CAUSE NO. __________________________ STEPHEN KENJI LE BROCQ and LE BROCQ LAW FIRM PLLC, § § § Plaintiffs, § § vs. § § THE CITY OF CARROLLTON, TEXAS; § ERIN RINEHART in her Official Capacity as § City Manager of the City of Carrollton, Texas; § MEREDITH LADD, in her Official Capacity as § City Attorney for the City of Carrollton, Texas; § THE HONORABLE MEREDITH LYON in her § Official Capacity as Municipal Judge for the § City of Carrollton, Texas; MARY SCANLON, § Individually; and SUSAN KELLER, Individually. § § Defendants. § IN THE DISTRICT COURT DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS _______ JUDICIAL DISTRICT PLAINTIFFS’ ORIGINAL PETITION, APPLICATION FOR TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER, INJUNCTIVE RELIEF, AND REQUEST FOR DISCLOSURE TO THE HONORABLE JUDGE OF SAID COURT: COME NOW, Plaintiffs, STEPHEN KENJI LE BROCQ and LE BROCQ LAW FIRM PLLC, and file this Original Petition, Application for Temporary Restraining Order, Injunctive Relief, and Request for Disclosure against the above-captioned Defendants, whom shall hereinafter be referred to as “Carrollton” “City” or collectively as “City of Carrollton Defendants.” Plaintiffs seek declarations be made regarding the activities of the City of Carrollton Defendants and its employees, and for a Temporary Restraining Order to issue prohibiting the City of Carrollton Defendants from further misusing taxpayer funds. As grounds therefor, Plaintiffs affirmatively state and plead as follows: Le Brocq, et al v. City of Carrollton, Texas, et al Page 1 of 14 Introduction 1. This lawsuit is brought by taxpayers in an attempt to stop the City of Carrollton, Texas (“the City”) from unlawfully spending taxpayer dollars to fund the private defense of individuals that have intentionally denied justice to the accused citizens in the City, and to prevent the same individuals from attempting to cover up their abuse through lies, stonewalling, and threats to silence the whistleblowing of their corruption. 2. The City has been long denying justice to the defendants accused in the Carrollton Municipal Court — an issue that is widespread and known across the State to lawyers and members of the Public alike. For years, the City has been able to blatantly break the law because the amount of time and resources required to challenge matters in a Municipal Court deterred anyone from attempting to fight their illegal policies. 3. The lies and misrepresentations of the City have been exposed, and the City has proceeded to attempt to coverup their lies by employing a private law firm to defend them. Texas law prohibits this categorical misuse of taxpayer dollars, and further, the City has its own legal department — paid for by taxpayers — to represent the City in any appellate issues. There is no reason why the City should be allowed to pay a private law firm to help further their unlawful acts and further defraud the taxpayers of this City. Discovery Control Plan 4. Plaintiffs intend discovery to be conducted under Texas Rules of Civil Procedure 190.3, Level 2. Le Brocq, et al v. City of Carrollton, Texas, et al Page 2 of 14 Parties 5. Plaintiff Stephen Kenji Le Brocq is a citizen of the United States and resident of the City of Carrollton in the state of Texas. Mr. Le Brocq pays property and other taxes to the City of Carrollton and is a business owner, whose primary place of business is in the City of Carrollton. 6. Plaintiff Le Brocq Law Firm PLLC is a professional limited liability company organized under the laws of the State of Texas, a law firm, whose office and primary place of business is in Carrollton, Texas. Le Brocq Law Firm PLLC pays property and other taxes to the City of Carrollton and serves many of its residents. 7. Defendant the City of Carrollton is a body politic and a home rule municipality in Dallas County in the state of Texas. Upon information and belief, the City of Carrollton entered into an agreement with FANNING HARPER MARTINSON BRANDT & KUTCHIN, P.C. and the City has paid, continues to pay, and will pay taxpayer funds to FANNING HARPER MARTINSON BRANDT & KUTCHIN, P.C. in violation of the Texas Constitution. 