Rov_Scam
3hr ago
It's still a problem because once a player goes down that road then any information is suspect. If you bet on your own team nine out of ten times, what does it say about the one time you don't?
Rov_Scam
6hr ago
This Week in Gambling
The Brendan Sorsby drama is the gift that keeps on giving, especially among those of us who feel that sports gambling in its current incarnation is a scourge on the athletic world. For those of you who haven't been following, Sorsby is a college football quarterback who began his career with the Indiana Hoosiers before transferring to Cincinnati and becoming their primary starter. Following good seasons in 2024 and 2025, he transferred again in January, this time to Texas Tech. Cincinnati then sued him over an alleged $1 million buyout clause in his NIL deal, which he refused to pay. This would have been nothing more than a minor sideshow except on March 11, the NCAA received a tip from law enforcement about suspected gambling activity, and the following month, Texas Tech was notified that an investigation was taking place. As the NFL Draft took place the last weekend in April, Sorsby was checking into a residential treatment facility for gambling addiction, and the gambling allegations were made public. Over a four year period beginning when he was a redshirt freshman at Indiana in 2022, Sorsby had made over $90,000 in bets, including bets involving his own team, and had others place bets for him when he was prevented from doing so because of either age or being in a state where gambling was prohibited. In the latter case, he had others place over $5,000 worth of bets for him outside the state of Texas, where sports betting is illegal. Keep in mind he had only been in Texas since January.
The timing of the investigation frustrated Sorsby's desire to play in 2026, as challenging an unfavorable determination would require an antitrust suit that wouldn't be resolved by the start of the season. On May 18, he preemptively sued the NCAA, seeking an injunction and a declaratory judgment that they had no power to suspend him. That same day, the NCAA ruled him ineligible for the upcoming season. Texas Tech was initially supportive of Sorsby and made excuses for him: That sports betting is a growing problem among young men, that he completed his treatment program (which evidently didn't last very long), that there should be discipline, but that he shouldn't have his life destroyed over the matter. Sorsby himself made excuses, saying that betting on Indiana as a redshirt made him feel more connected to his team and having a real stake in the games, as if being on the team wasn't enough. Texas Tech ruled him ineligible, but said they would work on reinstating him before the season started.
On June 8, the district court issued an injunction preventing the NCAA sanctions from taking effect, and the reaction from the college football world was severe. The school's conference, the Big 12, made noises about possibly putting their own sanctions on Texas Tech if they allowed Sorsby to play. Scheduled opponents suggested they would simply forfeit their games in the absence of any other action. Ken Paxton warned the Big 12 that the state of Texas viewed any meddling by the conference as an antitrust violation and that they could expect to be sued if they took any action. AGs from Oklahoma, Kansas, and Utah responded that they would back the Big 12 in any lawsuit. The Big 12 then sued Texas Tech preemptively, seeking a declaratory judgment that they had the right to impose their own sanctions. Realizing his quest to play was futile, Sorsby withdrew his lawsuit on June 15 and announced that he intended to participate in the NFL Supplemental Draft.
The Supplemental Draft stems from an odd corner of the Collective Bargaining Agreement and provides an alternative to the regular draft for players who intended to play college football and accordingly missed the filing deadline. Historically, these reasons included things like being declared academically ineligible and graduating early, and occasionally involved NCAA sanctions stemming from activity that's banned in college but is okay everywhere else, like hiring an agent or accepting money from a booster. It's not held every year, and some years when it is held don't result in any players being taken. When it is held, there are usually only one or two players involved, and it's been nearly a decade since anyone of note was selected in one. It operates through a byzantine process where teams are divided into tranches based on the prior year's record and teams within each tranche bid draft picks for the player, and if he isn't selected the next tranche has a shot. So say the first tranche includes Miami at 4 and Washington at 6. If Miami bids a 6th round pick and Washington a 5th rounder, Washington gets the player for bidding higher and forfeits their 5th round pick in the following year's entry draft in exchange. If both teams bid 6th round picks then Miami get the player in exchange for a 6th rounder, etc. If nobody in the first tranche bids then the second tranche has a shot, then the third, then it's over.
