The Scheffler Shuffle
Date: November 28, 2025
While sifting through Ramsey County's civil docket, another name surfaced: Troy Kenneth Scheffler. Another pro se litigant. Another paper trail with familiar bends. His case - Scheffler v. Ramsey County, No. 62-CV-25-6308 - doesn't touch civil rights or court records directly. Instead, it targets a quieter failure: the kind where statutory deadlines go ignored, public data goes dark, and unrepresented parties are left yelling into the void.
Scheffler's not alleging docket fraud or ROA gamesmanship. His fight is about the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act (MGDPA) - a request he made back in 2021 for information tied to violence at the Minnesota State Fair, crime reporting, and county policy. What he got back wasn't information. It was silence. Delay. And eventually, procedural contortions that read less like litigation and more like stonewalling with a badge.
He describes a County playing fast and loose with the process: motions filed before the case was even docketed, duplicate filings stamped on different dates, and a required meet-and-confer launched only after he pushed back. The script is different, but the tone? It's all too familiar. Just like in Plaintiff's case, Ramsey County shows a habit of bending the rules when no one's watching - and then blaming the mess on the people trying to hold them accountable.
Summary in Context
Unlike Wright's case, Scheffler's filings don't reveal a hidden ledger or a second ROA lurking behind the public one. His Register of Actions for 62-CV-25-6308 is exactly what it looks like: a straight-up MCRO export, stable and chronological. No vanishing entries, no index magic, no time-bending footwork. But that doesn't mean the system worked.
What Scheffler's case shows - loud and clear - is that when a pro se litigant pushes for transparency under Minnesota's Government Data Practices Act, Ramsey County doesn't play straight. It drags its feet. It dodges. It clutters the record just enough to cloud the issue. Sound familiar? It should. The tactics echo Plaintiff's experience, just under a different statute.
- Years-long delays responding to a single public data request;
- Missed deadlines stacked like parking tickets;
- A motion served before the case was even on the docket;
- That same motion refiled - different dates, same script;
- A "meet and confer" that only materialized after Scheffler called it out.
And then? The tone changed. On November 17, 2025, Judge Nelson issued a Scheduling Order that pulled the case out of the procedural fog. Real deadlines. Real expectations. Discovery, dispositive motions, trial prep - all locked in. The County's casual posture didn't survive judicial light.
So no, this isn't about a dual record. It's about a dual standard. One version of Ramsey County plays loose until a judge shows up. The other starts behaving when the robe walks in. Scheffler's case proves that procedural chaos isn't a bug - it's a habit. And structure only returns when the court forces its hand.
What Scheffler's Case Shows About Ramsey County
In Scheffler v. Ramsey County, the County didn't just slow-walk its response - they played the procedural shell game. Four versions of the same motion, dropped on 08/04, 08/11, 09/03, and 09/08. Each one forced Scheffler to re-calculate timelines, re-read positions, and re-center himself in a case that refused to stay still. This wasn't clarity - it was erosion.
Scheffler lays it out in detail:
- Long silences when statutory data requests went unanswered;
- Multiple notices for the same relief, but filed like they were new;
- Mixed signals from County Counsel on deadlines and expectations;
- Compliance that came late - and only after pressure;
- And a County that treated process as a suggestion until the judge stepped in.
That shift came with the November 17, 2025 Scheduling Order from Judge Nelson. Once the case came under judicial control, the fog lifted. A clear discovery schedule. Real deadlines. No more motion duplication. The contrast couldn't be sharper: before the court got involved, the County moved like it didn't expect consequences. Afterward, they moved like someone was watching.
Scheffler's case doesn't just show a reluctant bureaucracy - it shows what happens when no one forces the gears to turn. The instability wasn't baked into the facts. It came from the County's approach to a pro se litigant who wasn't supposed to push back. And when he did? That's when the system remembered how to follow its own rules.
