[A_D_E_P_T]

It's not that hard to understand.

A man gave a store merchandise on consignment, signed a contract with the store manager.

The manager lost control of the store to corporate. The goods were still there, still on display and being sold.

Corporate says, "this is mine now" and refuses to honor the contract. "It wasn't our name on it, says right here that the previous store manager signed this, and she's no longer with us." They sell the goods and keep all of the revenue, rather than just their 10% share.

It seems like theft, but it's a very common civil contract dispute. The side with possession and deeper pockets is the side with the leverage, sadly!

[prophesi]

Corporate is also claiming that they don't allow stores to take on consignment deals, contrary to their franchise agreement explicitly allowing franchise owners to take on consignment deals.

[munk-a]

I have absolutely no doubts a court would consider it impossible to transfer goods under consignment to a different entity free of the burden of the consignment contract. So the corporation trying to reach into the franchise to grab these goods without honoring the contract is absolute BS and they should be dragged through the mud over it.

The unfortunate loophole here is that, potentially, by shutting down that franchise in a bankruptcy the corporation may end up being preferred for being made whole on debts relative to the consigner. Bankruptcy is complicated so while I am pretty sure any remaining goods from the consignment would be returned to the original owner the proceeds from sales that were successfully made might end up in the pocket of the corporation.

Personally, I absolutely loathe consignment. It is an incredibly complex agreement with a lot of weird edge cases about deprecation of goods and the duty to seek a good price that get complex quick. If you have goods like this and can find a store that will buy your goods in bulk you should be very careful in considering how much you care about the price difference between that bulk price and the percentage they list for consignment. A single transaction is usually much cleaner and easier for both sides and in this case (trying to pay for medical costs) having the money immediately can be quite attractive.

[keithnz]

If you look at the latest stuff from the previous owner where they recorded multiple conversations / pulled security footage... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zedmOopRTm0 1, they were allowed to do consignment deals, 2, when corporate took control, they said they'd take on the consignment liability, 3, BAM outright threatens them with making the legal process too expensive for them.

All of which contradicts the current corporate response

[toofy]

yeah, it’s plain as day they say blatantly they’ll take on the consignment.

the reckless ben youtube videos are pretty clearly laid out with contracts, video evidence, etc..

the crazy part to me is how blatant the executives of bricks and minifigs are in saying go ahead and try to sue us, we’ll drag this out until you’re broke from lawyers fees. we’re a lawyer rich corp and you’re not. they don’t even try to hide it.

bricks and minifigs are just crazy dickens movie tier evil it’s crazy.

[gblargg]

Unfortunately this makes every Bricks and Minifigs store a risk to do business with, selling or buying. You're either supporting a criminal enterprise or risking being a victim of one.

[fsloth]

"the crazy part to me is how blatant the executives of bricks and minifigs are in saying go ahead and try to sue us, we’ll drag this out "

To my experience this is a common strategy in disputes when the corporate party has people who operate as uncivilized brutes. I think it's part of the McKinseyfication of companies - profits at all cost - and here's the playbook.

My personal experience is from private parking control. Rather than be professional about my reclamation, their first response was "only criminals dispute these and we win all the court cases".

So I think trying to be imposing and villanous to scare the other non-corporate party to back off is a common global corporate playbook in situations in matters where companies enter contractual complex space with individuals.

[sarchertech]

Very rarely do corporations act like this once there’s any sort of spotlight on them. Especially over such a relatively small number. This is nothing to do with any standard corporate tactics and everything to do with the guys in charge being complete dick heads.

[vintermann]

Sign of the times. It's not enough to be rich and powerful, the goal is to be able to gloat about your impunity. Little Epsteins.

[Suzuran]

That has always been the goal. There is, has, and always will be a powerful caste system to ensure that they are gods and we are trash. "Stay in your lane" / "Know your place" / etc. have been watchwords for thousands of years.

[superxpro12]

yeah you cant just unilaterally cancel the contract in which you agreed to hold the goods for sale, and then take possession without any reimbursement.

You either need to pay the sales price of the consigned items, or just give them back.

If you do neither, its the same exact thing as theft. Which is what they did. They took possession of the 200k lego set with no reimbursement. Just plain ol' theft.

[nullfield]

When this is so clearly theft, how can the police just claim “it’s a civil matter”?

They seem to like that excuse, I know… but gahhh!

