Precision Locating v. Starkebaum – Motion-Hearing Transcript (October 2, 2025)

Accessible document transcript

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STATE OF MINNESOTA  DISTRICT COURT

COUNTY OF OTTER TAIL SEVENTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT
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Precision Locating, LLC,
Arvig Enterprises, Inc. Appellate Court File: N/A
 District Court File: 56-CV-25-198
 Plaintiffs,

vs. Transcript of Proceedings

Martin D Starkebaum,

  Defendant.

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MOTION HEARING

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The above -entitled matter came before the
Honorable Kevin M. Miller, Judge of District Court, at the
Otter Tail County Courthouse, Fergus Falls , Minnesota, on
October 2, 2025, via Zoom technology.
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APPEARANCES
 For the Petitioners:  Kurt Erickson
   80 S. 8th Street, Ste 1300
   Minneapolis, MN 55402-2136

 For the Defense: Vincent Ella
   One Southwest Crossing
   11095 Viking Drive, Ste 420
   Eden Prairie, MN 55344

   Jerry Burg
   219 SE Main Street, Ste 504
   Minneapolis, MN 55414

Dana Eifert
Official Court Reporter
56-CV-25-198 Filed in District Court
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10/22/2025 10:01 AM

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(Proceedings commenced.)
   THE COURT:  All right.  At this time, the Court
will call the matter of Precision Locating, Arvig
Enterprises versus Martin Starkebaum; file 56-CV-25-198.
I have Mr. Erickson here on behalf of plaintiff.  I have
Mr. Ella and Mr. Burg present here today.
  We have a couple motions before the Court.  The
first motion is the motion, or at least the first one
that I’m going to address, will be the motions to quash
the deposition of the minor child.  And Mr. Ella or
Mr. Burg, this is your motion.  The Court did also
receive the letters with correspondence, and I will
address those in any order also.  Whether they were
considered or not, so I will take care of that in any
order.  So I don’t know who is going to address -- it
looks like Mr. Ella has unmuted.  So you may proceed.
   MR. ELLA:  Thanks, Your Honor.  You know, I
think there’s a basic point in this case that’s relevant
to both motions, which is regarding the defamation claim,
it’s undisputed that Defendant didn’t make this statement
on Facebook.  And I think Plaintiffs acknowledge this.
They sort of don’t want to believe it, but it’s
undisputed.  And I say that for relating to both motions
because the testimony of Mr. Starkebaum’s daughter is not
necessary to our defense that he didn’t make the
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statement.  And I also think that the fact that he didn’t
make the statement calls out for a summary judgment
motion, you know, unless the Plaintiffs want to drop that
claim, in that that would narrow issues for trial, and I
know I’m getting into the second motion.
  But with regard to the motion to quash, as I pointed
out in our brief, the testimony of Mr. Starkebaum’s
daughter is not relevant to a dispute where
Mr. Starkebaum didn’t make the statement.  The statement
was made by someone who's not a party to the case.  And
it was made about someone who’s not a party to the case,
and not even, and no longer is an employee of the
Plaintiffs, or either of them.
  And I’ve indicated in our briefing as well that we
would not intend to call or would stipulate that we’re
not going to call the minor daughter as a witness at
trial, so there’s just, you know, if you look at the
balance of equities here, this would be a really
traumatic experience for a thirteen-year-old girl.  You
know, paired with the issue that there’s really no need
whatsoever for her testimony on a defamation case where
the Defendant didn’t make the statement.  And, obviously,
we just submit that it’s wholly inappropriate to put her
through this.  Really, under the Rule 26 standard, it’s
just not necessary.  They don’t need her testimony.
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   THE COURT:  All right.  And Mr. Erickson,
responding to that.  We’ll stay on just this motion
first.
   MR. ERICKSON:  Judge, I would refer you to
their answer.  In their answer at affirmative defenses
fifteen and sixteen.  They argue and affirm to the Court,
“Plaintiff’s claims of defamation and defamation per se
are barred because the statements are the truth or
substantially the truth.”  That’s what it says.  That’s
what they raised after they got our amended complaint.
They said, “Plaintiff’s claims of defamation and
defamation per se are barred by qualified privilege.”