8. Defendant Erin Rinehart is City Manager of the City of Carrollton. She is sued in her official capacity only. 9. Defendant Meredith Ladd is City Attorney of the City of Carrollton. She is sued in her official capacity only. 10. Defendant The Honorable Judge Meredith Lyon is the Presiding Municipal Judge of the City of Carrollton. She is sued in her official capacity only. 11. Pursuant to Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 17.024(b), Defendants the City of Carrollton, the City Manager for the City of Carrollton, the City Attorney for the City of Carrollton, and the Presiding Municipal Judge of the City of Carrollton may be served by serving Le Brocq, et al v. City of Carrollton, Texas, et al Page 3 of 14 or anywhere she may be found. 13. Del'endam Susan Keller 15 an Texas. She may be a. her place or We here she may be found. 14. Plaintiffs request the Clerk issue and service of process on Defendanls. Service will be accomplished by private process server. Jurisdiction and Venue 15. over ihls acnoll and us claims are provrded by Tex. Consl. an. v. 1. 8: Tex. Gov'i Code 24.007: rhe Uniform Declaralory Judgments Act. Tex. Clv. Prac, Rem, Code 3700173701 1 and lmuncnons.Tex.Cw. Prac. Rem. Code 55.001.65.01 1. 55.021. 16. Veuue proper In Dallas Coumy pursuanl Io Tex. (31v. Frac, Rem, Code 15.005. 15.006. 65.023. Facts Common in All Claims 17. Plaintiff Slephen Le Brocq a Carrollron residenlihe grew up ur Went Io elemenlary. nuddle. and high school in ('arrolliom and he currently ouns a home In Afier law school In Michigan. Le Brocq returned ro Carrolhon Io give back ro rhe communuy, He opened mam office In rhe hearl o1 I116 dlrecily across the ('liy Hall Complex, Le Brocq and his firm. Le Brocq Law Firm PLLC. have doxlaled Le Brucq. 8111/ ('Ily afCarro/lmn. Texm, em! Page 4 01'14 large sums of money to the Carrollton Farmers Branch Independent School District and support local students in their future success. 18. Le Brocq’s law practice is general in nature and represents clients all across Texas and Illinois. Due to his firm’s location, which is directly across the street from the Carrollton Municipal courthouse, he has represented hundreds of people in the Carrollton Municipal Court. 19. The Carrollton Municipal Court is notorious for policies such as locking people out of the courtroom who are seconds late or requiring cash bonds to contest traffic tickets if a person is stuck in traffic. No exceptions are made. It has been said that “the Constitution does not exist in Carrollton.” Naturally, with its well-earned reputation, many defense lawyers avoid Carrollton like the plague. Other lawyers that accept Carrollton cases charge a premium for having to deal with Carrollton Municipal Court. 20. Carrollton police officers are equipped with body cameras and dash cameras that record citizen encounters. Normally, obtaining the videos captured by law enforcement is an easy process. The Michael Morton Act requires Texas prosecutors to provide electronic duplicates of the State’s discovery at the request of a defense attorney. 21. Le Brocq sent a request under The Michael Morton Act to City of Carrollton prosecutor Mary Scanlon, whom resisted all friendly requests for the evidence. Le Brocq tirelessly tried to get Ms. Scanlon to burn a DVD or flash drive, even offering to pay or provide a new USB drive to the City. 22. Ms. Scanlon responded by “apologizing” that Le Brocq did not like their policy “but it is the policy of [her] office and all attorneys are treated the same in this regard and to treat [Le Brocq] differently would cause problems.” The State invited Le Brocq to file a motion in court to address the problem, and he did. Le Brocq, et al v. City of Carrollton, Texas, et al Page 5 of 14 23. During the hearing, Ms. Scanlon was, strangely, not present. Instead, another prosecutor, Susan Keller, appeared to defend the State’s indefensible position. Instead of admitting that the law requires the State to produce the discovery, Ms. Keller lied to the court by stating that Carrollton lacked the technology to download a video file to a USB or flash drive. 24. This new argument surprised Le Brocq and his firm because he had never previously been told Carrollton lacked the technology until this hearing date, only that he could not have copies of the requested files. It is especially surprising given the fact Carrollton recently spent 14 million dollars on a new police station. 