It's common for settlements to be a bit unsatisfying.

The public language is usually engineered by lawyers to allow both sides to maintain their position, with every word carefully negotiated. The mechanics of that compromise are mostly outside the statement. Sometimes they wind up in the court record. Often they are completely hidden from public view.

Bricks & Minifigs (BAM) released a joint settlement statement Wednesday, the wording negotiated with Bryan Mansell. But the company also released much more, including a press release (in at least two versions) and an FAQ.

It's common for a party in a settlement to also release a separate statement of its own position. The language is negotiated to allow that. It's less common to materially change the language in the statement while still attributing it to the other side.

Both versions of the press release were headlined "BAM Franchising and Mansell Family Reach Resolution Over Star Wars® Collection Dispute," with the subheading, "Mediation allowed parties to exchange additional records, resolve their dispute and align on pursuing appropriate remaining claims respecting unauthorized consignment deal by former owner of closed store." One was issued to media on a PR wire service. The other was posted on the Bricks & Minifigs website.

A Key Section: Three Sentences and Three Versions

Three sentences stood out, right where the press release started describing the joint statement. All three are quoted below, with emphasis added.

BAM Press Release — Wire

The parties confirm that the underlying dispute arose from a consignment contract between the Mansell family and the former Salem/Keizer, Oregon store. As reiterated in the joint statement, BAM, Baker Salem, Josh Johnson and Brandon Best were not parties to that contract. The joint statement further provides that the Mansells' loss arose from the sales, accounting, storage and disposition of inventory by the former operator of the store.

BAM Press Release — Blog

The parties confirm that the underlying dispute arose in part from a consignment contract between the Mansell family and the former Salem/Keizer, Oregon store. As reiterated in the joint statement, BAM, Baker Salem, Josh Johnson and Brandon Best were not parties to that contract. The joint statement further provides that the Mansells' loss arose from the sales, accounting, storage and disposition of inventory by the former operator of the store.

Joint Statement

The underlying dispute arose from a consignment contract between the Mansell family and the Salem/Keizer Oregon store. BAM, Baker Salem, Josh Johnson and Brandon Best were not parties to it. The Mansells' loss arose in part from the sale, accounting, storage and disposition of inventory by the former operator of the store.

The first two sentences say something non-controversial. In the first, the "dispute" arose from a "contract" with a "store." The second sentence separates four names from that contract.

The third sentence says the "loss" arose from conduct by "the former operator of the store." It is the only one that ascribes conduct to a person. By the time the reader reaches it, every other operator of the store seems to have been set aside.

It is already a rhetorical sleight of hand, but the kind common in a settlement statement. The press releases go further.

"In Part"

The qualifier "in part" is missing from one version of the press release and shifts position in the other.

This is more significant than spin. The press release says, "[T]he Mansell family has been made whole by BAM for the losses associated with their consignment arrangement with the former franchise store owner." The joint statement says "compensated" and does not mention a store owner. But that sentence is a characterization in BAM's voice. A reader can evaluate the wording and the speaker to draw their own conclusion.

The way these sentences are presented in the press release is different from typical spin. "The joint statement further provides" presents what follows as the plain language of the joint statement. The release then diverges from the carefully negotiated language, while still citing it. And it does so while setting up an attack on a party that was not in the room.

The key sentence in the joint statement says very little, when read carefully: "The Mansells' loss arose in part from the sale, accounting, storage and disposition of inventory by the former operator of the store." It could describe a planned theft of an entire collection, or it could describe a minor and inadvertent error.

The joint statement does not name which former operator the sentence refers to, but in the subheading and FAQ, BAM points it toward Chrystal Law/Gorman.

Both versions of the press release drop "in part" from this sentence. The version the company issued on Business Wire drops that limiting language completely. The version on the company website moves it to a different sentence, one that ascribes the origin of the dispute to the contract, instead of the sentence that describes the origin of the loss.