That’s paragraph sixteen.  That’s what they said after
getting our amended complaint.
  Complaint is very clear that Mr. Mayen posted, but
that Plaintiff, excuse me, that Defendant was in fact
involved in making these statements.  And I understand
their position that they don’t believe that that’s what
occurred, but that’s an issue for the jury with regard to
it, and one bit are they withdrawing affirmative defenses
fifteen and sixteen.  For Mr. Ella to come up here and
say that, in fact, well, these are not issues, it’s
wholly inappropriate.  And then maintain these
affirmative defenses that go directly to what
Evelyn Starkebaum knows or doesn’t know is outrageous.
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It's outrageous that you can do that on the one hand,
raise the defenses after getting the amended complaint,
and then on the other hand, say oh, they’re completely
unnecessary.  And what I really don’t appreciate is the
arguments in this brief, in which they say that this is
harassment, oppression, an attempt to basically impugn or
otherwise destroy Evelyn Starkebaum, don’t even have the
courage to say that in the oral argument.  So I’m going
to order a transcript of this hearing because the
evidence with regard to harassment, the evidence with
regard to oppression, there’s zero.  There’s zero
evidence that we’ve engaged in that.  And the argument by
Mr. Ella here that there are facts in the record with
regard to harassment or annoyance, there is utterly none.
So that argument is being made almost as a harassment of
Plaintiff’s attorneys as well.
  So let’s go directly into the merits of the claim.
We talk about the fact that within minutes of Plaintiff
knowing about this and telling Mr. Starkebaum’s attorney
that this was happening, the Facebook post was
immediately taken down.  Immediately taken down.  We talk
about the fact that Mr. Guthmiller, the slamming of
Mr. Guthmiller’s character was done by Mr. Starkebaum to
Mr. Mayen, and that Mr. Mayen regurgitated that in the
answer to -- or not the answer, but in the Facebook post.
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We talk about the defamation of Shane Lester, and
basically accusing him of criminal conduct with regard to
this.  I mean, that’s just, that’s just outrageous.  And
let’s let the jury decide this.
   THE COURT:  All right.  Mr. Ella, any response?
I do see in your answer when I popped that back open
because I -- it’s been a while since I looked at it.  It
does certainly say that --
   MR. ERICKSON:  Judge, I had one other --
   THE COURT:  Oh, I, I --
   MR. ERICKSON: -- point.  I forgot --
   THE COURT:  -- I apologize.  Oh, go ahead.
   MR. ERICKSON:  No.  No, no, I had finished my
marks and I had forgotten.  If you don’t think that this
is important, look at the testimony and cross examination
by Jerry Burg of Matt Guthmiller, which we put into the
record.  As my colleague, colleague said in her papers,
they go up and down asking about the intricacies of what
happened, supposedly, with Ms. Starkebaum.  So the idea
that on the one hand you can say it’s wholly, it’s wholly
inappropriate and improper, and oh by the way it’s also
harassing even though we don’t have any facts of
harassment.  But on the other hand, we’d like to know
your take on all of these facts.  We’d like to know
whether you sat on the couch and watched TV or played
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video games with him.  We’d like to know whether or not
you were clothed or unclothed.  We’d like to know if you
in any way touched her.  We’d like to know whether you’ve
had any criminal convictions with regard to this.  All
that’s fair game in terms of Guthmiller; it’s not fair
game with Evelyn Starkebaum.  That’s outrageous.
   THE COURT:  All right.  Mr. Ella?
   MR. ELLA:  Well, I don’t quite understand
counsel’s statements about harassment.  I mean we can use
whatever --
   MR. ERICKSON:  I’ll tell you what the
statements are --
   THE COURT:  Hold on.  No.  Hold on.  Hold on.
  But, Mr. Ella, specifically, I just want to ask,
when you have it in the answer that you say that the
claims are barred because the statements are true or
substantially the truth, I mean, that’s one affirmative
defense you’re putting forth in your answer.
   MR. ELLA:  Well, that’s a standard defense to
defamation.
   THE COURT:  It’s -- but well, it’s there
though.  I mean --
   MR. ELLA:  It is.
   THE COURT:  -- there’s no --
   MR. ELLA:  Yeah.  I would, I would point out
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that Mr. Erickson doesn’t represent Mr. Guthmiller.  He’s
not even an employee of Mr. Erickson’s client.  And it’s
