This is abhorrent and unfortunately not surprising. This corporate culture of fascism is deep, including the culture of YCombinator. The police were founded to protect corporate interests and nothing else.
Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection
331–340 of 704 posts
Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection
#332Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Courts are allowed to pierce the corporate veil when that happens.
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.
Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
because, i assume, that they sued the salem location directly?
They wouldn't make any sense, if the whole thing started because corporate took over control and ownership the location.
It sounds like corporate took away ownership and gave it to a new franchisee.
Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection
#335One surprising thing I learned over time from news articles is that "won a judgment for $x from person y" actually doesn't mean very much in the US. The first thing that came to mind is a parachutist site in Lodi, but this one is another one. I suppose it is indeed as Andrew Jackson said: John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!
If someone is poor and doesn't have the money, sure you can't enforce it. If it's a corporation, it's pretty straightforward. If they refuse to pay, you get a writ from the court that authorizes seizure of assets. Usually that means you go their bank and the value of the judgment will be garnished by their bank and given to you. Occasionally and theatrically, a sheriff will take you to their headquarters to seize pro…
Have you actually gone through this process? Like sure, obtaining a writ is technically part of the same case, but it's pretty much starting all over again. And you'll still be paying filing fees, dealing with court clerks, and waiting weeks or months.
Finding a corporation's bank is a whole separate issue, where you have to go back to court for a post-judgement discovery to force them to tell you. And even if they do - or you already knew - you have to get the writ served to the bank, and just hope they didn't move funds beforehand - or else you're back to start.
As GP said, it IS a huge PITA to get judgments paid, and it's particularly menacing in Small Claims. Unless the other side act on some virtue (which, they were already bad-faithed enough to have a lawsuit against them AND lose), your judgment is just an IOU, and actually forcing collection is often way more money — or time in money — than most state's Small Claims limits.
It's a broken system.
Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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.
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Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection
#337I just don’t understand why a company with $95m in sales would steal $200k. That’s a fraction of a percent of sales for the year.
There’s now a boycott against them that will easily cost them more than that.
If the case is as this blog says, it cannot be hard to find a lawyer to do this one pro bono. Breach of contract is one of the few things in America where you can sue for your legal fees. If you take over a business you assume it’s contracts even though your name wasn’t on them. You gain anything the business owns but a consignment shop doesn’t own the inventory.
BAM is going to lose millions and for what? Is this article just wrong on substantial facts? Simple greed wouldn’t explain this as it will almost certainly lead to far less money, even in a short period, than returning it.
Something must be missing.
Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection
#338Why didn't you say they were mormons from the beginning? That all makes sense now. Truth, lies, and morality doesn't mean the same in that case. Read Under The Banner of Heaven by Krakauer.
Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
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.
Seems like it would be hard to know which blue Lego was Bryan’s