Brett Bacon and the "Official" Record
Unlike the Wright matter or Plaintiff's own proceedings, Scheffler's case doesn't hinge on a fractured ROA. The MCRO docket for 62-CV-25-6308 is clean - linear, stable, and playing by the book. The problem isn't the record. It's what County Counsel Brett Bacon does around it.
Across multiple filings, Bacon treated the County's shifting positions like they were etched in stone - no matter how recently the ink had dried. One week, it's Motion A. Next week, Motion A becomes Motion A+. Then comes Motion A again, filed under a new timestamp with tweaked relief. At every turn, Scheffler had to guess what governed, which deadline ruled, and whether he was chasing a ghost motion or a live one.
The pattern is familiar: just like in Plaintiff's case, it wasn't the docket causing confusion. It was the filings. The letters. The emails. The shifting explanations. The County's procedural stance became a moving target, and the target kept moving until the judge showed up.
By treating each County revision as the new "official" reality - without acknowledging the fog left behind - Bacon didn't just exploit the record. He rewrote it on the fly. And while Scheffler's ROA may look clean, the procedural reality was anything but. Like Wright. Like Strickland. The confusion wasn't the product of a bad system. It was the product of a practiced hand - one that knows exactly how far the rules will stretch before someone snaps them back into place.
Monell Implications
Viewed in isolation, Scheffler's case could be passed off as friction. But placed alongside Wright's filings and Plaintiff's own docket, a larger shape comes into view. Three separate litigants. Three different legal tracks. Same patterns. Same players. And the same procedural drift tracing back to Ramsey County. Under Monell, that kind of consistency isn't coincidence - it's custom.
Scheffler's ROA stays clean. But the County's conduct around it? That's where the system stutters. Across all three cases, the same signature moves appear:
- Timelines that bend based on pressure - not policy;
- Conflicting motions filed back-to-back like rewrites of the same script;
- Deadlines that dissolve midstream, replaced by new ones without explanation;
- Legal arguments tailored to whichever version of the process favors the County most;
- And enough procedural smoke to keep a pro se litigant off balance at every step.
Scheffler's claim was simple: he asked for public data. No ADA issues. No retaliation claims. No evidentiary minefields. Just a statutory request, delayed for years - and then buried in procedural reshuffling once litigation began. That same shape - the stalling, the reversals, the posturing - matches Plaintiff's record and Wright's ROA breakdown.
Three cases. Three contexts. One pattern. This isn't a legal anomaly - it's administrative behavior. A system that stretches rules until a judge snaps them back. That doesn't react to law, but to pressure. That handles pro se litigants not with fairness, but with tactics. Under Monell, that kind of repeat performance belongs to the County. And now, it's on the record.
What This Means Going Forward
For Strickland v. Ramsey County, et al., the lesson from Scheffler is clear: procedural instability isn't limited to one litigant, one court, or one kind of case. His MCRO docket may look clean, but what the County did with it - the filings, the shifts, the timeline games - echoes exactly what Plaintiff and Wright already brought to the surface.
As discovery deepens, Plaintiff will be looking for more than explanations. She'll be looking for evidence - lines of code, chains of communication, policy decisions hiding in plain sight:
- Audit logs and export trails tied to all ROA versions created during Scheffler's litigation;
- Metadata and backend docs showing how refilings affect the perceived flow of the case - and who decides when it resets;
- Internal messages from Bacon or County staff about shifting timelines, repeated motions, or why they refile instead of correct.
Scheffler adds a new dimension to the pattern. Even when the record itself doesn't change, the process around it can still fracture. If the County can refile motions like edits to a script, tweak deadlines without notice, or shift position midstream, the result isn't much different from an unstable ROA: litigants lose track of what governs. Judges have to untangle contradiction. And appeals hang on a timeline nobody can swear by.
This isn't about complexity. It's about culture. Three cases - three records, three procedural environments - same behavior. This isn't episodic. It's embedded. Ramsey County isn't making mistakes. It's making choices. And in a system where the calendar moves to suit the County, due process can't hold the line.