undisputed that Mr. Starkebaum didn’t make the statement,
and Plaintiffs are trying to make a claim that he caused
the defamatory statement to be made, but that is not
actually a cause of action under Minnesota law.  That’s
not a thing.  That’s not a claim.  You have to publish a
statement.  He did not publish his statement.  That’s
undisputed.  Mr. Mayen says under oath, repeatedly, it
was me.  It was all me.  And Mr. Starkebaum says, it
wasn’t me, it wasn’t me.  And the administrator of the
Facebook group says it was Mr. Mayen, so.  You know we
just don’t need to get to truth because it’s undisputed
that he didn’t make the statement.  And, you know, I, I
think that -- it’s not relevant and the idea of having a
thirteen-year-old girl sit for a deposition about whether
someone touched her on her buttocks and whatever else, is
-- you can say it’s harassing, but it’s just, it’s, it’s
burdensome.  It’s not fair to a non-party witness in a
civil case that was started by, obviously, started by
Plaintiffs.  And so yeah, we asserted an affirmative
defense of truth, but we have a stronger defense, which
is, he didn’t make the statement.  So.  And that’s in the
record.  That’s in their amended complaint.  We put in
the testimony in the affidavits.  So, I think it’s just,
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there’s no -- I don’t understand what -- and then you
know, I would ask Mr. Erickson too, what is Ms. -- what
is this minor girl going to say that’s going to support
their case?  Right? --
   MR. ERICKSON:  That it didn’t happen.
   MR. ELLA:  Well, she’s told police it did.  You
said that they -- she was found --
   MR. ERICKSON:  No.
   MR. ELLA:  -- to be not credible.
   MR. ERICKSON:  Yeah.
   THE COURT:  Yep.  We’re --
   MR. ELLA:  -- (Indiscernible.)
   THE COURT:  -- I’m not going to have back and
forth, though, so Mr. Ella, you know, don’t pose any
questions.  I’ll go back to Mr. Erickson if he wants to
add something on this.  So you may continue.
   MR. ELLA:  I mean, he, you know, it’s
undisputed that he wasn’t convicted of anything.  We have
-- and that’s another point, is we have an ample record
of the police report, the police interview, a videotape
of the interview.  What more do they need?  Why do they
need to go over this again and traumatize this young girl
again about something that’s so far removed from anything
relevant in this civil case?  It -- I mean, I don’t know
what she would say or not say.  We have the -- we have
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the police report.  We’ve said we’re not going to call
her as a witness at trial.  That should be enough to
preclude the deposition testimony.  We, we don’t need her
testimony to defeat the defamation case on summary
judgment because he didn’t, -- defendant didn’t make the
statement.  It’s undisputed.
   MR. ERICKSON:  Can I respond?
   THE COURT:  Yes, Mr. Erickson.
   MR. ERICKSON:  Okay.  Are you willing to
withdraw paragraphs fifteen and sixteen, affirmative
defenses?
   MR. ELLA:  So --
   MR. ERICKSON:  Yes or no?
   MR. ELLA:  Your Honor, we can’t withdraw the
affirmative defense of truth because --
   MR. ERICKSON:  You can or cannot?
   MR. ELLA:  -- it’s pretty -- there’s --
   THE COURT:  I think he said he can’t, is what
--
   MR. ELLA:  -- there’s three people named, and
there’s reasons to believe that the statements for all of
them were true or substantially true.  And a blanket
withdraw of an affirmative defense like that is too blunt
of an instrument here.
   THE COURT:  So what you’re asking then is,
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Mr. Erickson is supposed to just figure out who, where
the truth might lie with which of the three individuals,
and he’s supposed to guess that without depositions?  I
mean --
   MR. ERICKSON:  Exactly right.
   THE COURT:  -- you’re not really giving him,
you know, he’s asking regarding that, and you’re saying,
well, there might be because we have three.  But you’re,
you’re forcing him to guess which of the statements may
apply to which of the three individuals may have a truth
component, and I don’t know how he’s supposed to find
that out without -- you know, explain to me how you would
find that out without a deposition for the folks that he
believes are necessary rather than leave him guessing on
which ones they may apply or may not apply too.
   MR. ERICKSON:  Am I continuing, or are those
your questions --
   THE COURT:  That’s, that’s --
   MR. ERICKSON:  -- to Ella, and I’ll continue
after?
   THE COURT:  Yep.  I’ll come back to you.  I’m
asking --
   MR. ERICKSON:  All right.  All right.
   THE COURT:  -- Mr. Ella that one.