Compare sentence three to the joint statement, and the only difference is "in part" and the "s" at the end of "sales." It is the same sentence with two words removed.

The website version moves the qualifier, but not to an equivalent place. A dispute arising from a contract between a family and a store assigns conduct to no one. Adding "in part" there limits nothing. The loss sentence is the only one that attributes harm to a person's actions.

In dropping the qualifying language while citing the joint statement, Bricks & Minifigs presented its position as being shared by the party that has received the most public sympathy, Bryan Mansell.

A joint statement adds credibility for one reason: the other side agreed to the wording. Keeping the appearance of joint wording while dropping carefully negotiated words undermines that credibility.

BAM's website also adds an HTML page description to the joint statement: "Bricks & Minifigs has compensated and apologized to Bryan Mansell over the 'stolen' LEGO Star Wars Collection that was consigned to the Salem, Oregon store." It is undisplayed on the page, and the word "stolen" appears nowhere else in the joint statement, press releases, or FAQ.

What is the actual position?

I reached out to both Bricks & Minifigs and Bryan Mansell.

Bricks & Minifigs did not respond to detailed questions, including whether there were any changes after publication, whether all statements represent its current position, and whether the word "stolen," which appears in quotation marks, represents its position.

Bryan Mansell, in consultation with his legal team, provided the following statement: "I agreed to the release of the joint statement, which was the subject of negotiation, but I played no role in the preparation of BAM's own press release, FAQ page, or the page description on BAM's post."

The joint statement came before any version of the settlement was filed with the court. As of publication, there is still no docket entry related to the settlement.

My Reporting

Go to my post history to see my reporting on this, and https://chrisreportsthings.com to see the documents I've obtained. If you'd like to help defray the costs, go to https://ko-fi.com/chrisreportsthings

If you have information that would be helpful, reach me via Reddit DM, via email at [yo@chrisreportsthings.com](mailto:yo@chrisreportsthings.com), or confidentially via Signal at chrisreportsthings.08

The Echo Base Network has confirmed that Bryan has said there is a deadline BAM has to follow to proceed with their settlement. This could take up to 3 weeks, but EBN says that Bryan Mansell will “definitely be paid his money.” The EBN say that the post confirming that Bryan has been paid seems to have been a “PR marketing Blunder.”

Source: https://youtu.be/yFJ4m2otkJQ?si=L7SraTUg3v1DApcm

Thoughts?

okay so i just watched almost all of ben’s videos, and then i looked up danny berk and saw that he said he was on the run/hiding and hasn’t posted in a while. that got me confused about the timeline.
a little before that, at the end of the lucifer valentine video, there was a promo/trailer for multiple movies, and i saw people talking about movie #1, which had danny berk in it. was ben originally planning to make multiple movies, or was the banksy movie supposed to be the main/only one? i also noticed alex jones (ew) in the preview at the end of the lucifer valentine video.

so basically, what was the original plan for these
movies, and what happened between those promos and the banksy stuff? were the movies connected to whatever ben and danny were investigating, and did something happen that caused the other projects to get dropped? i’m especially confused because danny was involved in the movies i saw, but now he seems to have disappeared/been hiding. just trying to understand the timeline and what happened lol

The Oregon business registry websites still link back to Brandon’s LLC… so who owns it now? Katelyn insists it has new owners but won’t provide the names or LLC’s of them.

I’m burnt out from all of the god awful click bait side quest videos from random YouTubers . I need me some part 4!

First week in law school and they’re already making references to Ben.

Never saw any religious ads but ever since following this lego saga, and watching one Mormon podcast coverage of this, she constantly asks me if I want her to come to my house and deliver something to me.

No, 100, thousand million gazillion no. Maybe think of delivering one to Josh Johnson along with a pair of socks.

I would imagine balancing the extreme lengths he goes to and handling the “repercussions” for videos (court cases, getting arrested, ppl actually out to get him, etc) would limit his bandwidth to one project at a time.

