Holly Brown has been dealt another blow by the legal system.
As the Monitor originally reported on March 5, 2024, Ms. Brown is facing the loss of her home in the Kenwood neighborhood, due to a mechanics’ lien filed against the property by Les Grumdahl, owner of Grumdahl Window & Siding. Brown’s appeals have been denied by the courts. The documentary evidence in the case supports Brown, and has supported her from the beginning, yet this does not seem to matter.
Suffice to say that everything went wrong for Holly Brown in a dispute which began when Les Grumdahl left Holly’s siding job unfinished in June of 2021. Everything went wrong, and the only discernible cause was the biases and laziness of the principals involved. Grumdahl told untruths on the witness stand, Holly’s own lawyer sabotaged her case, and Judge Eric Hylden misinterpreted evidence and based his decisions on subjective opinions of character. While Holly fought to save her house, men of substance stripped away her rights, one by one. When they made mistakes, only Holly suffered.
“I want to remind you…”
One important chapter in this story of malfeasance relates to Les Grumdahl’s testimony on the witness stand.
On Feb. 7, 2023, when the judicial trial in the matter of Grumdahl v. Brown was held in Duluth before Judge Eric Hylden in St. Louis County District Court, Holly Brown learned that her lawyer, Robb Enslin, had misled her. Enslin had assured her that there would be no trial that day, because he was going to secure a continuance. However, when Brown arrived in the courtroom, unprepared to testify, she found that Judge Hylden wanted to hold the trial immediately.
Enslin had also failed to submit Holly’s evidence to the court months earlier, after assuring her he would do so. Because of this, to Holly’s dismay, only Les Grumdahl’s evidence would be considered by the court.
One claim Grumdahl repeatedly made was that he had paid $15,276.55 for special siding, which he could not return or use for any other project. To support this claim, he submitted a document he labeled an “invoice” as evidence. However, the document was not an invoice; it was a sales acknowledgement from Beacon Building Products which showed that the siding Grumdahl had supposedly “paid for” was on back order. Thus, the court had no actual proof that Grumdahl had received or paid for the siding.
During the Feb. 7 hearing, Matt Hanka, Grumdahl’s attorney, reviewed the evidence submissions with Grumdahl, including the sales acknowledgement.
Matt Hanka: Now let’s go to Exhibit 13, and why don’t you tell the Court what that is?
Les Grumdahl: Exhibit 13 is the invoice from my supplier for the siding part of this project, which was all special order, nonreturnable, and I’m still obligated partially for it …
Hanka: Where is the siding now?
Grumdahl: Sitting at my supplier.
Hanka: So it’s something you can’t use but you’ve paid for?
Grumdahl: Yes.
Hanka: What is the amount you’ve paid?
Grumdahl: $15,276.55.
Hanka: And that’s reflected in this Exhibit 13?
Grumdahl: Yes.
At this point, everyone in the courtroom was looking at Exhibit 13, yet no one—not Robb Enslin, not Judge Hylden—pointed out that the document they were looking at was not an invoice. The judge accepted the sales slip into evidence as a paid invoice.
Under cross-examination by Robb Enslin, Grumdahl repeated that he had paid for the siding.
Attorney Robb Enslin: So you had not done any of the siding, but you were requesting another payment on the siding. Correct?
Grumdahl: I want to remind you that I had ordered and paid for the siding.
Enslin: Thank you.
Grumdahl: So there was not actually work performed, but it was ordered and paid for.
And again:
Enslin: You’re saying that this was your costs, but you’re saying you have costs that weren’t in here, but they might be somewhere else. Is that right?
Grumdahl: Yes. The other costs are the parts of the siding material, so the total amount that I was requesting [for the damage award] was $41,176.55.
And again:
Enslin: Has all that information been provided to us? Is that all—
Grumdahl: Yep.
Enslin: That’s all—it is all in these exhibits?
Grumdahl: Here’s the siding invoices right here, plus the other one here.