[nerdsniper]

It’s not theft, it’s “conversion”, which is the civil equivalent of theft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_(law)

[quickthrowman]

The police are under no obligation to provide service to specific people or businesses, only the public in general. They don’t even have to say “This is a civil matter”, they could just say “Eh, this doesn’t interest us, good luck with that.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia

[nullfield]

I’m late in responding, but yeah… No particular duty on the part of the police, including in the middle of someone killing you, and all (see the book “Dial 911 and Die”).

[LorenPechtel]

The police are right.

This is a dispute about who is the rightful owner of the Lego. That is a civil matter to be decided by the courts. Doesn't matter how clear the evidence, such disputes are for the courtroom.

[munk-a]

Absolutely - and there are bad actors here that we should be mad at since they are abusing the law enforcement system but the default goal in situations should always be to de-escalate to prevent violence. I think the cops could have done a better job at explaining next steps and routes to approach a civil resolution but anyone objecting to the police officer removing Ben from the store property after a trespassing complaint doesn't understand how abusive it can be on the receiving end of stalking or harassment.

Separating parties in a civil dispute is always a good idea.

[preinheimer]

> I have absolutely no doubts a court would consider it impossible to transfer goods under consignment to a different entity free of the burden of the consignment contract.

Reminds me of the whole "disney must pay" debacle.

[throwaway85825]

Was that the incident where they stole an artists tiki design?

[preinheimer]

No, they came up with some legal theory in which they’d bought the assets of some company, including the company’s ownership of some art, but not obligations like paying royalties.

[throwaway85825]

Oh yes, the incident with the star wars extended universe authors royalties. Disney is the worst.

[taneq]

That’s like when I got my shower sealed and then it started leaking within the warranty period. The company claimed that they were the new owners and had purchased the business but not the warranty obligations (!) and I’d have to find the original owner and try to make him honour the warranty. Which was complete BS, obviously, but it wasn’t worth taking to court. :/

[Barbing]

Perhaps:

“Authors Have Formed a Task Force Because Disney Refuses to Pay Them”

https://bookriot.com/disney-must-pay-task-force/

> Authors like Neil Gaiman have formed a task force to fight for the royalties Disney has refused to pay for Star Wars and other tie-in novels.

[BobAliceInATree]

The problem with consignment is that the consignor wants the maximum price but the consignee wants a quick sale because 10% of a few bucks more means very little and they have to hold the inventory.

[michaelt]

Selling on consignment can be an absolutely great deal for shops, under the right conditions.

If I'm a lego trader and I buy your set for $900 hoping to sell it later for $1000, in the meantime that's $900 I can't invest in anything else. And maybe I guessed the set's value wrong and I end up unloading it for $800, taking a loss.

On the other hand, if I agree to sell that same set on consignment? Zero capital outlay, zero risk of me taking a loss - just some shelf space and admin work.

[nine_k]

> just some shelf space

Unless the store owns its building and has too little inventory to cover the shelves, the cost of not filling the shelves with the right goods is quite serious. In a low-margin business like retail, "just some shelf space" reads almost like "just some gold bars".

[tikhonj]

This is definitely not uniform. I worked on inventory management at Target, and stores had quite a lot of shelf space—to the point where we'd hold large amounts of cheap, non-perishable stuff like cat litter because, well, we had the space for it.

Stores also wanted to look full. We actually had parameters in our inventory management logic to increase inventory just for presentation reasons. If inventory is expensive, having some free, quality inventory can be valuable in and of itself even if it moves slowly.

[mcv]

If you have no shelf space, of course you can refuse the consignment. And this was a really big one, but the shop was initially very happy with it. Advertised widely with it. Brought in more shelves to display it all. From what I understand, it was a very large part of what was for sale in that shop.

[hdndjsbbs]

I run a niche retail store and there are two sides to this.

Most of our business is selling low-price, entry-level products. There's a 80-20 distribution of people getting into the hobby versus people upgrading after a couple years. Consequently most of our floor space and inventory is devoted to high margin, quick turnover, entry-level products.

In my experience the floor space is less of an issue for high end products than the capital expenditure to bring in the inventory. On the consignment side we only take products aimed at the remaining 20%. These are specialty items we wouldn't have in regular stock. It's a win-win because we don't have to deploy capital to bring the product in-store, but we do have space to showcase some higher end used product.

[thaumasiotes]

> In a low-margin business like retail, "just some shelf space" reads almost like "just some gold bars".

However, in this particular case, the legos were initially displayed as a customer attraction, and then kept in storage. Presumably there's still some inventory cost in storage, but the shelves are clear.