   MR. ERICKSON:  Yep.
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   MR. ELLA:  They, they have ample evidence of
what she said.
   THE COURT:  That’s not answering my question,
though.
   MR. ELLA:  No, I understand.  We don’t, we
don’t need to get to the truth defense because we have he
didn’t make the statement defense.  But what is, again,
what is she going to say in a deposition if she says the
same thing?  Does that prove that it’s true or not true?
You know, he hasn’t been convicted.  He’s not a party to
this case.  And it’s just not, it’s just not relevant,
and it's just not appropriate.  It’s very aggressive to
say we’re going to say we’re going to take a deposition
of a fourteen-- thirteen-year-old girl about a Facebook
post that the Defendant didn’t make; it’s just under the
balancing test and Rule 26, it’s not relevant.  It’s not
appropriate.  It’s, it’s, it is harassing.  And he --
   THE COURT:  All right.  I’m going to go back to
Mr. Erickson, he’s, he’s got his opportunity.  I had
interrupted there, so Mr. Erickson, you may continue.
   MR. ERICKSON:  Yeah.  And I’m going to say that
it’s going to be a jury question with regard to whether
or not this was a statement, not just by Mr. Mayen, and
we agree it’s a statement by Mr. Mayen, but we also
believe and have testified repeatedly that consistent
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with the verbiage, consistent with the tactic of
referring to people frequently as pedophiles, that it is
in fact the statement of his, together with Mr. Mayen,
with regard to this.  And we’ll point to the fact, and
the jury can decide this.  The jury can decide whether or
not Mr. Mayen was telling the truth.  And in fact, that
there was a violation of the rules of professional
conduct by Mr. Burg in soliciting this statement without
telling Mr. Mayen that it was a statement against his
interest.  That’s laid out in detail in the deposition of
Mr. Mayen with regard to this.  --
   MR. ELLA:  That’s --
   MR. ERICKSON:  -- Mr. Mayen was not -- hold it.
It’s my turn to talk, Mr. Ella.
  That was laid out in detail in the statement of
Mr. -- not the statement, the deposition of Mr. Mayen
with regard to this.  And then the jury can decide.  They
can say, hey guess what, we think it’s only a statement
of Mr. Mayen, even though he wasn’t told that it was a
statement against interest.  Even though he wasn’t
represented at the time that he, he gave a statement to
Mr. Burg.  They can decide at that point whose statement
it is.  That’s fine.  Don’t have an issue with that.
We’ll abide by what the jury has to say.
   THE COURT:  All right.  We’re going to move to
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the motion to amend the scheduling order, Mr. Ella.
   MR. ELLA:  Thanks, Your Honor.  Just want to
note that this last issue raised by counsel is not part
of any pending motion, and that Mr. Mayen was deposed
after his statement and stuck to his story, and was
represented.
  Your Honor, we come before the Court to ask for an
extension of the scheduling order.  I came into this case
mid-stream, but when I did in August, discovery was going
full throttle, and depositions had not been completed.
In fact, Plaintiff’s depositions were completed yesterday
after, I believe, two requests for extensions by
Plaintiffs, which we agreed to.  And so, you know,
regardless of how we got here, I mean, I put in my brief
that majority of the requests for extensions were from
the other side, all of which we accommodated, and the
amended answer discovery spilled over, you know, way over
the August 31st deadline.  We’re now into October, and
obviously, you can’t bring a dispositive motion without
-- without discovery.  And so we think it’s appropriate
and that the Court would appreciate a chance to narrow
the issues for trial.  As you know, it’s our position, we
think it’s undisputed that our client, the Defendant,
didn’t make the defamation statement, and there’s no fact
dispute, and so I think that’s a perfect issue for
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summary judgment.  And it would be in the interest of
court efficiency to have a dispositive motion before we
go to trial.  And that could eliminate the need, you
know, for this testimony of, you know, of, well, anyone’s
testimony on the defamation issue.
  So specifically, you know, it’s a twenty-eight-day
lead time, so we’d be looking for a deadline or even
perhaps a hearing date that’s, as Mr. Burg said,
November 15 or later.  I would maybe say, you know,
sometime after Thanksgiving, we can get going on our
brief now that we’ve finished depositions yesterday.  And