25. The municipal court sided with the State—as it almost always does—and wholly denied Le Brocq’s motion for his client’s electronic discovery files. To gather evidence of Ms. Keller’s lies to the court, Le Brocq sent a Public Information request to the City, which revealed that the City prosecutor and Court had more than 70 computers from desktops to laptops. Le Brocq also confirmed the software from Enforcement Video LLC d/b/a WatchGuard as the software used on officers’ cameras and for evidence management. This software cost more than a million dollars. Le Brocq conducted further research into the training manuals from WatchGuard. It was during this research that Le Brocq discovered WatchGuard’s advertisements on how easy and seamless it is to download, copy, and share videos from WatchGuard. 26. With the new information obtained from Carrollton, the fact that Le Brocq has handled countless cases with Carrollton police in Dallas, Denton, and Collin counties, and the fact that the State never mentioned technology issues before, Le Brocq decided to pursue the State and court’s denial of criminal discovery to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (“CCA”). Le Brocq, et al v. City of Carrollton, Texas, et al Page 6 of 14 27. In response to Le Brocq’s Petition for Writ of Mandamus, the CCA ordered The Honorable Meredith Lyon, Presiding Judge of the Municipal Court to respond to the allegations and also invited the State to respond. 28. Shortly thereafter, the State e-mailed Le Brocq that, coincidentally, Carrollton now has the technology to download video files to USB drives, and that he could now purchase the video discovery for his clients. 29. Le Brocq was then notified that The Honorable Meredith Lyon and City Attorney’s Office, both hired a third-party, private law firm in Dallas, FANNING HARPER MARTINSON BRANDT & KUTCHIN, P.C., to represent them before the CCA. Le Brocq was surprised at this because Carrollton has a full-staff of legal counsel paid for by Carrollton taxpayers. It did not make sense as to why they would hire a law firm when they “upgraded” their technology and could now apparently comply with the law—the compliance issues should be moot. 30. The law firm asked for an extension of time to respond to the CCA, to which Le Brocq agreed — conditioned upon the fact that opposing counsel would represent that Carrollton enacted a new policy in compliance with the law and that the policy would stay in effect during the case. Carrollton’s private law firm stated to the CCA that this concession “is neither relevant nor material to this motion.” Apparently, Carrollton does not think adhering to their new policies is important. 31. Determined to discover the new “upgrades” Carrollton made, which Le Brocq knew was a lie, Le Brocq sent yet another Public Information Request to Carrollton. He requested invoices, messages, bills, contracts, and other materials that would show that Carrollton purportedly upgraded their entire computer system to comply with the law shortly after the CCA got involved. Le Brocq, et al v. City of Carrollton, Texas, et al Page 7 of 14 32. Instead of responding by producing the documents Carrollton is legally required to produce, Carrollton demanded Le Brocq pay $7,056.00 to retrieve the records. Carrollton estimated it would take 320 hours (8 weeks) of work to “find” the records of the “recent upgrade.” 33. In an attempt to address his concerns to City Council, Le Brocq emailed a letter to all of the Carrollton City Councilmembers and the Mayor requesting a meeting with Carrollton’s Public Officials to address the widespread issues with the justice system in the Carrollton Municipal Court. 34. Le Brocq heard nothing back from the Councilmembers. Instead, the same private law firm that stated they represented the Judge and City Attorney’s Office sent a cease and desist letter ordering Le Brocq to not contact the Carrollton City Council and threatened him with going to the State Bar of Texas for violating the disciplinary rules of professional conduct. Le Brocq was not informed that this private law firm represented the entire City until today, May 22, 2018, and Le Brocq fails to understand why he cannot address the Public Officials about all of the issues in the city in which he lives and operates a high-volume law practice in. 35. The private law firm is being paid by Carrollton taxpayer dollars to hide, coverup and threaten Le Brocq for clearly revealing Carrollton’s scheme in defrauding the public and taking every action possible to ensure that their conduct is not revealed to the public. The Texas Constitution prohibits this conduct, and Carrollton must be held accountable for their blatant misuse of taxpayer dollars to coverup their infringement of the rights of its citizens. Le Brocq, et al v. City of Carrollton, Texas, et al Page 8 of 14 Count 1- Gift Clause 1. Plaintiffs incorporate by reference the preceding paragraphs as though fully set forth herein. 