>> The collection will be on display in the store's party room from 10am till 6pm on Saturday, November 11th, and 11am till 6pm on Sunday. The collection will be available for sale immediately, so the best time for pictures will be Saturday morning. The collection will not be stored on-site after hours for security reasons, and after Sunday the sets will be available for purchase but stored elsewhere.

[dghlsakjg]

But the shelf space is part of it either way... It's not like consignment stores take everything offered. Most of them are incredibly selective.

[Nevermark]

You only take on consignment product you deem sellable. A value judgment made for anything in the store.

But instead of costs = (product purchase + shelf space), the costs are only (self space).

So "just some shelf space" is correct in fact and implication.

[sgerenser]

My wife owns a retail business where some part of their sales is consignment. Taking anything in with only a 10% consignment fee would be laughable, there’s no way that’s a money making deal when you account for all the overhead of a small retail store. My suspicion is the original store owner made a bad consignment deal to sell the Star Wars stuff with only a 10% commission and the new owner didn’t want to live up to it. Of course, at that point they should have just given it all back, but it turns out they’d rather be evil.

[Barbing]

Much better deal for a diamond ring than a giant kayak, then. Gotta pay rent to sit on the shelf!

[gowld]

"Holding inventory" is only problem if the store is full.

[munk-a]

It isn't - deprecation of held goods is always a risk and if you're working on consignment then that comes with weird financial liabilities. If there's a flood and you lose your inventory it sucks - if there's a flood and you lose an inventory of consigned values then suddenly you're potentially exposed to paying market value for a number of items in addition to all the site damage you'll need to address. Capacity is one aspect of the costs of holding inventory - but breakage is the much more expensive consideration and consignment just makes it even more expensive.

[hnlmorg]

None of this is a risk with Lego.

Depreciation: not going to happen on Star Wars sets that are not longer in production.

Water damage: Lego is water proof.

Breakage: being easy to take apart and put back together is Lego’s core principle.

[plorg]

I believe in this case the consignment contract requires the store to hold insurance on the consigned merchandise, which I assume is intended to address this concern.

[munk-a]

Yup, if I worked in a field where consignment was an option I'd refuse to do it - it's a huge headache. So I'd absolutely believe that the corporation has a policy against accepting consignment offers and might have a case to recover damages or something against the original franchisee. But the way they've handled this situation still appears to be atrocious. Lets say you consigned 200k at a 10% commission, 50k sold under the original franchisee and you were paid 30k already. If the franchise transferred and the company wanted out there should be an exit[1] in the contract to pay the additional 15k and then return the goods to the original owner. I think it's important to remember this sort of an option was always on the table.

1. Even if the original consignment contract was poorly drawn up without a clear exit clause I think it'd be reasonable to expect a resolution somewhere close to this in mediation.

[brittlepeanut]

The original contract very specifically allows consignment. It's published.

So you "absolutely believe" something that was already proven false, and which you would know if you had even _skimmed_ the facts.

[philistine]

You clearly didn't read the article. The original franchisee's contract allows consignement.

[munk-a]

I have read that article and a few other sources since the first few ways I heard about this story were heavily biased. I have not yet seen B&M confirm that the contract that was leaked is genuine - it is incredibly unlikely that they would, of course, but it still remains one the facts in this case that I tenatively believe but have some reservations around.

I thought it was interesting to, from the assumption that the corporation actually banned consignments, still work through how it doesn't free them from wrong doing. Even in the best light B&M has acted in bad faith.

[throwaway85825]

In bankrupty a court appointed liquidator can seize assets and sell them to repay creditors. Of course none of this happened here.

[alasdair_]

They can seize assets that belong to the entity. They can’t seize assets that belong to other people just because it happens to be on their premises, in the same way that they can’t seize and sell the cars that happen to be in a bankrupt store’s parking lot.

[munk-a]

There are a lot of reasons why you should never sell things through consignment - but one of those reasons is that the goods cease to be yours in several significant ways. If a company is able to sell a good they could sell that good to fulfill debts - if it is a route to liquidate goods to cover debts then it's in the scope of the liquidator (though I think in most cases a sane liquidator would return the goods whole to avoid creating more debt than already exists and destroying non-fungible goods). If we assume the consignment sale was advantageous for the seller it's unlikely there's a way for the liquidator to quickly sell the goods in bulk for a better margin than the consignment contract offered so any sale they executed would likely add more debt than it cured.

[mcv]

I saw an analysis from a lawyer who said that there are situations where a creditor can claim consignment items, but that it didn't apply here.

