Brooks v. Quility Insurance Holdings, LLC et al

THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA
ASHEVILLE DIVISION
CIVIL CASE NO. 1:26-cv-00075-MR-WCM
JACKSON YOUNG BROOKS, )
)
Plaintiff, )
) MEMORANDUM OF
vs. ) DECISION AND ORDER
)
QUILITY INSURANCE HOLDINGS, )
LLC, SYMMETRY FINANCIAL )
GROUP LLC, QUILITY FINANCIAL )
ADVISORS LLC, MATTHEW )
GOFORTH, MICHAEL RESMA, )
BRIAN WILLIAMSON, )
LISA KIMBRELL, CHRIS LEAKE, )
CRAIG MCMANAMON, SIERRA )
SMITH-SIMONDS, JEFF SIGWORTH, )
and TIM TAYLOR SMITH, )
)
Defendants. )
_______________________________ )
THIS MATTER is before the Court on the Plaintiff’s Emergency Motion
for Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction [Doc. 4].
I. BACKGROUND
On March 10, 2026, the Plaintiff Jackson Young Brooks, proceeding
pro se, initiated this action by filing a Complaint asserting a wide range of
claims predicated on the alleged unlawfulness of the Defendants’ business
practices. [Doc. 1]. The Defendants are insurance sales and marketing
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entities, officers and employees of those entities, and additional individuals
affiliated with those entities. [Id. at ¶¶ 9-20]. Between February and July
2025, the Plaintiff, a licensed insurance agent, worked as an independent
contractor for Defendant Symmetry Financial Group, LLC (“Symmetry”). [Id.
at ¶ 8; Doc. 4-1 at 4-18]. The Plaintiff generally alleges that the Defendants
operated a deceptive and unlawful insurance distribution network and
retaliated against the Plaintiff by terminating him on July 15, 2025 after
learning that he had filed a whistleblower complaint with the Louisiana
Department of Insurance. [Doc. 1 at ¶¶ 1-4, 263-69]
On March 30, 2026, the Plaintiff filed the instant “Emergency Motion”
seeking a Temporary Restraining Order (“TRO”) and Preliminary Injunction
pursuant to Rule 65 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. [Doc. 4]. The
Plaintiff states that upon his termination he lost access to certain systems
and client data managed by the Defendants. [Id. at 2-3, 6]. The Plaintiff
further states that his inability to access those systems and data prevents
him from satisfying certain ongoing post-termination obligations and thereby
exposes him to potential professional and financial harm. [Id. at 3-4]. To
mitigate that exposure, the Plaintiff seeks a temporary restraining order and
preliminary injunction to prevent the Defendants from enforcing post-
termination provisions of his Independent Contractor Agreement with
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Symmetry and from directing the Plaintiff to engage with policyholders
associated with the Defendants’ system or representing that the Plaintiff is
obligated to take or refrain from any policyholder-related actions. [Id. at 9].
On April 2, 2026, a group of Defendants—Symmetry, Quility Insurance
Holdings, LLC (“Quility”), Matthew Goforth, Michael Resma, Brian Williams,
and Jeff Sigworth—filed Notice of their intent to oppose the Plaintiff’s
emergency motion. [Doc. 6]. On April 13, 2026, those Defendants filed a
timely Response. [Doc. 8]. The remaining Defendants—Quility Financial
Advisors, LLC, Lisa Kimbrell, Chris Leake, Craig McManamon, Sierra Smith-
Simonds, and Tim Taylor Smith—have yet to make an appearance in this
matter. The Plaintiff filed an early Reply in support of his motion on April 10,
2026, [Doc. 7], and an additional Reply on April 20, 2026, [Doc. 9]. Having
been fully briefed, this motion is now ripe for disposition.
II. DISCUSSION1
“In deciding whether to grant a temporary restraining order, the court
employs the same standard applicable to the issuance of a preliminary
injunction.” King v. United Way of Cent. Carolinas, Inc., No. 3:09CV164,
2009 WL 10727585, at *1 (W.D.N.C. Apr. 20, 2009). Temporary restraining
1 Rather than set forth the relevant facts in a separate section, the Court has incorporated
the relevant facts into its legal analysis.