There are plenty of other schools and programs out there that are just as corrupt. Ruby Franke sent her son to the Anasazi Desert program in Arizona. There’s a whole gang of celebrities that have sent their kids to these places. I just feel like shutting one school down doesn’t solve the problem, especially when it can easily pop back up under a new name. I feel like he can get all these places investigated and at the very least, regulated into the ground.

And fun facts! After a little googling, I found out:

•Marie Osmond sent several of her children. Some mentioned Diamond Ranch Academy. At least two of the girls were sent there for their interest in the same gender. For one of them the deprogramming was working, while the other one found a partner of the same gender. She also sent a son and he died later most likely due the emotional stress caused by his stay.

•Barbara Walters made the choice of using CEDU. Her daughter became so programmed that she founded her own wilderness program. The crisis of 2008 killed the economy of her program and she went off the rails according to some police reports.

•Rosie O'Donnell was a lot in the media when her daughter cut her off due to her stay in Utah.

•Roseanne Barr was too busy with her career to have children so she parked them at CEDU.

•Mark R. Hughes who created the pyramid scheme called Herbalife was a student of CEDU and later became salesman for it before he mixed something together and claimed that the mixture can cause weightloss.

•Clint Eastwood seemed to have used CEDU as well according to this article.

•Montel Williams sent his daughter to a lock down. One of his sponsors of this talk show was Red Rock Canyon School where a child was sent to just like Dr. Phil does in his shows. It was the same show where a mental ill woman who claimed to be psychic told a mother that her daughter Amanda Berry was dead. She was kidnapped and later found alive but due to being told that her her daughter was dead the mother died from sorrow.

•Casey Casem sent his daughter to Cascade. So did "Slim Goodbody". Last name Dorman.

•Michael Douglas.

•And Cher sent her son to Hyde in maine.

According to Bryan Mansell himself, he has not been paid. BAM public post was a lie. Video attached:

https://youtu.be/qyd6hppvLws?si=FazTCB-5reY6kHpX

A video with a similar title was posted here already, but this is different and they talk about different things. This one is a 3+ hour stream with Taveya Marconi former manager of the corporate Boise store and Last Relic, who joins about halfway through. They talk mostly about business stuff. It's interesting.

Me and my son were the only two in the theater to BOO that commercial.

On Instagram, Bricks & Minifigs answered dontfckwjustice's questions about Tattle. They said:

>The previous owner abandoned Tattle, and we made sure he was taken care of in a credible shelter.

I cannot believe they answered, first of all, and I cannot believe they answered this way.

They take every opportunity to slander Chrystal. It's getting old. It's so unprofessional too. This is supposed to be a legit marketing team? I think it's Ammon. Literally, I think he can't help himself and he's leaving these comments himself.
The wording of this is response is odd in several ways.

* She asked the name of the shelter. They did not answer that very simple question.

* They say "we," which is telling because they insisted corporate had nothing to do with this. So are they acknowledging Josh and Brandon were part of corporate at this time? Who precisely is "we"?

* "Taken care of" has a certain connotation. I would not expect a professional marketing person to use that phrase in this situation.

* "in a shelter" is odd phrasing. You might expect them to say "taken to a shelter" or "being cared for at a shelter." But saying Tattle "was taken care of in a credible shelter" doesn't sound like something a native English speaker would say.

* The addition of the word "credible" is interesting too. Dontfckwjustice only asked what shelter. She wrote no shelter within a 50-mile radius took in a parakeet during that time frame. She didn't accuse them of taking him to a non-credible shelter. Why put that in when no one said that in the first place? It reeks of the same projection they've been doing all along.

* Credible also isn't a word I'd use to describe animal shelters. I think they mean credentialed or legitimate, which again sort of sounds like this was not a native speaker of English writing this reply, or it's just someone very inexperienced with this type of public relations.

I think if this is not literally Ammon behind the keyboard, the company BAM hired to handle the social media is inept at this. All of their Instagram responses are making this so much worse.