[throwaway85825]

Because they didn't file for bankruptcy.

[jimnotgym]

They can't sieze consignment stock though?!?

[munk-a]

"Can't" is a really bad word to use and I am not certain if "they" here are the corporation or the liquidator.

If you're talking about the corporation I think that any sensible neutral party would probably come down on the side that the corporation has no entitlement to those goods.

If you're talking about the liquidator then the goods were held by the franchise so if it went through bankruptcy those goods would be under consideration by the steward - I think they'd usually find that the original owner should be entitled to the goods since they're relatively non-fungible. The proceeds from sold goods are likely a more complicated answer since money is fungible and divisible. I could accept that there would be scenarios where a steward would think that the corporation should recover a portion of the proceeds.

[mindslight]

> If you're talking about the liquidator then the goods were held by the franchise so if it went through bankruptcy those goods would be under consideration by the steward - I think they'd usually find that the original owner should be entitled to the goods since they're relatively non-fungible.

IANAA, but I'd say the situation is that while the goods are possessed by the franchise, but they are not owned by the franchise. Ownership title doesn't change until they're sold by the franchise to a buyer.

I could see a scenario in which the franchise contract says that BAM can automatically liquidate the franchise (and how else did BAM get immediate control of the store?), and BAM then says they've executed on that consignment contract (at perhaps not reasonable prices). But without a very well-documented paper trail that this is what they did, including actually paying the consignor the (low) proceeds of the sales, it would seem that the only other possibility here is some kind of criminal conversion.

Which points back to all of the discussion about consignment dynamics really being a red herring. The problem is a criminal conspiracy including by the police themselves, for whatever reasons that might be.

[throwaway85825]

The court can do almost anything. Its happened before.

https://www.cozen.com/news-resources/publications/2020/is-yo...

[benmmurphy]

I think if the consignor has not taken the correct steps then there is a risk the receiver would be able to pay other secured creditors using the consignors assets. For example if there are other creditors with liens on the inventory then you are meant to take steps to notify them of your claims on the consigned goods because otherwise the consigned goods could look like inventory to the secured creditor (https://www.lowenstein.com/news-insights/publications/articl...)

[JohnHaugeland]

bricks and minifigs is going to lose a hell of a lot more than this 10% in business

regardless of the law, it’s a very stupid move on the company’s part.

if they had half a brain they’d pay double the commission and pretend it aas internal miscommunication. $40k is cheap versus the pr hit they’re taking right now

[askbjoernhansen]

The (former) franchise owner shared their contract with BAM that explicitly allowed consignments.

[SV_BubbleTime]

I’ll make sure if I’m ever listing anything through a store via consignment that I remember to ask if the contract with their their franchiser allows consignment in the event that the franchisees folds. You know, typical stuff.

[mcv]

Corporate is lying a lot, and is pretty clearly guilty of theft at the very least.

The bigger problems I see here are:

1. You can't really sure large corporations like Bricks & Minifigs. They've got deeper pockets and can drag it out until you go bankrupt. There's no good legal recourse for this, meaning larger corporations can basically do whatever they want and ignore the law, as long as they only hurt people smaller than them.

2. The police refuses to treat this as the theft it is. There have been several confrontations with police that give a very strong impression that the police is corrupt and protecting the Bricks & Minifigs and its crimes.

3. Reckless Ben's questionable shenanigans seem to be the only way to fight for justice in unequal situations like this. The offending franchise is now closed. The victim still doesn't have his lego or money back, but thanks to Ben, Bricks & Minifigs is now also feeling the pain. Without that, they would have simply gotten away with it. Chance are they've done stuff like this before.

Also interesting are some of the stunts Ben has pulled:

1. Confronted with the claim that it's a civil matter, he tried turning it into a crime, by holding a raffle for one of the stolen sets that's still legally owned by the victim. The winner of the raffle went to pick it up, and was refused, making it theft from a lottery, which is a crime that the police is supposedly required to investigate (they didn't).

2. Several people buy $10k worth of lego from the victim and claim it from the shop. When they're refused, they go to small claims court, which is now possible because it's only $10k. Bricks & Minifigs ignored it and closed the shop instead. There are default judgements in favour of the people helping the victim, but there doesn't seem to be any way to enforce them.

3. He went out of his way to get the company to sue him, which is apparently better than him suing the company? I'm not sure why. But Bricks & Minifigs didn't bite.