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orders and preliminary injunctions are both “extraordinary remedies involving
the exercise of very far-reaching power to be granted only sparingly and in
limited circumstances.” MicroStrategy, Inc. v. Motorola, Inc., 245 F.3d 335,
339 (4th Cir. 2001) (quoting Direx Israel, Ltd. v. Breakthrough Med. Corp.,
952 F.2d 802, 816 (4th Cir. 1991)).
To obtain temporary or preliminary injunctive relief, a plaintiff must
establish that: (1) it is likely to succeed on the merits; (2) it is likely to suffer
irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief; (3) the balance of
equities tips in its favor; and (4) injunctive relief is in the public interest.
Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008).
Thus, in each case the Court “must balance the competing claims of injury
and must consider the effect on each party of the granting or withholding of
the requested relief.” Amoco Prod. Co. v. Village of Gambell, 480 U.S. 531,
542 (1987). A plaintiff's entitlement to temporary or preliminary injunctive
relief is a matter of discretion with the Court. See Metropolitan Reg'l Info.
Sys., Inc. v. American Home Realty Network, Inc., 722 F.3d 591, 595 (4th Cir.
2013).
A plaintiff seeking temporary or preliminary injunctive relief must make
a “clear showing” of entitlement to relief. Winter, 555 U.S. at 22. Regarding
the “irreparable harm” factor, “the movant must make a clear showing that it
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will suffer harm that is neither remote nor speculative, but actual and
imminent.” Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC v. 6.56 Acres of Land, Owned by
Sandra Townes Powell, 915 F.3d 197, 216 (4th Cir. 2019) (internal quotation
marks omitted). Moreover, “[m]ere injuries, however substantial, in terms of
money, time and energy . . . are not enough,” as “[t]he possibility that
adequate compensatory or other corrective relief will be available at a later
date . . . weighs heavily against a claim of irreparable harm.” Di Biase v. SPX
Corp., 872 F.3d 224, 230 (4th Cir. 2017) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Here, the Plaintiff generally asserts that he faces ongoing professional
harm, financial harm, legal exposure, and potential exclusion from his
industry, [Doc. 4 at 2-6, 8], and that his “industry viability is actively
deteriorating in real time.” [Doc. 7 at 2]. The question before the Court is
whether the Plaintiff has clearly shown that the harm he faces is irreparable
and is likely to occur in the absence of injunctive relief.
Pursuant to the Plaintiff’s Independent Contractor Agreement
(“Agreement”) with Symmetry, the Plaintiff may be subject to “chargebacks”
for commissions that he has already been paid but has not yet earned. [Doc.
4-1 at 7]. If an insurance policy for which Symmetry paid the Plaintiff an
unearned commission lapses prematurely, then Symmetry may demand
repayment of the unearned commission as a chargeback. [Id.]. Accordingly,
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the Agreement characterizes an unearned commission as “a loan . . . to the
Contractor, until such premiums become earned.” [Id.]. Such chargeback
exposure arises upon the payment of an unearned commission and
terminates only when the commission is either earned or repaid. As a result,
the Plaintiff’s chargeback exposure arose while he was working as an
independent contractor and continued after his termination to the extent that
he continued to possess unearned commissions.
Most of the Plaintiff’s present concerns about professional and
financial harm appear to stem from his chargeback exposure. For example,
the Plaintiff states that in March of 2026, eight months after the termination
of his position with Symmetry, he received an email from a Quility employee
that “directed” him “to contact a policyholder regarding a potential
chargeback exposure despite Plaintiff’s lack of authority or system access to
do so.” [Doc. 4 at 3]. According to the Plaintiff, that email is illustrative of his
ongoing “post-termination obligations” that he is unable to satisfy because of
his inability access to certain systems and client data managed by the
Defendants. [Id. at 2-3]. The Plaintiff asserts that because he cannot satisfy
those obligations, he has been subject to “chargeback-related activity.” [Id.
at 4].
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Such chargeback-related activity, in turn, purportedly impedes the
Plaintiff’s ability to continue working as an insurance agent. Because the
Plaintiff’s “appointments” with insurance carriers were terminated upon the
termination of his position with Symmetry, the Plaintiff subsequently needed
to reestablish his appointments with insurance carriers in order to continue
selling their insurance products. [Doc. 7 at 4]; see also [Doc. 4-1 at 23].
