Arjun
IPCT Contributor
The official "WTF" thread
- Thread starter Smilingreen
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mat200
IPCT Contributor
- Jan 17, 2017
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They STOLE his $200k Lego Collection . . . LEGALLY?
Lawful Masses with Leonard French
May 25, 2026
Imagine spending fifteen years and around thirty thousand dollars building the world's largest sealed Star Wars Lego collection with your eighty-three-year-old father. Imagine that you finally decide to sell it, to fund your grandkids' college, and you take it to what should be the safest place in America to consign rare Lego sets — Bricks and Minifigs — a national franchise dedicated specifically to buying, selling, and consigning Lego.
Imagine that franchise sells some of your collection. Pays you for it. Things are going well.
And then one day the corporate parent walks in, takes over the store, and announces that your collection now belongs to them.
This video, presented by attorney Leonard French, analyzes the legal and practical fallout of a dispute involving a $200,000 Lego collection that was effectively seized from a consignor, Brian Mancel, by BAM Franchising (the parent company of Bricks & Minifigs). The video explores how a series of poor corporate decisions and a failure to understand the law led to a "multifront catastrophe."
Key Legal and Operational Takeaways:
- The Consignment Trap: Under the Uniform Commercial Code (Article 9), consigning valuable goods requires specific filings (a UCC-1 financing statement) to protect one's ownership interest from the merchant's creditors. Mancel did not file this, leaving him vulnerable (04:40 - 06:43).
- Bailment and Conversion: When BAM Franchising seized the store, they essentially became the bailee of Mancel’s property. By refusing to return it and continuing to sell it, they committed the tort of conversion (strict liability for the owner's loss) (07:12 - 09:50).
- The Escalation: BAM terminated the franchise agreement without notice, seized the store, and claimed the consignment was "unauthorized," despite it being publicly advertised for a year. Following a formal termination letter from Mancel on November 22, 2024, subsequent sales of his identifiable sets moved from civil conversion into potential aggravated theft (12:01 - 14:40).
- Small Claims Strategy: Schneider and nine others purchased sets from Mancel and filed 10 separate small claims lawsuits against the store. Bricks & Minifigs chose to default on all 10 rather than engage in discovery, leading to the store's permanent closure (21:01 - 24:38).
- Asymmetric Warfare: Schneider used stunts (like the "We Steal from Old People" signage) to force public pressure. French notes that while Schneider’s legal maneuvers were sometimes flawed (e.g., fraud in the execution on contracts), they effectively bypassed the cost-prohibitive barriers of the standard court system (15:59 - 21:01, 24:38 - 26:11).