The most effective thing has simply been the PR. The public attention may finally get law enforcement to investigate and punish Bricks & Minifigs. Or at least the broader public will know and avoid Bricks & Minifigs, so at least the company gets punished financially. That won't help the victim, but at least it would be some measure of justice.

[DannyBee]

#1 is a bluff. It would be really hard to drag it out and judges hate that. You are much more likely to end up paying the costs of the little guy as sanctions than bankrupting them or whatever.

This is also straightforward enough and enough evidence exists that it would be hard to drag it out.

[sarchertech]

>you can’t really sue

You definitely can sue a large corporation and win or force a settlement. The “we’ll drag this out until you are bankrupt” thing is more bluff than reality. Courts do not react favorably to that. Especially when they have direct evidence of those threats.

A corporation may have a litigation cost advantage, but they’re still going to spend more than the $180k or whatever that they owed to execute this drag it out forever strategy.

[nerdsniper]

Re: #2: It’s civil “conversion”, not criminal “theft”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_(law)

It’d be nice if it was theft, but it isn’t.

[FarmerPotato]

> at least it would be some measure of justice.

It’s sad that it will hurt the other franchisees the most.

[ProofHouse]

Corporate is lying all over the place. If you're following the story, you can see all the contradictions, let alone the video that came out today that literally needs a federal FBI investigation and internal affairs looking into the police department and the Church of Mormon corruption, which is shockingly overt in the video just released. Like I'm talking anti-American level of full city or state takeover corruption.

[8note]

> "It wasn't our name on it, says right here that the previous store manager signed this, and she's no longer with us."

this seems kinda obvious that if they dont have a contract to do consignment, they don't have a contract to the lego at all, and cannot sell the lego

[overfeed]

> this seems kinda obvious that if they dont have a contract to do consignment, they don't have a contract to the lego at all, and cannot sell the lego

The ancient adage unfortunately applies here still: Possession is 9/10ths of the law

[PatentlyDC123]

in the post they include the agreement between the previous franchisee and the company, which allows consignment

[crazygringo]

But the end of the blog post says the man sued and won.

But the store closed to get out of paying.

Which makes no sense if the store was corporate-owned. So why isn't the corporation paying?

[munk-a]

The store in question was a franchise so potentially the liability will be limited to just the assets of that franchise. But there's a lot of weird stuff here and it looks like the corporation may have (in a legally questionable manner) removed assets from the store to the corporation during proceedings to shield them.

[alasdair_]

A representative of the corporation, while taking over the store, expressly states that the corporation is taking over the consignment agreement, on camera and with several witnesses.

[gamblor956]

Courts are allowed to pierce the corporate veil when that happens.

[munk-a]

They absolutely are and a good lawyer, I'm sure, could audit the accounts and find some misdeeds - the issue is that the auditing and even getting access to those records in court is extremely expensive. To my knowledge there isn't a way to trigger that kind of a discovery in small claims so you need to go through the pricey legal system.

The money in question here is the proceeds from selling a collection valued at 200k - the recovery (unless you start to get into punitive territory) is likely to be rather meager... and it's a large risk so there may be few bites on firms willing to take it on purely commission.

[swiftcoder]

> unless you start to get into punitive territory

Is there not potential grounds here for punitive damages? The false police reports and harassment seem egregious even by corporate standards.

And the corporation is valued at $400 million, so it's not like the pot isn't sweet enough

[benmmurphy]

In the UK you can make an order of information to compel directors of a company that is in debt to answer questions about company assets, accounts and records under oath. This can be done in County Court and my understanding it is inexpensive. I'm not sure how useful this is for carrying out an audit because I think its meant to be used for seeing if the debtor has the ability to pay. I think generally incorrect trading during an insolvency is meant to be discovered by the receivers during the insolvency process. Also, I'm not sure if there is an equivalent to an order of information in the US system.

[gamblor956]

the issue is that the auditing and even getting access to those records in court is extremely expensive.

In most cases, the bankruptcy trustee will be doing that work already.

But in a case like this, it's probably not going to be necessary. Courts usually pierce the corporate veil in situations involving the debts of wholly-owned subsidiaries. It happens frequently enough that its actually news when they don't pierce the veil. This is because corporations usually do a bad job of doing all the things that are necessary to maintain the liability shield in court.

In a nutshell: it requires treating the subsidiary as an entirely separate entity, with separate books, accounts, back office, officers/management, etc. As this is extremely inefficient, most corporations don't bother. The only corporations that do are the ones that deal with company-killing litigation regularly enough that it's worth it to absorb the cost of maintaining the liability shield.

