Claiming that his father, the legendary Carnival impresario Blaine Kern, is no longer fit to run the business he founded 53 years ago, Barry Kern filed suit Friday with the hope of seizing control of the company that makes floats for many of the most prominent parading krewes, including Rex, Bacchus, Zulu and Muses.

The suit, filed in Civil District Court and assigned to Judge Michael Bagneris, depicts Blaine Kern Artists as a company in crisis. The Algiers firm has been unable to meet payrolls and repay loans, the suit says, and it has had to furlough employees. Within the past month, according to the suit, company checks have bounced.

Barry Kern lays much of the blame for the turmoil at the feet of Holly Brown Kern, 34, whom the 83-year-old Kern married in July. She is his fourth wife.

Since she came into his father’s life several years ago, the elder Kern’s expenditures on such items as houses, cars and entertainment “skyrocketed,” as did his debts, forcing him to ask for cash advances from the company, according to the suit.

“Barry Kern directly implored Holly Brown to stop badgering his father for more and more money, without success,” the suit says. “Instead, Holly Brown has manipulated her 83-year-old husband and largely alienated him from his family, friends, business associates and employees.”

In filing the suit, Barry Kern issued this statement:
“I love my dad and will continue to support him, but recent actions have forced me to respond to protect him, my family and our employees. Furthermore, we have an obligation to preserve the integrity of Mardi Gras and to ensure that it remains a world-class celebration of our rich culture and heritage.”

He declined further comment. His father did not return calls seeking comment.

Blaine Kern Artists has about 70 employees, and it provides floats for 21 parades, including those of Babylon, Muses, Hermes, Tucks, Endymion, Orpheus and Alla.

Barry Kern had been its president from November 1994 until Aug. 31. On that day, the younger Kern said in the suit, his father, the chairman of the company’s board of directors, announced that he was accepting a resignation that the younger Kern said he had not offered.

The elder Kern’s action came as a complete surprise, the suit says, because he “had never voiced any significant criticism of the service of Barry Kern.”

Moreover, Barry Kern claims, his father had no authority to sack him because, he said, that is something that only a majority of the company’s board can do.

Despite his contention that the firing was “unauthorized and unwarranted,” Barry Kern resigned on Sept. 15 because, the suit says, he had been shut out of participation in the company’s activities.

In a letter to his father, which is included in the suit, Barry Kern said it is “painfully obvious” that his father and his wife, whom he describes as “your former paramour,” “have been engaged in a course of conduct designed to undermine me and my reputation and are incapable of working with me in a rational, business-like manner.”

Relations between father and son have disintegrated, according to the suit, and attempts to patch up the situation have been futile.

Five days after Blaine Kern told his son he intended to force him out, he issued a letter saying Barry Kern was “terminated” as president and chief executive officer of Blaine Kern Artists and Blaine Kern Mardi Gras World, as well as “any other position with any companies that I am involved in,” according to the suit.

Since then, the suit says, he “has publicly disparaged Barry Kern to employees, customers and business associates … (and) misrepresented the role of Barry Kern and Blaine Kern Artists Inc. in prominent business deals, requiring the issuance of cease-and-desist letters.”

Before his departure, Barry Kern loaned the company “tens of thousands of dollars” to meet its payroll, the suits says. Since he left, the suit says, payroll checks have bounced.

However, Barry Kern says, his father has continued to receive money from solvent company accounts.

“Under Holly Brown’s influence, Blaine Kern . . . has used his recent control of (the company) to aggrandize his own financial situation,” the suit says.

The elder Kern furloughed employees on Sept. 21, claiming he couldn’t afford to pay them, the suit says, and the company has failed to make payments on loans and to the Internal Revenue Service.

“If the payments are not honored, (the company) may be saddled with penalties and interest,” the suit says, adding that the company “lacks sufficient cash reserves to operate for any significant period of time” and that Blaine Kern owes Whitney National Bank “in excess of one-half million dollars on a commercial note that has matured.”

Based on these developments, the suit contends that the elder Kern is unable to operate the company.

Barry Kern is asking the court to appoint a receiver to take over the company and its property. He also wants the court to force his father to show the authority he has to control Blaine Kern Artists “and ultimately to declare that he has no such authority.”

Blaine Kern was an artist’s son who painted a hospital mural to cover his mother’s medical expenses, according to the suit. It caught the eye of the captain of the Krewe of Alla, who hired the young man and his father to build Alla’s first float in 1932.

He moved on to design increasing numbers of parades and to build his business. Along the way, he acquired the moniker “Mr. Mardi Gras.”
While Blaine Kern was the company’s “artist, dreamer and visionary” and public face, day-to-day operations were taken over by, among others, Barry Kern and Jerelyn Hall “Pixie” Naquin, a precise, detail-oriented woman who rose from secretary to executive vice president during her 47 years with the company.

“I was the puppet, and Pixie was the puppeteer,” Blaine Kern said in an interview earlier this year.

But her health began to decline as she battled cancer. Naquin, whom the suit describes as a “voice of reason,” died in June.