However, according to the Plaintiff, he has been unable to reestablish some
of those appointments with carriers because he remains “subject to
chargeback obligations”—i.e., because he has outstanding debts to certain
insurance carriers. [Doc. 7 at 4]. For example, the Plaintiff states that he
was “terminated by Aetna following chargeback-related activity.” [Id.].
Emails submitted by the Plaintiff tend to show that Aetna terminated the
Plaintiff’s appointments with Aetna because the Plaintiff failed to timely pay
Aetna a $2417.22 debt. [Doc. 4-1 at 33-36]. The Plaintiff states that his
relationships with other insurance carriers have also been negatively
impacted by similar chargeback-related activity and that, as a result, he is
being functionally excluded from the insurance agent marketplace. [Doc. 7
at 4].
Beyond the Plaintiff’s unpaid Aetna balance and the email regarding a
potential chargeback, however, the Plaintiff has not provided the Court any
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indication of the extent of his current or future chargeback exposure.
Although the Plaintiff asserts that the “passage of time . . . increases the
magnitude of the exposure,” [Doc. 9 at 3], he has failed to offer any
nonconclusory allegations regarding whether and to what extent he
continues to possess unearned commissions that could be subject to a
chargeback. As a result, the Plaintiff has not clearly shown whether or to
what extent his chargeback exposure is likely to continue in the absence of
injunctive relief.
Moreover, the Plaintiff’s account of the March 18, 2026 email he
received is contradicted by the Plaintiff’s own evidence. [Doc. 4-1 at 2]. The
Plaintiff was not, in fact, “directed” to contact the relevant policyholder, and
the Plaintiff was provided with the relevant policyholder’s phone number so
that he could contact her without needing access to Symmetry’s systems or
client data. [Id.]. The March 18, 2026 email put the Plaintiff on notice of a
potential chargeback, but it did not direct the Plaintiff to take or refrain from
any action, nor did the email show that any action or inaction by the Plaintiff
would make the potential chargeback less likely to occur. [Id.]. The Plaintiff
has not clearly shown that he has ongoing post-termination obligations that
he is unable to satisfy other than his outstanding debts, if any such remain.
Given that such debts appear to be owed to insurance carriers like Aetna,
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who are not parties to this litigation, and not to the Defendants, the Plaintiff
has also not clearly shown that the injunctive relief he requests would limit
his chargeback exposure. The likelihood and extent of the Plaintiff’s
chargeback exposure, and of any professional harm related to that exposure,
in the absence of injunctive relief are therefore a matter of speculation.
The Plaintiff has also failed to clearly show that such chargeback
exposure is or causes irreparable harm. First, the Plaintiff has not clearly
shown why a chargeback, if later shown to be unlawfully imposed or the
foreseeable result of an unlawful business practice, could not be adequately
remedied by monetary damages at the conclusion of litigation. Second,
while the Plaintiff has shown that his failure to pay Aetna led to the
termination of his Aetna appointments, he has not clearly shown that
anything other than his failure to pay his own debts is preventing him from
reestablishing those appointments or his appointments with other insurance
carriers, such that later payment would sufficiently rehabilitate his
professional prospects, despite his general and conclusory assertions to the
contrary. See [Doc. 9 at 7]. Third, the Plaintiff asserts that his “industry
viability is actively deteriorating in real time,” and that he has been subject to
“adverse reporting” and “account-level events” that cause harm to “business
relationships” that “cannot be meaningfully undone through damages.” [Doc.
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7 at 2-5]. He further asserts that he faces ongoing “legal exposure” and
exposure to “regulatory and contractual violations.” [Doc. 4 at 2-3, 8]; see
also [Doc. 9 at 2]. To the extent that these assertions attempt to show harm
independent of the Plaintiff’s chargeback exposure, none of the assertions
are adequately explained, let alone sufficiently established.
Accordingly, the Court concludes that the Plaintiff has failed to clearly
show that he is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary
relief. Because the Plaintiff has failed to show a likelihood of irreparable
harm, the Court need not consider the remaining Winter factors, which the
Plaintiff has only cursorily addressed in his briefing. See [Doc. 4 at 6-8; Doc.
9 at 8-10]. The Plaintiff’s motion for a temporary restraining order and
preliminary injunction will be denied.
O R D E R
IT IS, THEREFORE, ORDERED that the Plaintiff’s Emergency Motion
for Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction [Doc. 4] is
hereby DENIED.
IT IS SO ORDERED. Signed: April 25, 2026
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