there’s no prejudice to the other side.  They want to
bring a motion for punitive damages, I guess.  There’s no
prejudice.  This is a bit of an unusual case.  It’s been
heavily litigated and depositions have been postponed
numerous times, and that’s, you know, not anyone’s fault.
I recognize that we should’ve asked for an extension
before the deadline, but I’m here to request that the
Court exercise its discretion to give us more time for
motion practice before just dropping this in the hands of
an Otter Tail County jury.
   THE COURT:  All right.  And Mr. Erickson.
   MR. ERICKSON:  So, Judge, here’s what happened.
We gave the Plaintiff an extensive -- excuse me, the
Defendant, an extensive amended verified complaint, and
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we proposed doing discovery through the end of August.
That’s what we did.  We proposed that.  The Defendant
agreed to it.  And then the Court issued an order to that
effect, amending the scheduling order.  And paragraph
thirteen of the scheduling order specifically provides
for a good cause standard, and the fact that if you’re
going to ask for something after the time period has
lapsed, you have to, under Rule 6, show not only good
cause, but you have to show excusable neglect.  This
argument with regard to changing the dates of the
deposition is misleading, and here’s why it’s misleading.
  The depositions of Schmidt and Guthmiller, and
Lester, and then the institutional depositions of the two
corporate defendants were all set at the end of August.
So the idea that’s being propounded to you, the idea that
they were going to be taken and then a summary judgment
motion was going to be made by August 31st, is utter
nonsense.  It never was going to happen.  They were
setting these depositions at the very end of the
discovery period.  There was no chance, zero, that there
was going to be a summary judgment motion with regard to
this.  So when you hear, oh, they’ve been set repeatedly
and stuff like that.  We have changed the dates after the
time period for discovery, that’s true.  The idea that it
was repeatedly changed within the discovery period is
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false.
  The other thing is, for purposes of scheduling in
this case, we repeatedly, before the Labor Day weekend,
tried to contact both Mr. Ella and Mr. Burg with regard
to scheduling, which included scheduling of the
depositions.  And they both repeatedly refused to meet
with us before the no-- before the dispositive deadline
passed.  They only would meet after Labor Day.  That’s
their business.  They can do that.  But there’s a
consequence to that with regard to failing to meet and
ask for an expansion of the period before the period
runs.  Okay.
  So what is the, what is the issue with regard to --
well, let me put it to you this way, I didn’t hear
anything about changing the trial date in Mr. Ella’s
argument.  Nothing.  So we’re on as far as I know for
December 16th.  He’s put in writing that he wants to get
some kind of four-month extension.  He never met and
conferred, nor did Mr. Burg ever meet and confer with
regard to changing the trial date.  The only way this
case gets resolved, whether it's by settlement or by
Court action, is to have a firm trial date.  There’s
nothing in this record indicating that we can’t get this
matter tried on or about December 16th, which is
Your Honor’s order with regard to this.
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  All right.  Let’s talk about the summary judgment
motion.  The summary judgment motion, if they were going
to make one based on all of these arguments that they’ve
made in their answer, could easily have been drafted and
prepared before the argument was taken, or excuse me,
before the time period, and they haven’t done that.  And
what that -- the hardship that that works, is that we’re
now going to have to do a summary judgment motion and
spend time and money in this case that otherwise would
not be necessary with regard to this.  Noteworthy, in
what he had to say, was that they’re not going to bring a
summary judgment motion with regard to breach of
contract.  When we did a meet and confer on other issues,
at a different time period, they acknowledged that
there’s a fact issue regarding breach of contract.  So
the idea that the summary judgment motion is going to
eliminate the case, not true.  Case will go forward on
claims that they’re not going to make a motion on because
they don’t have a basis for doing that.  And I think that
it’s critical that in fact that we go forward without
that expense.
  With regard to any motions that they believe are