The topic of the supplemental draft actually came up as early as April, as Sorsby's agent indicated that it was an option if he didn't get to play for Texas Tech, and that he had inquired about the process with the NFL. With the application deadline of June 22 looming and the college situation looking increasingly dim, the NFL route looked like the best shot. Within hours of announcing Sorsby's intent to pursue a pro career, his agent was telling media that he had already received calls from 26 teams. He scheduled a pro day for July 10, days before the CBA-mandated supplemental draft deadline of July 16. He claimed that all 32 teams would be in attendance. Yesterday, this whole facade came crashing down. In a sternly-worded letter, from the league's General Counsel, the NFL informed Sorsby that they would not be holding a supplemental draft this year. It is so good it's worth quoting in its entirety, as no summary could do it justice:
Dear Mr. Sorsby:
We are in receipt of your Petition for Special Eligibility, dated June 16, 2026 (“Petition”). As announced earlier today, the League has elected not to conduct a Supplemental Draft this year.
Under our Collective Bargaining Agreement, the League retains sole discretion to determine whether it is appropriate to conduct a Supplemental Draft in any given year. The League has not conducted such a draft for several years and, prior to your submission, the League had no plans to do so this year, as no other player has sought entry. Your Petition—filed three business days before the deadline, without any supporting information or documentation, and only after abandoning your recent litigation efforts to avoid NCAA sanctions—does not provide a basis for the League to alter those plans. The issues presented by your Petition are too significant, and too closely tied to the League’s core integrity interests, to permit meaningful review within the timeline presented.
The sole reasons identified in your Petition for seeking entry into the Supplemental Draft are that you have been “declared ineligible” by the NCAA, have “exhausted all of [your] avenues to continue in the NCAA,” and “want to now play in the NFL.” The Petition provides no information regarding the basis for, or timing of, the NCAA’s decision. Public sources, however, indicate that in May 2026 the NCAA issued a determination declaring you permanently ineligible from participation in college athletics, based on a sustained pattern of improper gambling activity during your collegiate career at three different universities.
The League does not have the complete record of the NCAA’s investigation, and you did not provide any such materials with your Petition. Available information nonetheless indicates that, over the course of your collegiate career, you knowingly engaged in repeated and significant violations of NCAA rules designed to preserve the integrity of athletic competition. Reported conduct includes placing wagers on your own team and teammates and, to avoid detection, establishing or funding accounts in the names of intermediaries who placed bets on your behalf. There are also reports that you may have violated state criminal law.
Your Petition does not address these matters. Nor does it demonstrate accountability for your conduct or indicate whether, or how, you would adhere to the League’s rules and policies governing the integrity of competition. Instead, even after receiving notice of the NCAA’s decision rescinding your college eligibility in May, you sought to avoid the consequences of that determination through litigation rather than accepting responsibility for your actions, and you pursued entry into the NFL only after abandoning those efforts.
As Commissioner Goodell has emphasized, participation in the NFL is a privilege that carries with it significant responsibilities, including accountability. By all accounts, you are a talented player with the potential for future success. We encourage you to focus on preparing for possible entry into the NFL through the 2027 NFL Annual Draft.
Sincerely,
Lawrence P. Ferazani, Jr.
The reaction from Sorsby's attorney was that the decision violates the CBA and that he was taking the matter up with the NFLPA, but it isn't clear that the union intends to do anything. As he's not on a team, Sorsby isn't entitled to any representation, and even if he were, the CBA leaves the decision to have a supplemental dragt entirely at the discretion of the league (something tells me that this isn't often a point of contention).
While it is, in a sense, satisfying to see an entitled prick like Sorsby get his comeuppance, in another sense this only kicks the can down the road. Remember, the judge originally granted a preliminary injunction, meaning that his lawsuit had a good chance of succeeding, or at least the judge thought it did. College athletics has become such a mess that at this point I believe that the house must be burned down to kill the cockroaches, and a court ruling that the NCAA had no power to declare a player ineligible for one of the two cardinal sins of athletics (the other being PED use) is tantamount to saying that they have no power at all. The Big 12 suit would have resolved questions of whether conferences had the power to enforce their own restrictions. Texas Tech winning every game by forfeit would have created an unusual situation where the team technically has a good record despite not playing, or only playing only jobbers. What if the Big 12 had lost their lawsuit, and the only meaningful game Tech played all year was in the conference championship, where they got steamrolled by, I don't know, BYU? The worst thing that could have happened to college football right now was a pyrrhic victory that convinced the casual fan that the sport wasn't a total farce, and this was it. Even Indiana's championship this year wasn't as feel-good as it seems, because that only happened because a large booster base allowed Cignetti to basically throw money at players. I don't want to pretend that the old system was equitable, even going back to the 1960s or earlier when things were supposedly pure, but in recent years things have only gotten worse. I'm not under any impression that college football will ever operate the way I'd like it to—even proposed congressional intervention only seems aimed at reinstating the shitty pre-NIL status quo—but the only chance of getting there is if the sport manages to destroy itself in spectacular fashion.