And again:
Grumdahl: With discussion with my attorney, we discussed that the siding material possibly could be used in a different project. I have not found that the case so far, so that’s why we wanted to [ask for] a reasonable amount of money. I’m not asking to gouge anybody or make any profit of any kind. I’m looking just to get my costs recovered.
Enslin: Do you think you can use the siding in another project?
Grumdahl: It’s a special two-tone color that’s special order, and not everybody likes that color.
Enslin: So maybe?
Grumdahl: Yeah. I’m not saying I can’t at some point, but it’s been almost two years now and I haven’t been able to use it.
When Attorney Hanka reviewed the exhibits with Grumdahl on redirect, Grumdahl repeated his claim yet again.
Hanka: And then on top of that, there was another $15,276.55 for siding that was part of Exhibit 13. Correct?
Grumdahl: Yes.
Fact or opinion?
On March 26, 2023, Judge Hylden ruled against Holly Brown. He began his order by listing 14 “Statements of Fact.”
Hylden’s first two Statements pertained to Grumdahl’s and Brown’s credibility:
- Les Grumdahl testified on behalf of his company, Les Grumdahl Window and Siding, LLC, and was a credible witness throughout.
- Defendant Holly Brown testified on her own behalf. Ms. Brown was less credible concerning pertinent facts of the case.
For his eleventh Statement of Fact, Hylden wrote, “Mr. Grumdahl also submitted an invoice from the siding supplier in the amount of $15,276.55. Plaintiff has been unable to reuse that siding, and it can only be installed with his own machine, or it voids the warranty.”
Hylden reiterated the differences between Les Grumdahl’s and Holly Brown’s credibility three more times in his order—a determination based solely on his opinion.
The perjury investigation
Following the trial, Holly Brown took it upon herself to call Beacon Building Products and inquire if Les Grumdahl had paid for the siding. She was informed that he had not.
On May 20, 2024, Holly Brown submitted a complaint to the Duluth Police Department, alleging that Les Grumdahl had committed perjury to enrich himself at her expense.
Investigator Ryan Temple was assigned the investigation. He applied for a search warrant and received a number of documents from Beacon Building Products.
One email, dated Sept. 14, 2020, appeared to reference the siding. Levi McCracken, Duluth’s warehouse lead for Beacon, emailed Les Grumdahl: “The Steel coils, trim, and soffit are in for the Holly Brown job.” The steel coils appear to refer to the siding. Temple was also provided with “another receiving report dated 10/08/2020 for these items as well showing they were received by the warehouse.” This was approximately two-and-a-half years prior to the trial.
Temple received no evidence that the siding was invoiced or paid for. He received a spreadsheet from Beacon showing that the items for the Holly Brown job had been “written off” in October of 2022—four months before the trial.
Temple forwarded his findings to the St. Louis County Attorney’s Office for review.
On Oct. 16, 2024, Assistant St. Louis County Attorney Nate Stumme issued a memorandum stating that perjury charges would not be filed against Les Grumdahl because the state could not prove that Grumdahl knew his statements were false when he made them.
Stumme wrote:
A careful review of the trial transcript indicates that at the time Mr. Grumdahl provided testimony regarding receipt and payment for the siding he held a good-faith belief that the siding had been delivered to Beacon Building Products and was ready to be picked up by his staff … Notice of delivery of the material to Beacon was conveyed to a project manager who personally advised Mr. Grumdahl that the siding material had been received. There is no substantial evidence that Mr. Grumdahl would have believed his trial testimony on the issue of Mr. Grumdahl’s payment obligation with Beacon was not true.
The St. Louis County Attorney’s Office will only charge a crime if there is a reasonable likelihood of success at trial where the state carries the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. There is insufficient evidence here to prove that Mr. Grumdahl intentionally offered false testimony on a material issue that he knew was untrue, and, therefore, a charge of perjury or any other criminal offense is unwarranted.
Holly Brown’s house is scheduled to be sold at auction on Dec. 11, 2024.
Cover photo: Les Grumdahl (AI-upscaled image). Source: Linkedin.
Oh, this really stinks.