UPDATE: BGS Scrambles for a Do-Over
Date: September 15, 2025
Event: On September 15, 2025, Bradley A. Kletscher, counsel for defendant Barna, Guzy & Steffen (BGS) finally filed a Memorandum in Opposition to Plaintiff's Motion for Default Judgment in Strickland v. Ramsey County, et al. The filing arrived only after Plaintiff had moved for default based on missed deadlines and an earlier bare-bones Motion to Dismiss that lacked a supporting brief.
What Kletscher Filed
The Kletscher packet consisted of three documents:
- A 1,427-word memorandum opposing default, certified under Local Rule 7.1(f) as to word count;
- A Certificate of Service stating that the memorandum was mailed to Plaintiff at her Tempe, Arizona address;
- The main memorandum itself (Doc. 68), filed ten days after the date stamped on the Certificate of Service.
The word-count certificate is dated September 15, 2025, while the Certificate of Service attached to the same filing is dated September 5, 2025, even though the docket reflects that none of the papers were actually filed until September 15. In other words, Kletscher managed to be both "on time" on paper and late in reality-a Schrödinger's deadline that only collapses when you open PACER.
What the Memo Tries to Do
Substantively, the memorandum asks the federal court to forgive the missed briefing schedule, treat Kletscher's earlier, unsupported Motion to Dismiss as if it had always been complete, and deny default on the theory that:
- Default judgments are "disfavored," especially when counsel eventually participates;
- Any delay was harmless and caused no prejudice to Plaintiff;
- The Motion to Dismiss should be treated as a responsive pleading that cures the timing problem.
What the memorandum does not do is grapple with the actual chronology: Plaintiff met every deadline, BGS did not, and the missing memorandum only materialized after the default motion forced the issue.
Why It Matters
BGS's September 15 filing illustrates a pattern that now runs through the entire litigation: deadlines treated as optional for institutional actors, rigid for the autistic pro se party, and retroactive paperwork deployed to make the record look cleaner than it actually was at the time decisions were made.
Whether or not the court ultimately excuses the delay, the docket now reflects exactly what happened: Plaintiff moved for default on a silent record, and only then did Kletscher scramble to assemble a compliant memorandum, complete with back-dated service and a fresh word-count certificate, in hopes of rewinding the clock.