Rov_Scam
1d ago
You think he's aware of everything on the San Francisco public calendar? I live in Pittsburgh and I'm unaware of half the events on the public calendar, which, by the way, did not include a single one related to Transgender Awareness Month. At the very least, nothing required any streets to be shut down, and that's much more visibility than some press release or statement from the mayor that nobody is going to read.
Rov_Scam
2d ago
Possibly, but it's unlikely that the journal in question wants to get a definitive answer from the judge dismissing the lawsuit.
Rov_Scam
4d ago
As a practicing attorney, it doesn't sound like you want to practice law, but to do something exceedingly specific. My own firm has seen several young attorneys leave in the past couple years because they find the cases too similar and the outcomes too unsatisfying. So they move to something they think will be more fulfilling only to find that the cases are just as similar and the outcomes just as unsatisfying. And this is in litigation, which by its adversarial nature is more exciting than transactional work. I did that for a decade, and the final product is a series of recommendations that you give to the client without any concern for whether they're followed or not.
Most cases just are routine and don't involve any juicy legal questions. Either there's liability and its obvious and the only question is how reasonable the settlement will be, or it's obvious that there's no liability and the plaintiff let's you out of the case because they aren't going to waste their time. Even if you're arguing in front of the Supreme Court, keep in mind that most of the cases that go before the court aren't scintillating constitutional issues. Do you want to argue Arbitration Act cases? Tax cases? Bankruptcy cases? If you get a case of great political and social import, are you okay with arguing either side of it?
There are obviously some areas of the law where I'd prefer not to practice (family law, anyone?), but the nature of the job is that your loyalty is to your client and you have to be willing to put in all the grinding, boring work that enables you to make the best case possible. Last month, I spent several hours going through the contents of a filing cabinet that the plaintiff took from his former employer after they went out of business. It was mostly information about equipment and suppliers, but plaintiff's counsel turned it over to us and it was my duty to make sure there was nothing that implicated our client. Everything I've said applies to plaintiff's side work as well as defense, except with defense you don't have clients constantly blowing up your phone.
This isn't to say that you shouldn't do it if you think you'd like it better than your current job; I couldn't imagine writing code all day. It has some intangible plusses. The prestige is one. You'll get a private office and a secretary and paralegals and will never be the low man on the totem pole at any firm you work for. When we get summer associates the boss usually has them do paralegal work and they're tickled to death when one of the attorneys notices that they exist and gives them real work to do.
Don't get me wrong, I like my job, to the point where I don't even mind Mondays, but I also don't have any expectations that every case is going to be a corker. The thing that separates mediocre attorneys from good ones is that the good ones pay attention to the details of the case and treat everyone as if it has the potential to be a corker. Instead of going through the motions, they'll find something to argue about, and don't mind if things don't work out in the end.
Rov_Scam
4d ago
I don't doubt that there were plenty of far-left morons who engaged in Palestinian flag waving immediately, but in a country of 330 million you can always find plenty of people to take an indefensible position, along with a news media and internet environment incentivized to convincing you that these ideas are mainstream. But this wasn't a position that was taken in polite society. Noted far left radical Joe Biden (Trump's words, not mine) immediately committed to supporting Israel, as did virtually every Democratic politician. Even actual far-left radicals like AOC and Ilhan Omar condemned the attacks. The only politician who didn't was Rashida Tlaib, who in addition to being far-left is actually Palestinian. Ditto news agencies; I can't recall any mainstream commentators saying as much as that the attacks were the regrettable result of decades of occupation and blockade. The only place I heard that was Democracy Now!, and even they were inclined to engage in a lot of throat clearing.