[whall6]

Seems like it would be hard to know which blue Lego was Bryan’s

[barake]

It was sealed sets, still NIB, not individual pieces. No one would bother selling $200k of loose bricks on consignment.

[whall6]

Let me rephrase: “blue Lego set”

[throwawaysoxjje]

This is a collectible market so Lego sets aren’t fungible, so being unable to keep track of that sounds like negligence.

[sgerenser]

Somewhere in one of the long videos, they mentioned that there were unique stickers on each of his items that he was selling on consignment. They had to have known which items were his.

[gblargg]

*grey, since it was Star Wars

[sleepybrett]

because, i assume, that they sued the salem location directly?

[crazygringo]

They wouldn't make any sense, if the whole thing started because corporate took over control and ownership the location.

[Electricniko]

It sounds like corporate took away ownership and gave it to a new franchisee.

[mcv]

The original franchisee claims to have lost their life savings in that move. I have no idea how exactly that happened. Their story really sounds like something from Russia back when western investors had their company simply taken from them by someone well-connected.

[sgerenser]

It sounds like the original franchisee doesn’t want to admit that they were losing a lot of money already. Only someone really desperate would take on a $200K lego collection and only collect a 10% consignment fee. It would also explain the corporate “takeover” if they were already behind on paying their franchise fees or whatever they might have owed to corporate.

That being said, it’s not illegal to be a bad business person, and none of that excuses the subsequent behavior by BAM corporate or the new franchise owner.

[rolandog]

(sprinkle a bunch of IIRC's) You're glossing over the fact that they have continued to sell the items in spite of a cease and desist from the brick owners which makes them totally culpable of selling other people's property, and that they're also being sued for unfair termination because the managers were calling in good faith to let them know they were going to take a job abroad.

[gamblor956]

If the consignment contract was not legal then BAM never owned the goods and would not have had the right to sell them.

EDIT: as other commenters point out, BAM actually did lose the lawsuit over this and now the issue is the consigner is trying to collect the judgment. In that case it would normally be irrelevant that the store was a franchise location, because BAM would have become the successor to all liabilities upon taking over the store (in the U.S., at least). With deep pockets BAM could drag out the collections process long enough to try an extract a settlement from the consigner; the risk with doing so though is that interest accrues on the settlement at statutory rates that are normally higher than market rates and they face the possibility of court sanctions for any attempts at delay that have no reasonable legal basis.

[dfadsadsf]

>BAM would have become the successor to all liabilities upon taking over the store (in the U.S., at least).

Not necessarily and highly depended on how it was structured and state law. It's possible that BAM only took over entity and then all liabilities stays with the same entity (that was bankrupted later). Another option it was only asset sale without liabilities, etc.

[gkoberger]

It is hard to understand if you only read the blog posted here. They left out a lot of this specificity.

[aaa_aaa]

This is because poster takes sides

[calgoo]

Yes? Take the side of the person getting railroaded by a giant corporation, a bunch of corrupt cops, and a legal system that is built to protect the big, and milk the poor.

Whats the other side in this? Feel bad for the 400 million corp with their army of lawyers? Feel bad for the store owners who scammed the person and acted like a total dick? Honestly, whats your take on this?

[dwedge]

> Whats the other side in this?

The difference between you and the person you replied to is that, despite neither of you knowing what the other side is, the other person was curious to learn it instead of assuming they know everything and attacking.

[Retric]

> This is because poster takes sides

Is an attack on the credibility of the writer.

[singpolyma3]

As soon as there is a shred of dispute every theft becomes a contract dispute

[thaumasiotes]

Well, you might say that.

> The police, for their part, kept calling it a "civil matter" and declining to investigate. Every single time.

On the other hand...

> In a subsequent conversation after the store closure and lawsuit loss, when Ben indicated the logical next step was to pursue Johnson personally, Josh's response, according to documented accounts, included the threat: "If you try to pursue me legally, YOU stole the LEGOs."

> Shortly after that conversation, someone called in a police report claiming Reckless Ben was transporting heroin.

This is a strange choice by Johnson, since it instantly transforms the civil dispute into a criminal offense.

[james_marks]

When the parent buys the store, they are also buying their contracts and obligations.

Unless the contract was written so poorly this didn’t happen?

[consumer451]

I have heard of the same thing happening with fancy used car dealerships, where cars that were to be sold on consignment have been lost.

[throwaway85825]

And dealers have gone to prison for that.

[psygn89]

This is a gofundme I would gladly donate to. Fight the power for what's right.