necessary as a matter of law, they can make those motions
either as a directed verdict motion or they can make them
as a judgment, judgment as a matter -- JMOV motion at
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trial.  We’re going to be a trial for sure.
   THE COURT:  All right.  Mr. Ella.
   MR. ELLA:  Yeah, if I could make a suggestion,
again, sort of addressing both motions.  If we were, if
the Court were considering, even considering, having this
minor daughter or minor girl deposed, if we were allowed
to bring a summary judgment motion, and it’s pretty
straightforward summary judgment motion, that if we could
defer a ruling on the motion to quash until after summary
judgment, we could avoid the deposition all together if
that claim is dismissed.  Which I believe it would be.
There’d be plenty of time to, you know, if for some
reason the motion was denied to rule on the motion to
quash or to have a deposition or a trial deposition.  You
know, I really just don’t feel like this thirteen-year-
old girl needs to be subjected to this.  That would be a
way to efficiently avoid the hardship and trauma of a
thirteen-year-old girl, you know, being deposed over
something like, like, this.
  And I do want to say that Mr. Erickson
mischaracterized my statement in our meet and confer.  We
-- he didn’t ask about trial dates.  I think it’s
inherent in our request and it’s in our motion that we
want to push back the trial date.  We got stuck on
summary judgment, and he wanted to talk about what the
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grounds for summary judgment would be.  And I did not say
that there was a fact issue with regard to the breach of
contract claim.  I said, there might be.  I said there
might be, but I said the defamation count should be --
they should dismiss it.
   MR. ERICKSON:  Yeah.  So I’ll respond if the
Court wants me to.
   THE COURT:  You can.
   MR. ERICKSON:  Yeah, so the argument here, at
what point in time, at what point in time, does the, does
the Defendant have to come up with facts showing that
there would be harassment or oppression or any of the
things that he’s talking about here?  There’s not a
scintilla of evidence in the record on that.  Not a
scintilla.  And to make that argument without any
evidence is just completely inappropriate.
  And then the other thing with regard to that is, we
have specifically told the Court at the end of our
motion, whatever safeguards the Court wants to put in
place with regard to this, that’s fine.  We’ll abide by
the Court’s safeguards if the Court believes that any
safeguards are necessary with regard to the deposition.
The only critical safeguard that I know of is that if
we’re going to -- if Mr. Starkebaum, who is present at
this hearing according to his thing, according to the
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Zoom conference notice here, if he’s going to attend,
then Judge, we need to go, the closest one is the Anoka
County Courthouse.  We need to go through -- everyone
needs to go through the metal detector for purposes of
taking the deposition.  That’s the only safeguard that I
know of that’s necessary here.  But that is necessary if
Mr. Starkebaum is going to attend.  He’s a party.  He has
a right to attend.  That’s fine.  That’s the only
safeguard that has to be in place with regard to this.
   THE COURT:  All right.  Anything further,
Mr. Ella, for the Court?  And I realize I’ve got one
pending and these pending, and we’ve got a pending trial
date, so I need to get some things out rather quickly.
   MR. ERICKSON:  Judge, I do have one question.
   THE COURT:  Oh, go ahead.  Sure.
   MR. ERICKSON:  Which is, are we coming in-
person or are we doing the pre-trial on November 10th via
Zoom?
   THE COURT:  I usually make people be in-person,
but --
   MR. ERICKSON:  Okay.
   THE COURT:  -- there’s a request for Zoom, I
usually, it’s my practice, and I think that’s our
guidelines under the, you know, whatever we call the
presumed hearing things, I think they’re supposed to be
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in-person, and that’s usually how I do it unless
otherwise either agreed upon by the parties or there’s
some other reason such as weather or something like that.
   MR. ERICKSON:  Judge, we’ll plan on being there
in person.
   THE COURT:  All right.  And that’s, like I
said, it’s exceptional circumstances that I would
otherwise allow it to be Zoom.
   MR. ELLA:  Judge, can I just make one
overarching comment?
   THE COURT:  Sure.
   MR. ELLA:  It’s undisputed the Defendant didn’t
make the post.  If you look at their amended complaint,
they don’t even allege it.  They allege--