Rov_Scam
5d ago
The point of an MOI, in commercial law at least, is that in complicated negotiations with a lot of moving parts, it makes sense to have a written record of the items the parties actually agree on so that they don't become issues later on. To that effect, the idea that the negatives for the US in this memo won't end up as part of the final agreement is wishful thinking. The reason this deal repeatedly came close and then failed was because the Iranians were demanding that the US front -load most of the benefits to Iran, as they were always going to be inclined to do considering Trump's track record when it comes to looking for reasons to back out of deals, including with the Iranians themselves. That's what makes this deal so bad, before it's even been finalized; the Iranians get everything they want, and what the US wants is still subject to negotiation. The only way the 300 billion, or sanctions relief, or the unfreezing of funds, is off the table is if the entire deal goes sideways, at which point we're in the same place we were a week ago with the strait being closed except we don't have a navy in the region to enforce a blockade.
To be clear, I'm not going to criticize Trump for making a bad deal, because sometimes a bad deal is better than no deal. I will criticize Trump for putting the country in a position where they were forced to accept a bad deal. The nuclear question isn't even relevant at this point, because Iran found out that the greatest military in the world can't stop them from nuking the global economy, which is a much more powerful weapon considering they can actually use it. Prior to this war, there was a question as to whether Iran had this capability, and previous presidents agreed that it was better not to find out. Now we know, and the answer isn't good.
Rov_Scam
5d ago
What's to be said? The Israelis had a ton of international support after 10/7, but they overplayed their hand and reacted in a way that engendered more antagonism against them then they would have had otherwise. It was very difficult to be pro-Palestinian in the immediate wake of the initial attacks, but turning Gaza into rubble at the expense of tens of thousands of civilian deaths was not seen as a proportionate response. This was especially true after they had to be bargained with to allow the importation of food and medical supplies for the civilian population. If a Democrat had been elected in 2024, we would have continued to see the same perfunctory public support for Israel combined with behind the scenes action to bring the war to a close, which may or may not have been successful. If a normal, competent Republican had been elected, we would have seen public support for Israel and continued weapons commitments, but nothing beyond that. But Bibi got Donald Trump, the one president who could be convinced to do anything provided he was personally impressed by the last person who talked to him, and the two men already had a good relationship.
Then you add the fact that he's always believed that the US should take military action in Iran, and that he deliberately chose advisors who wouldn't prevent him from doing what he wanted. The problem is that he didn't have the geopolitical wisdom to understand that prior presidents hadn't taken action because they were weak men, but because it wasn't clear that such a war could be won, at least without the kind of commitment that they were willing to make. When Trump loses the war, he's forced to make commitments to Iran that Israel doesn't like, and now Bibi has a decision to make. He managed to alienate the last person willing to give Israel the benefit of the doubt, and he has no good options at this point. It's not like Democrats are going to be more pro-Israel after the midterms. This is the legacy of Netanyahu, the complete obliteration of Israel's international standing.
Rov_Scam
6d ago
Except it's a binary decision. The alternative is to argue a position that his office thinks doesn't have any support.
Rov_Scam
7d ago
At first I thought you were talking about the 90s bomb Jack, where Robin Williams plays a ten year old boy who looks forty.
Rov_Scam
10d ago
Ah, I was about to say parts driver but you beat me to the punch. 12–8 weekdays. The perfect job for getting drunk every night while in college. That job paid $8/hour 20 years ago, which comes out to $13.21 in today's money, though the guys who had been doing it forever made comparable money to the other shitty jobs at the time that didn't require college education, and they didn't require working in an industrial facility. The best days were the ones where we'd have to drop off a trade-in at the auction, which required two of us driving an hour away and taking the least efficient route possible, which may or may not have included stopping at the end of a dead-end street for a nap. The one truck had satellite radio in it, too, which was luxury at the time.
Rov_Scam
11d ago
Also add in the fact that you don't know where the game is going to be until shortly before, and the semifinal games were on weeknights for some reason. I went to Charlotte both times Pitt was in the ACC Championship, and unless you have some flexibility with work, it's hard to make plans at the last minute, and God help you if you have kids. I was able to drive down Friday afternoon both times, but some people left after work Friday, and some drove down Saturday, which is doable when the game starts at 8. I wouldn't even attempt a Monday game, which requires taking two days off work, or a game that wasn't within reasonable driving distance. The National Championship is different because enough rich people will buy tickets well in advance because they don't care who's playing. In the unlikely event Pitt has a title shot in the future, I'll go to the ACC Championship but that's it.