[ninju]

There's a link at the bottom of the article

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-bryan-recover-his-lego-colle...

[fhn]

Yeah, but you don't know the whole story. There was a young motorcyclists who ran from the police and killed in a crashed. His family has a go-fund me still just to collect money.

[jrflowers]

You should post the link to that. Police chases costing people’s lives is an awful thing, anybody that’s ever seen a cop driving 130mph because they think they’re Knight Rider might want to donate.

[xigoi]

How is it not the motorcyclist’s fault? He voluntarily chose to get into a chase with them instead of obeying traffic laws.

[jrflowers]

High speed pursuits are a severe public safety hazard at best and extrajudicial murder at worst. The municipalities that ban them do so under the notion that given a choice between not chasing someone and risking the lives of every passenger in the car, other motorists, the police, and pedestrians, not chasing them makes more sense legally. An officer seeing what they believe to be a busted tail light does not actually constitute sufficient cause to execute a pedestrian crossing the street eleven blocks away.

[FireBeyond]

Report it. GFM has rules around fundraising around crimes.

[Aurornis]

Forgive me if I'm trying to figure out what's going on here. I just read the linked blog and some of the links within, but I don't have time to watch all these long YouTube videos

> The goods were still there, still on display and being sold.

The store says the full inventory was not discoverable at the store. They said the person gave a written statement in the past saying the collection was "moved off site for security reasons" so I don't think this is really as cut and dry as the YouTuber and blogger people are trying to make it look.

> Corporate says, "this is mine now"

Their statement says they located what inventory they could and offered it back.

I think there's a lot more to this story. I wouldn't really trust the YouTube influencers for the whole story.

[14]

Reckless Ben's video I would rank as one of the top 3 best YouTube videos I have ever seen. I had never seen this guy before but this video was wild. It's a mix of reporting and trolling and questionable legal tactics. The evidence in the video seems pretty hard to dispute. Of course there is 2 sides to everything but I strongly believe bam is the bad guy here.

[axus]

The store (as managed by the second group) lost the suit, if they were negligent they still owe the consigner. What's missing is the relationship between the second group and the corporate parent. Seems there's some reason the liability from the lawsuit doesn't transfer to the corporation.

[Aurornis]

> The store (as managed by the second group) lost the suit, if they were negligent they still owe the consigner. What's missing is the relationship between the second group and the corporate parent.

This does seem like a very key point that keeps getting ignored for the sake of a simpler story.

Everyone keeps talking about this lawsuit loss, but what lawsuit? Against whom? The article doesn't even explain, but it's starting to look like the lawsuit was against the former owners, contrary to the ragebait "Bricks and Minifigs stole..." title

[thevinter]

The lawsuit was *from* the previous owners against the new owners that kicked them out of the store.

Here's a video from the previous owners explaining their story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zedmOopRTm0

[jonlucc]

I haven't watched this particular video, but I've read her 46 page suit. That's not the case that was lost. The case(s) that were lost are small claims actions made by the YouTuber and 9 of his friends, essentially. They got default judgments from the court on 10 claims each worth $10k. The previous owner's suit was just filed in March of this year, I believe.

Now as for the previous question of who was at the pointy end of those default judgments, I haven't been able to find that answer. I assume they should have named the local franchise as an entity and it's owners individually. Closing the store to avoid paying is arguably a fraudulent transfer of assets, but that would need to be taken to court in an enforcement action.

[thevinter]

Oh yeah sorry, I misunderstood the suit the comment was referring to.

It is my understanding that BAM took direct ownership of the local store and therefore the small claims case was also directed against them, but at the moment I can't find where I've heard that so I'm not 100% sure.

[usehand]

If that's the case why did they lose the small claims cases?

[shadefinale]

They lost default judgements because they did not appear. Either they thought it was fake or they thought they'd lose, but they were served and did not appear.

[jonlucc]

Or they thought that the losses were acceptable to avoid having to make sworn statements about the series of events that are still at issue in the previous owner's case and some events that may very well still be charged by Oregon prosecutors.

[usehand]

So they chose to lose a case on merits related to the other case instead of making statements that would help (if they are in the right)?

[jonlucc]

That’s one possibility, yes.

[eloisant]

They didn't even lose any money, because by closing the store the damages were never paid.

It's really depressing to see to be honest.

[jonlucc]

While this is true at the moment, closing a store and transferring its assets to another store owned by the same people could reasonably be alleged to be fraudulent transfer. The owners don't just get to keep whatever was in the store because they closed it before they paid.

