Breaking News
Local News

Ellison expects ‘fair trial’ after Broadmoor appeal

Minnesota AG tours mobile home park Saturday

By Deb Gau 5 min read

MARSHALL -- Last year, a Lyon County jury found that the owners of the Broadmoor Valley manufactured home park had failed to keep it in clean and orderly conditions. In spite of the verdict, not much has changed at Broadmoor Valley, said resident Jesus Hernandez.

"This is what we have to deal with every day," Hernandez told Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, during a walkthrough of Broadmoor Valley on Saturday. The tour of the park traveled along gravel roads with areas of large potholes.

Ellison spoke with Hernandez and other advocates for residents in Broadmoor Valley, and answered media questions about the Attorney General's ongoing lawsuit against Broadmoor Valley owners Schierholz & Associates.

Earlier this month, the Minnesota Court of Appeals granted a new trial for claims about road conditions in the park, as well as claims that Broadmoor Valley owners violated consumer fraud and deceptive trade practices laws.

Ellison said Saturday that he had expected to win on an appeal in the lawsuit. However, he also said it was rare for the appeals court to to find as many errors as it did in the Broadmoor Valley ruling.

"I think the Court of Appeals saw that it was an unfair trial," he said. "It wasn't a fair trial, and they flipped this to make sure that there will be a fair trial. And I fully expect that there will be."

The Attorney General's office sued Schierholz & Associates in 2021. A trial was held in Lyon County four years later. At that time, a jury found that Schierholz & Associates had failed to keep Broadmoor Valley in clean, orderly and sanitary conditions. The jury’s verdict came down in Schierholz’s favor in four other claims in the lawsuit.

The next major milestone for the Broadmoor Valley lawsuit will come Sept. 9, Ellison said. He said that's when he expects to hear whether or not a petition for review (PFR) of the case has been filed with the Minnesota Supreme Court.

"They may file that, or they may not. If they don't, we'll be looking for a new trial date," Ellison said. "If they do (file a PFR), then the Supreme Court has to decide whether they want to accept the PFR or not."

If the Supreme Court accepts the PFR, "There will be a briefing scheduled, and we will argue it to the Supreme Court," Ellison said. If the Supreme Court rejects the petition for review, the case will go to trial.

The attorney general's walk went along gravel roads with potholes, and past some vacant and dilapidated mobile homes. A board and orange traffic cones marked off an area around what Hernandez said was a manhole in the road.

"It's always been really bad, but now I'd say maybe since last year or early this year, that's a wide open hole," Hernandez said.

After the walkthrough, Ellison said, "Coming back today, I am disappointed that the management didn't take the time that it had on its hands to improve the road conditions. They certainly could have."

"Them fixing the roads is not going to be evidence that somehow they admitted that the roads were in bad condition," Ellison said. But remedial measures have not been taken at Broadmoor Valley, he said. "I am consistently impressed with the spirit of the people who live here, but I'm disappointed with the people who own this land, because they could have done so much more to improve things, and it wouldn't have harmed their legal position at all. But they still didn't do it."

Hernandez said the appeals court's decision to send their case back for a new trial helped give Broadmoor Valley residents hope.

"At least for the residents that I know that are engaged with us throughout this situation, their hopes have gone up," he said. "There's times, I guess, that it's been so long, there's times people start to lose hope. When we got the news, things kind of got back to being hopeful."

"I just want to say my office is in no way tired," Ellison said of the Broadmoor Valley lawsuit. “We're in no way discouraged. As long as the tremendous courage of the people of Broadmoor holds up, we are with them a thousand percent."

In addition to the attorney general's lawsuit, there are two other ongoing lawsuits against Broadmoor Valley owners Schierholz & Associates. The Minnesota Housing Finance Agency sued Schierholz & Associates, alleging that by announcing plans to close Broadmoor Valley, the owners broke the conditions of a $500,000 grant agreement. The city of Marshall also sued the Broadmoor Valley owners, alleging that they violated city ordinances by installing a locked gate at one of the mobile home park's only two entrances.

Starting at /week.