Rov_Scam
11d ago
I have no idea either but it probably doesn't matter since I doubt Anthropic will litigate it. Then again, it suspiciously comes the day after the SpaceX IPO, and with Anthropic gunning for an IPO of their own, it seriously hurts their business prospects if the US government is throttling what products they can release. The industry has already spent a ton of money on a technology that hasn't proven any ability to make money as it is, and it doesn't bode well for the industry if they spend ungodly sums only for their products to be deemed a security risk and effectively unmarketable. On the third hand, maybe this is just payback for the whole DoD thing.
Rov_Scam
11d ago
the business continuity risks of Anthropic's demonstrated willingness to silently cripple models and USG's demonstrated willingness to now arbitrarily cut off access are simply going to be too much.
In the long term, maybe, but in the short term, I don't know that this is bad for Anthropic. Mythos first entered the conversation with the press release about all the vulnerabilities it found and how they're too scared to release the model to the public. This prompted more criticism than these companies normally receive, with several commentators pointing out how the claims were exaggerated and that they were just repeats of similar claims about products that were released and didn't end up being dangerous at all. So now they have the US government saying that this product is too dangerous for the public. Never mind that this is the same government that unsuccessfully tried to tag Anthropic as security risk because they didn't like purported limitations on the use of their software, but never mind that. Also, these names are a little too on the nose. Mythos suggests a product that's meant to inspire but doesn't actually exist. Fable suggests something mean to impart a moral lesson but is likewise nonexistent. The only similarly named product I can think of is the Mitsubishi Mirage, which feels like a similar thought exercise in how much you can cut from a vehicle and still be permitted to import it into the US.
Rov_Scam
11d ago
You should know that when it comes to these things I'm a terminal pragmatist, and I actually started reading that book, though I haven't made it past the introduction yet. For that reason, I won't comment about any particular scheme, as I don't want to go off half-cocked. By that measure, from what I've read so far and can glean of the author's philosophy, I'll tell you right now that any scheme that involves charging residents market rates to park in front of their houses may make sense from an economic perspective, but politically isn't any better than just eliminating the minimums. In fact, it's probably worse. I personally live in a house with an integral garage in a suburb where overnight street parking is generally prohibited so I have no horse in this race.
Rov_Scam
12d ago
No builder outside of a dense urban area would go without one. Builders within a dense urban area might, which will mightily piss off residents of that neighborhood who already rely on street parking, generally because their houses were built prior to parking requirements.
Rov_Scam
12d ago
My suspicion is that the address rules are to prevent people from renting them out. In recent years, the armchair urbanists have gotten goopy about ADUs, acting like they're some panacea to the housing problem. They're usually prohibited in most subdivisions, but they've tried to make a case for them by claiming that it's so your mother-in-law doesn't have to go into assisted living or whatever. Municipalities don't want to approve them so they can be used as a back door to allowing multi-family in neighborhoods zoned for single family. Allowing them with the provision that they have to share an address means that the only people who live in them will be friends or family of the occupants of the main unit, which is more in line with the intention of the zoning code. I suspect that the concern about the restaurants is more aesthetic than traffic-related. This is a residential district, and there's a difference between living in close proximity to a storefront that happens to have a sub shop or pizza place and a McDonald's on its own lot with a wraparound driveway and cars idling in line.
I don't know if you read my recent award-winning writeup on East Liberty, but in it I discuss Jane Jacobs and how more serious academics (particularly sociologist Herbert Gans) tended to criticize her urban theory as being based more on aesthetics than anything else. I think the same applies to the armchair urbanists of today, who have waged war against the parking minimum. I have no strong opinions on any particular policy, but I can tell you right now that no builder outside of a dense urban area is going to build an apartment complex without adequate parking, regardless of what the law says, and even in urban areas there's little demand for car-free living. While it may be true that eliminating parking would reduce the per-unit cost of an apartment, it would most likely just shift that cost from the developer/occupant onto the public at large, as the residents would park on the street. They also say nothing about the possibility that very few developers would be willing to forgo parking completely and would still surround their complexes with huge lots and garages that the armchair urbanists like to bitch about, much in the way they also include pools and rec rooms as amenities to residents.