[abirch]

I believe they would need to dissolve the business entity. These default judgments against them should count as debt that needs to be paid before the business is closed unless they declare bankruptcy in court and not like Michael Scott.

[usehand]

A default judgement is still a loss. Why would not they not fight back small claims cases, which would be trivially easy for someone with their resources, if they could win?

[rubyn00bie]

They can't even serve papers because they're being relentlessly harassed by Police who have immediately banned them from serving them. In part 2, cops even verify the court case and he has a process server-- but they just refuse to. One of many different cops eventually took the papers to serve them, and ended up coming back saying "he didn't want them."

Additionally, the original business in Kaizer shutdown as soon as the default judgements went through.

[bishfish]

Would it count as being served if bodycam shows that police handed him the papers and he gave them back or tossed them on the floor?

[shadefinale]

I am not stating that I think B&M would win. B&M's original intent was to force Ed and Ben into a pyrrhic victory via dragging out one lawsuit, even if they lost that one suit.

Without being able to run up Ed/Ben's legal costs, trying to defend these suits at all is just a further loss for B&M for no benefit.

I don't think it was the deciding factor, but Ben also sent a fake Guinness award to the store around the same time they were being served. It is within the realm of possibility that they thought Ben was bluffing with the lawsuits and tried to call his bluff just to find out it was all real after they failed to appear.

[usehand]

Nah, the whole Guinness thing was obviously just a bit for the video. Clearly the franchise would not fall for that, when you can easily check that you were summoned to small claims (and they also probably get some form of direct communication from the court I would guess).

Legal costs for a small claims suit is tiny, and would be easily doable for them if they could win it. Again, there is a reason they lost those cases.

[altairprime]

[retracted]

[usehand]

I don't know what point you're trying to make. But also please watch the video, they submitted multiple separate claims via different aggrieved parties, this totaled $100k, despite the low individual small claims maxima.

[Aurornis]

Who is "they"?

Bricks and Minifigs? Or the previous owners?

Do you mind citing your sources at least? The linked article refers to a "lawsuit loss" but doesn't explain who it was against or what it was for.

[throwaway85825]

Theft by conversion.

[nerdsniper]

Civil “Conversion” (as opposed to criminal theft): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_(law)

[scotty79]

> It seems like theft, but it's a very common civil contract dispute.

What if he reported theft? Wouldn't they have to prove how did they come into possession of the goods they are selling?

[busterarm]

They were actually getting a 35% share. This is pure greed.

[code_duck]

I used to sometimes do consignment with artistic products I made, and 80% of the time I ended up being jerked around by the store. Even stores that kept good records and paid for a while would, after a few years, end up with inventory left that they never returned or paid for. Sometimes the stores would close and disappear with the inventory. Other times they’d avoid me. Sometimes they’d insist they paid for everything already, and have done such a poor job of documenting what payments were for that it was difficult to tell. Some people just straight up ran their stores like Ponzi schemes - paying off old consignment with sales from new vendors. As an individual artist, I became very wary of consignment as it’s essentially an unsecured loan. Even worse was that some people who faded away and kept inventory were friends and good business partners, and it’s not like I would sue them for $400.

[Suppafly]

>It seems like theft, but it's a very common civil contract dispute.

Theft by conversion is an actual crime, not just a civil dispute.

[warumdarum]

Lucky though, you can find somebody with deep pockets to step in and take his share of the case should you win.

[iwontberude]

This is essentially what is going to happen with Monetary Metals (although I hope not!)

[fortran77]

> It's not that hard to understand.

FWIW, I couldn't follow it either from the blog.

[apercu]

Sounds like theft to me.

[myko]

> It seems like theft

It is theft!

[brittlepeanut]

By this logic, nothing is theft, and everything is just a civil contract dispute.

There is no need for us to accept your sociopathic assertion that the rich should and will win.

[Pragmata]

> The goods were still there, still on display and being sold.

This appears to be in dispute.

As per bricks and minifigs:

>It was clear the full list of inventory in his documentation was not located in the store. What items could be reasonably identified as allegedly belonging to the consignor was offered back to the consignor, but that offer was refused.

>A deeper dive into the sales receipts uncovered that a significantly higher volume of the listed sets had sold over the course of the consignment deal prior to the store transition.

It appears they are alleging that the prior operator had sold a larger portion of the consigned goods than they had claimed to the family.

[mcv]

Do they have any evidence of those claims? So far, all evidence seems to be against them.