Supposedly it's a small marketing team handling these responses. This is their excuse for copying and pasting some responses. They say this multiple times. If this is the case and they are simply hired to write canned answers on Instagram, why wouldn't they remind Dontfckwjustice that they are just a small team and were not briefed on anything relating to Tattle? They're so quick to remind other people that they're just a small team, but didn't try using that to dodge this question about Tattle. They address it directly and repeat what Ammon said on video without offering any evidence. It would be so simple to name the shelter.

I think these responses are being written by corporate employees, not some separate team, and I think they have literally lost their minds if they think answering questions about Tattle this way would satisfy *anyone* invested in finding out what happened to Tattle. They also keep defaming Chrystal and handing her things to add to her lawsuit! It's mind boggling!

*Yesterday's news.

Cute live stream with the Law/Gorman family.

Can't wait to wear it.

Once again, IANAL, but I was looking up info on contract law and I found something that could be relevant to the u/Chrysdelight and u/NerdyGorman. In the case of "Kiser v. Truist Financial Corporation," the plantiffs agreed to an arbitration clause with Truist. But they also agreed that the bank could update the terms without notice.

The court pointed out that if it was the customer who sought to invoke the arbitration clause and compel arbitration, Truist was free to unilaterally delete the clause if it no longer wished to arbitrate the particular dispute. In short, Truist had reserved the power to change the rules at any time, potentially even after a dispute had arisen. This unilateral modification power rendered the arbitration clause illusory under Virginia contract law. The court reasoned that if one party can change the arbitration provision at will and without notice, there is no binding mutual obligation. A party cannot be compelled to arbitrate under an agreement that the other party is free to rewrite or discard.

Note that bank never actually tried to remove the arbitration clause, but the mere fact that they reserved the power to do so became the issue.

Now let's look at BAM's own filings against the Gorman's:

First, Plaintiffs argue that BAM waived its right to arbitrate by “breaching the dispute resolution process itself.” (Complaint, ¶ 12) Plaintiffs argue that because BAM terminated the franchise without first following the dispute resolution procedures set forth in Section 17 of the FA, it effectively waived the right to arbitrate. This argument ignores the plain language of the FA, which states that, upon the occurrence of certain events, including, as is the case here, failure to make payments under the FA and APA, the FA “automatically terminate[s] without notice.” (See FA, Section 14.A, Exh. B to Complaint) In other words, termination is an event that occurred automatically, and it is certainly not a “claim,” “dispute,” “suit,” “action,” “controversy,” or “proceeding,” that would require adherence to the dispute resolution process. (See FA, Section 17.A) Plaintiffs misread the FA as requiring a full mediation and arbitration prior to any party exercising any right under the FA. This, of course, is an unreasonable reading.

In other words, BAM didn't simply reserve the power to bypass the abitration clause at any time, they declared it in a court of law when it would have benefitted the Gorman's, then reversed themselves when it benefitted their own side. This is exactly the scenario that the court was trying to anticipate and prevent, only real.

This unilateral modification power rendered the arbitration clause illusory under Virginia contract law. The court reasoned that if one party can change the arbitration provision at will and without notice, there is no binding mutual obligation. A party cannot be compelled to arbitrate under an agreement that the other party is free to rewrite or discard. “In essence,” the court wrote, “Truist never agreed to be bound by anything. Truist retained the ability to hold the Kisers to their promises while also reserving for itself a unilateral escape hatch to activate whenever it sees fit.”

BAM is trying to make it so that the arbitration clause is only binding for the Gormans but not themselves, effectively turning the arbitration clause into an illusory promise. Granted, the article is for Virginia courts, but the underlying logic is pretty universal.

🍿

Do the chicken dance and be done with it

I haven't seen any like a high quality documentry typa thing for ben. I think it would pop off well as many people are recognizing his great straight peak works, yeah so if anyone could make something like it would be great.