Rov_Scam
13d ago
I understand what you're saying, but I doubt the people paying top dollar for these sets are doing so because they intend to build them.
Rov_Scam
13d ago
Star Wars ones that nobody bothered to remove the shrinkwrap from. I'll never understand the point of collecting something that you don't intend to use for its actual purpose. Jay Leno's car collection is worth a lot more than some old guy's toys, and he actually drives the cars. I collect records, and I'm glad that community is a little more level-headed. Sealed copies aren't necessarily worth more than ones that have been opened and played, because the records can be damaged anyway and there's no way of visually inspecting them or verifying that that there aren't any defects that will affect playback. Years ago, a record store in Pittsburgh ended up with a rare Robert Johnson 78 that was part of an auction lot of miscellaneous records. Did they put it under lucite? Sell it at auction for top dollar? No, the owner kept it in his personal collection and played it in the store every Saturday at 1 pm to create a reason for people to come in.
Rov_Scam
14d ago
To be clear, I don't credit it that heavily, just more than somebody yammering away on YouTube. I've since learned more about this case and it's clear that the facts alleged in the complaint are selective at the very least, but that's to be expected. It's also clear that both Bam and the new franchisees aren't entirely free from blame in terms of how they handled themselves, but I'm still skeptical as to whether they actually had as much of the inventory as Bryan claims they did.
It would be really weird if Chrystal had control of the consignment for nearly a year and didn't sell anything from it.
Apparently about half the collection was sold at the time of the takeover. This is why even if the collection was correctly valued at $200k, making a demand for that much is ridiculous. Bryan was entitled to 65% of the sale price, and with $100k of inventory presumably remaining, his damages would be in the neighborhood of $65k, which is nothing to sneeze at but well under half of what he's alleging was stolen. Anyway, Chrystal was supposed to pay Bryan monthly and provide some kind of sales statement. Apparently there's some dispute over the amount he was actually paid, and I don't know if these statements were itemized or if they just listed the dollar amount. One of the few advantages of litigation is that it forces you to put the evidence on the record or shut up about it.
So there are two possibilities here. The first is that Chrystal either stole the product or sold it and underreported the sales to Bryan. She did suddenly discover some of it at her house a year after the dispute started. I agree that if this is the case, then a lawsuit isn't likely to accomplish anything. I still think it would have been worth going after BAM, though, because from what I've since learned, even if they didn't do anything, they certainly didn't act in a way that would suggest they did nothing wrong. Chrystal claims that the product was in the store when corporate evicted her. Video evidence shows what appears to be some of it on the shelves the night she gets kicked out, and she's telling them about the consigned merchandise and the new operators don't seem to care. When Bryan went to the store to ask about it, he was given the bum's rush, and Josh and Brandon took the position that since they weren't a party to the consignment agreement, we don't owe you anything and get off our property. I saw enough of the video that it's clear that these guys are assholes in general.
And from what I've seen there's probably enough to keep BAM in the case. What one would normally expect after a franchise foreclosure would be for corporate to run the store while a new buyer is found, and then transfer the store to the new franchisee at a later date. From November 2024 to March 2025, the BAM location in question was in a sort of limbo where the successor franshisees were operating the store but didn't actually have the franchise yet. If any of the items were sold during this period, then BAM is responsible. But it gets better. The new franchisees were running the store beginning the night of the foreclosure, and continued to run it while it was legally owned by corporate. The goods were the subject of a dispute throughout the entire period in question. The nature of the arrangement creates a legitimate question as to whether the franchisees were acting as an agent of BAM corporate, which if proved, would expose corporate to liability even after the new franchise agreement went into place. There are enough factual questions involved here that BAM isn't going to get out on an MSJ, which means settlement is a real possibility. And if they stick by their story blaming Chrystal they'd have to make a case against her for conversion, which is a tall order.
