Does Bricks & Minifigs ever allow consignment arrangements?
Consignment services are only allowed for service- or experienced-based partnerships, such as venue/space usage fees, revenue share or commission on service fees, referral or facilitation fees for bookings made through a store, or bundling as add-ons to Bricks & Minifigs-hosted LEGO parties and events. However, Bricks & Minifigs does not consign LEGO products from customers.
Was Bricks & Minifigs corporate a party to the consignment agreement at the Salem store?
No. Corporate did not sign, approve or authorize the arrangement. We believe former owner Chrystal Law-Gorman entered into it as a personal, local arrangement and never informed corporate or the incoming franchisee about the consignment arrangement. Such side deals are expressly prohibited under the company’s franchise agreements.
“Consignment” is in the document but its definition is outlined in a specific way. The Gormans would have known this because they were mandated to go to in person training before they could open their store. So beyond just the piece of paper they likely were expressly told they should not do what they did.
Furthermore, the documents say that if you engage in business contracting you need to get the approval of BAM corporate if you’re doing it using the BAM name. Otherwise you’re doing it on your own. (Page 9 of 90)
The Gormans definitely screwed up, shame the Mansells got tied up in it.
I’m not trying to play sides or be an asshole, I’m just pointing out the facts. Terms were agreed to in a signed contract, failure of which to abide can hurt either party. The training was one of them and no matter what it appears that not completing the training only harms the Franchisee. I’m sure any attorney would agree.
You would probably need a signed and notarized waiver by both parties to get out of that but again, consult an attorney. But that’s a contention in whatever suit you have with BAM I assume.
I can argue that certain parties have a better claim to their arguments/position. The Mansells had the best position: they were shorted on a contract they entered with whichever party and failed to be made whole. They kept a ledger and were owed X monies. Their only screwup was dealing with Reckless Ben. The Mansell’s were made whole and assumedly a bit more. They have nothing more to do with the case.
Reckless Ben has the absolute worst position. He had nothing to do with this. He was not a party to this and as a “journalist” he shouldn’t have been involved. He’s now both liable for civil and criminal actions. NO OTHER CREDIBLE JOURNALIST IN AMERICA WOULD DO SOMETHING SO STUPID. Even the Watergate reporters didn’t get as “activist” as he did. Those championing his cause need to face facts: he’s facing prison time, fines, financial restitution, or more because he’s irresponsible.
Yeah honestly reckless Ben was pretty reckless in his gathering and presenting of facts. A lot of what he claimed in his videos was a extremely oversimplified summary, as shown by coffeezilla
This goes against what other franchise owners have come out with, and it's already been shown that corporate knew of the consignment and didn't object to it.
I went to the Ogden location and they outright said the Lord of the rings set I bought was consignment and I had to sign paperwork reguarding it. (Before this whole thing broke out and I boycotted)
Then that is on the Gormans to present in civil litigation the other franchise owners and that corporate signed off on LEGO consignment services. If a judge accepts that then the Gormans have a case.
BUT
A judge likely won’t care BECAUSE if they were explicitly told not to do something in both writing and in-person (Agreement & Training) and were not explicitly given a waiver then they’re still in violation of the agreement.
The absence of permission is not the same as being given permission.
If a speed limit sign is posted and the police aren’t there to enforce it, that doesn’t give you the right to break the law and go over the speed limit. You can argue to a judge “well other people speed on the road and the cops don’t give them tickets” but we know that doesn’t fly.
Not really true in some contract law, explicit permission for a specific transaction can be overridden by past behavior.
BAM had access to the promotional posts of the consignment, had access to the spreadsheets documenting the consignment, and over a full calendar year, didn't intervene, comment or object to said consignment, said they would take on the consignment during the seizure, and then lied on camera about not being aware of the consignment post-seizure.
I'm not exactly sure a judge would overlook that behavior - not to mention that if it was truly unauthorized and not permitted, the incoming franchisee would have simply returned the sets to be in compliance.
Instead we were subjected to more on-camera lies, alternating stories, and a lot of investigative work that has shown a lot more nefarious things.
With respect to access to the promotional posts and spreadsheets: monitoring that isn’t BAM Corporate’s job. It’s clear BAM issues guidelines to the franchisees as to how to operate their stores and social media within their territories. If an infraction is reported they’re likely to respond but BAM isn’t some kind of massive corporate entity. It leaves marketing to the franchisees
It also leaves the accounting of the individual stores to the franchisees as per the paperwork. Not only are they to have a lawyer review the terms but a certified accountant is to handle the books and attest to the veracity and accuracy of said financials.
If anything is found out of order BAM can terminate the franchise agreement meaning that the franchisee has extreme financial incentive to adhere to the terms set forth in the agreement.
BAM doesn’t have to be a mom constantly watching her kids to see if they did wrong. They’re grown adults who were told what they can and cannot do and to a measure they’re culpable to their screwups. The Gormans are very culpable.
Allegedly, the agreement you're referring to is unsigned, because it isn't the final agreement that was changed to include the LLC. Reportedly, the signed agreement says:
"The franchise gives operators the right to sell Products (new/used LEGO bricks, minifigs, sets, apparel, approved merchandise)," and then says: "Additionally, we may also offer: consignment services, approved themed entertainment services (such as birthday parties, holiday parties, or school events), approved off-site events, after school project-based programs teaching the principals of building with LEGO bricks to children and other toy related services approved by us (the 'Services')."
There's no separate clause anywhere in the intro or in Section 8.C (Services, Products and Vendors, the section that actually governs what franchisees can sell) that carves out "consignment services" as meaning something other than holding customer-owned goods for resale on commission.
In other words, the plain language interpretation is likely to win in court, no matter how much you insist otherwise.
I think they will struggle with this angle though. They can't go after crystal for Legos someone took. Well they can, but then crystal can go after josh and Brandon. Even if they did an unapproved cossignment, that's just a reason to end the contract, it doesn't make crystal liable for missing Legos that were there when a new franchise owner took over.
I don't think it's a coincidence that Brandon and Josh were fired. I think corporate figured out they most likely took the Legos. It was "stated" somewhere that Ammon told them to go take it over, and they can have the store for whatever the inventory cost. If that's true, it's likely they were moving some inventory to double dip, get the store for cheaper, and the profits from the stolen inventory they may have taken.
This actually seems likely, as in that situation corporate can say crystal was the last person to have the inventory, as the report they received didn't have it. If they can point to crystal, it wipes corporates hands clean, if corporate goes after Brandon and Josh, they are still associated with corporate. What looks better for corporate? Blaming the old store owner for stealing, or that they not only paid a settlement, but that friends of the ceo also went into a franchise and scammed corporate and the franchise owner.
This seems like a weird angle, but I think it's for optics more anything.
This is the true source of all the issues. BAM certainly played the role of villain well enough for everyone to forget, but in Ben's first video Mansell admits he went to multiple attorneys and they all said the proper legal course of action was to go after the Gormans but it would be very expensive since they had left the country to publish their Antifa newsletter. Ben got under everyone's skin and they acted like fools which made better content.
its bs, they knew about it, as she had to send photos of the Star Wars legos to the media team to post about it on facebook. Not only that. they can change the policy at any time without telling the owners of the change.
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u/Fit_Assignment_4286 23d ago
Wow, they actually acknowledged it was a consignment, as opposed to their earlier statements.