simultaneously, the Court of Appeals has expressed discomfort with the HRO record, and the civil harassment suit proceeds on narratives recycled from Manderfeld's August 14 packet. Bacon's Motion to Dismiss attempts to treat each of these as separate, unrelated threads, but the documents themselves are already woven together.
What This Means Going Forward
A motion to dismiss is expected. The problem for Ramsey County is the record they brought with them.
By urging Judge Frank to take judicial notice of the HRO ROA, Starr's Findings, and Manderfeld's Notice of Appearance, they have also placed the entire contradictory chain directly in front of him.
The County has now taken an official position: that none of this-unsigned orders, altered filings, metadata anomalies, service failures, or evidence laundering-warrants federal intervention.
That claim will be tested against the full evidentiary record- the same record Bacon has now anchored inside the federal docket.