2. As taxpayers, Plaintiffs are responsible for paying property and other taxes and will bear a share of the burden for replenishing Carrollton revenue for expenditures made that benefit FANNING HARPER MARTINSON BRANDT & KUTCHIN, P.C. law firm pursuant to any legal representation agreement it maintains (hereinafter “Agreement”) with Carrollton. 3. Article III, §§ 50, 51, 52(a), and Article XVI, § 6(a) of the Constitution of the State of Texas are collectively referred to herein as the “Gift Clause.” 4. A payment of a political subdivision, including a municipality, of the State of Texas is proper under the Gift Clause only if: first, the expenditure serves a public purpose, and second, the expenditure affords a clear public benefit in return. 5. To constitute a “public purpose,” the activity must be one whose predominate purpose is to accomplish a public purpose and not to benefit private parties; public control must be retained over the expenditures to ensure the public purpose is accomplished; and the municipality must receive a return benefit constituting sufficient consideration. 6. Carrollton’s Agreement with FANNING HARPER MARTINSON BRANDT & KUTCHIN, P.C. law firm serve only to protect the private interests of Defendants the Honorable Judge Meredith Lyon, Mary Scanlon, and Susan Keller, respectively, while harming Carrollton residents and predominately benefiting FANNING HARPER MARTINSON BRANDT & KUTCHIN, P.C., a private party. 7. Due to the attorney-client relationship, the Agreement lacks any – let alone “sufficient” – public control to ensure a public purpose is being accomplished. Carrollton residents Le Brocq, et al v. City of Carrollton, Texas, et al Page 9 of 14 have no control, insight, or disclosure of the dealings between a private law firm and Carrollton government. Apparently, the public is not allowed to address concerns with the Carrollton City Councilmembers without being threatened by a private third party that his taxes are paying for. 8. The Agreement fails to provide Carrollton a clear public benefit in return and is unsupported by sufficient consideration. 9. There is no benefit to the Carrollton residents for paying an expensive private law firm to represent the individual interests of Carrollton public servants who sought to exploit the rights of the accused in the Carrollton Municipal Court. Rather than confess error of the egregious harm done by Defendants, a private law firm was hired to further harm Carrollton taxpayers. The City Attorney’s Office of the City of Carrollton maintains a legal department with a full staff of attorneys that provide legal representation to the City of Carrollton, its officers, and employees in regard to official City business. There is absolutely no reason why Carrollton taxpayers should be forced to bear the additional and unapproved expense of a private law firm, especially given the nature of Defendants’ actions which are wholly contrary to any public benefit. 10. For all these reasons, pursuant to the Texas Uniform Declaratory Judgment Act, Plaintiffs ask this Court to declare that any funds or compensation Carrollton has granted to FANNING HARPER MARTINSON BRANDT & KUTCHIN, P.C. and any other private law firm, fail to meet the standards Texas public entities must meet under the Gift Clause. Furthermore, Plaintiffs request the Court to declare that those benefits therefore constitute impermissible subsidies and gifts to private associations and exceed Defendants’ lawful powers in violation of the Texas Constitution, art. III, §§ 50, 51, 52; art. XVI, § 6. Le Brocq, et al v. City of Carrollton, Texas, et al Page 10 of 14 Application for Temporary Restraining Order and Permanent Injunction 11. Plaintiffs request a temporary restraining order to maintain the status quo pursuant to Texas Civil Practices and Remedies Code § 65.011. 