   MR. ERICKSON:  That’s not true.
   THE COURT:  Hold on.  Hold on. Hold on, though.
I mean, this is, we’re getting into some arguments that
are starting to make me feel like it’s an argument that
would be made to the finder of fact because, you know,
and this is just hypothetical, and I’ve read through
these things, if I, let’s just say, I direct someone to
make a post, I don’t know that I would be allowed to say
well I didn’t -- I wasn’t the one that put it on there.
I may -- and I’m guessing this might be the argument of
Plaintiff -- but if I direct someone to post something, I
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think there -- that’s probably the argument that might be
being made.  And I don’t know it’s as easy to just say
well that person wasn’t -- and Mr. Erickson can correct
me if I’m wrong, but I’m guessing they’re going to say
that Mr. Mayen posted at the behest or direction or
whatever term they might use, of Mr. Starkebaum.  I don’t
think you get to say, well, I wasn’t the one that
actually just put it up there.  If people want, I think
that’s a finder of fact potentially would be making that
determination.  But I don’t think defamation is precluded
if I direct someone to take an action, not that it was --
and I know there’s going to be arguments of whether this
was just discussions and did it on their own, that’s --
but those all seem to be getting real close to things
that finders of fact determine as opposed to me sitting.
Cause I’m guessing that’s -- Mr. Erickson is not going to
agree with you saying that Mr. Starkebaum had nothing to
do with the post or the information.  In fact, he’s
argued here today using that Mr. Starkebaum has used
similar language and description of these individuals and
such.  That they’re going to be arguing he essentially
directed the post despite, and I realize there’s
depositions that says something different, but that’s
usually what most of my trials involve, is someone saying
one thing and someone saying something else.
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   MR. ELLA:  Yeah, but there’s no one saying --
   MR. ERICKSON:  Judge, we agree --
   MR. ELLA:  -- (indiscernible) --
   MR. ERICKSON:  -- on all counts.
   THE COURT:  Okay.  Mr. Ella.
   MR. ELLA:  There’s no evidence that it was
directed by Starkebaum, and they can’t -- they don’t have
any evidence, and --
   THE COURT:  Well, and --
   MR. ERICKSON:  That’s not true.
   THE COURT:  -- and I would just argue, or not
argue, but state, you know, there are arguments that can
be made that circumstantial evidence, language usages --
   MR. ERICKSON:  Right.
   THE COURT:  -- those types of things.  --
   MR. ERICKSON:  That’s right.
   THE COURT:  -- You know, I’m not making any
determination on that, but there are -- there are things
that can be argued on that, and I think those become,
again, get real close to some factual issues that the
finders of facts are in charge of, not me.
   MR. ERICKSON:  Agreed, Judge.
   THE COURT:  So, Mr. Ella, anything else that
you would like to further put on the record here before I
take this under advisement?
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   MR. ELLA:  No, Your Honor.
   THE COURT:  All right.  And that will conclude
the hearing.  I will get these orders out as quickly as
possible so folks know the direction we’re heading.
  Thank you, everyone.
   MR. ERICKSON:  Thank you.
(Proceedings concluded.)

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STATE OF MINNESOTA  DISTRICT COURT

COUNTY OF OTTER TAIL SEVENTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Precision Locating, LLC,
Arvig Enterprises, Inc. Appellate Court File: N/A
 District Court File: 56-CV-25-198
 Plaintiffs,

vs. REPORTER’S CERTIFICATION
Martin D Starkebaum,

  Defendant.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I, Dana Eifert, hereby certify that I am an official court
reporter in the Seventh Judicial District of the State of
Minnesota; that as such reporter I digitally recorded the
proceedings in the above -entitled action; that I thereafter
transcribed to typewriting the fore going transcript from the
digital recordings taken in Otter Tail  County, Minnesota on
October 2nd, 2025; and that the foregoing transcript consisting
of twenty-five (25) pages, constitutes a full, true, and accurate
transcription of said proceeding.
Dated:  October 21, 2025

/s/ Dana Eifert
Dana Eifert
Electronic Court Reporter
c/o Otter Tail County Courthouse
121 West Junius Avenue
Fergus Falls, MN 56537
Telephone:  218-560-7068

56-CV-25-198 Filed in District Court
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10/22/2025 10:01 AM