12. Plaintiffs ask this Court to restrain the City of Carrollton from expending taxpayer dollars to fund their employment of a private law firm to defend their unlawful actions and which the attorneys employed by the City of Carrollton City Attorney’s office are fully capable of doing so themselves. 13. Plaintiffs will suffer imminent irreparable harm to which no adequate remedy at law exists if the City of Carrollton is not enjoined from these actions because when a Plaintiff asserts taxpayer standing, he can only seek to enjoin prospective expenditure of public funds but cannot recover funds already expended. Accordingly, there will be no adequate remedy at law if the City of Carrollton is not enjoined from expending the public funds in question. 14. Plaintiffs will likely recover from the City of Carrollton after a trial on the merits because: there is no public benefit in paying an outside private law firm to defend a City that has a City Attorney’s Office, especially when the defense is for the City’s coverups; there is no Public control; and, no Public return in the expenditure of the funds. 15. Plaintiffs request the Court to dispense the payment of bond and asks the Court to set this Application for Temporary Restraining Order for a hearing and, after the hearing, issuing a temporary injunction against the City of Carrollton, and, upon final hearing hereof, to convert the same into a permanent injunction. Le Brocq, et al v. City of Carrollton, Texas, et al Page 11 of 14 Attorney Fees 16. Under the Uniform Declaratory Act, Plaintiffs are entitled to recover “costs and reasonable and equitable attorney’s fees as are equitable and just.” Tex. Civ. Prac. § Rem. Code Ann. §37.009. 17. Plaintiffs seek award of their reasonable attorney fees for the preparation of this suit, prosecution of this suit, and all appeals. Request for Disclosure 18. Plaintiffs request that Defendants disclosure the information and materials described in Rule 194.2 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. Request for Relief WHEREFORE, PREMISES CONSIDERED, Plaintiff Stephen Kenji Le Brocq and Le Brocq Law Firm PLLC respectfully requests that Defendants herein be cited to appear and answer and recover following relief against Defendants: a. A temporary restraining order issued to the City of Carrollton preventing it from: expending taxpayer dollars to fund their employment of a private law firm to defend their unlawful actions and which the attorneys employed by the City of Carrollton City Attorney’s office are fully capable of doing so themselves. b. The City of Carrollton Defendants be cited to appear and show cause, and that upon hearing, a temporary restraining order issue enjoining them as set forth in paragraph a; c. A judgment declaring that that any funds or compensation Carrollton has granted to FANNING HARPER MARTINSON BRANDT & KUTCHIN, P.C. Le Brocq, et al v. City of Carrollton, Texas, et al Page 12 of 14 and any other private law firm, fail to meet the standards Texas public entities must meet under the Gift Clause. Furthermore, Plaintiffs request the Court to declare that those benefits therefore constitute impermissible subsidies and gifts to private associations and exceed Defendants’ lawful powers in violation of the Texas Constitution, art. III, §§ 50, 51, 52; art. XVI, § 6. d. Attorneys’ fees, pre- and post-judgment interest, court costs, and other damages; and e. Any other relief to which Plaintiffs are justly entitled. Respectfully submitted, LE BROCQ LAW FIRM PLLC /s/ Evan Horner Evan Horner Texas SBN: 24104545 /s/ Stephen Le Brocq Stephen Le Brocq Texas SBN: 24094791 Plaza of Josey Ranch 2150 North Josey Lane, Suite 227 Carrollton, Texas 75006 Phone: (469) 930-4385 Fax: (866) 820-6005 Email: SERVICE@lebrocqlawgroup.com ATTORNEYS FOR PLAINTIFFS Le Brocq, et al v. City of Carrollton, Texas, et al Page 13 of 14 VERIFICATION My name is Stephen Kenji Le Brocq, my date of birth is: May 24, 1991, and my address is: 2150 North Josey Lane, Suite 227, Carrollton, Texas 75006 and United States of America. “I declare under penalty of perjury that the statements in the foregoing is true and correct to the best of my knowledge, except to which matters therein stated to be upon information and belief and as to such matters the undersigned certifies as aforesaid that he verily believes the same to be true.” /s/ Stephen Le Brocq Executed on this 22nd day of May 2018, in the County of Dallas, State of Texas. Le Brocq, et al v. City of Carrollton, Texas, et al Page 14 of 14