But that's really neither here nor there, because my ultimate point is that this guy had better options than running his harassment campaign, and this isn't some justified act of vigilante justice to protect the little guy when the legal system is inadequate and expensive. The consignment agreement required that the collection be insured. The guy would be nuts for not obtaining his own policy, but it looks like someone was paying for insurance on these items, and it looks like Chrystal was cooperating with him, so the proper thing to do would be to file a claim, the same as you would if someone had broken into the store or if the collection had been destroyed by fire. This is why you get insurance. The claims handler is certainly going to question the circumstances of the loss, and if they think that BAM or the successor franchisees are liable, then they would be able to file a subrogation claim against them, but Bryan would get paid, Chrystal would get paid (though possibly sued if BAM claimed they were entitled to the commission), and neither would care if the insurance company was reimbursed. The claim could, of course, be denied, but if that happens you're back where you started in terms of having to litigate, except it's a lot easier this time. An insurance bad faith claim is a lot easier than the conversion claim they were dealing with, as there's only one party, the facts are a lot simpler, and you know the money's there.
Rov_Scam
14d ago
Having looked at the case further since posting and seen what legal commentators are saying, they all seem to believe that the UCC filing requirement wouldn't apply in this case. The purpose of the filing requirement is to protect creditors from finding out after a default that the property in which they have a security interest isn't actually owned by the debtor. Hence the requirement that the debtor business not be known to its creditors as typically selling consigned merchandise. It would be difficult to argue that a store dealing primarily in used and resale items wouldn't fall into this category, especially when the creditor in question executed a franchise agreement that explicitly contemplates consignments. Furthermore, courts have proposed a cutoff of 20% of inventory value, and the value of the consigned product in this case was allegedly 50% of total inventory value. There's also the possible consumer goods exception, though this is a weaker argument because the Legos in question were in sealed boxes that had arguably been held for resale and not purchased with the intention of using them for normal consumer purposes.
Honestly it's an outdated rule that should be nixed entirely, since no banks are extending credit based on a visual inspection of the store's inventory. At the very least, they're looking at the average running value of inventory on the books, which would exclude anything held on consignment. But I don't think BAM has a credible argument that they had no idea that the store might accept goods on consignment, which would defeat any argument over a UCC filing. I also don't have much sympathy for Mansell for not making such a filing. I understand the argument that Joe Consumer isn't going to be sophisticated enough to make a UCC filing, but Joe Consumer doesn't generally consign $200,000 worth of goods. I know lawyers have a reputation for saying "should have talked to an attorney" in situations when no normal person would, but I don't think I'm out of line to suggest that when you're entering a complicated transaction that involves entrusting property worth as much as a house to a stranger, it might be worth spending a couple hundred bucks to make sure you don't get taken advantage of.
Rov_Scam
14d ago
That language is more convention than anything else. The FRCP, along with a lot of state rules, only specify that:
Before testifying, a witness must give an oath or affirmation to testify truthfully. It must be in a form designed to impress that duty on the witness’s conscience.
A witness is certainly under no obligation to volunteer information that isn't asked of him. Witness prep 101 is that the witness should answer the question asked and only the question asked, and to limit answers to yes, no, I don't know, and I can't remember wherever possible. In other words, if the attorney asks if the witness knows the time, the preferred answer is "yes", not "4:00". There are obviously exceptions for responses that require additional clarification, though in my experience witnesses generally volunteer too much information as it is, and I've been in too many depositions that took longer than they should have because the witness couldn't answer a question without going off an an irrelevant tangent.
Rov_Scam
15d ago
I'm going to give my rundown to those following along at home, tagging @Quantumfreakanomics, @The_Nybbler, @mr_bailey, and @gattsuru since this will include responses to your comments as well. I first want to disclose that I have not watched the Reckless Ben video, have no plans to watch it, and will be relying on the above summary for that side of the story. The day I spend 90 minutes watching outrage porn from a guy named Reckless Ben is the day that I ask anyone here to track me down and slit my throat because I'm obviously brain dead. With that out of the way I have read the relevant averments in the lawsuit against the son and Reckless Ben and the whole Reckless Ben crew, with the caveat that complaints are drafted to put the plaintiff in the best light possible and are accordingly not objective. That being said, there is a duty of candor involved, so I will assume that nothing contained therein is an outright lie.
The complicating factor here is that the son (Bryan) has potential claims against three parties: The franchisee with whom he entered the agreement (Chrystal), the franchisor (BAM), and the new franchisees (Josh [there's also Brandon but I'll keep things simple]). The correct way to go about this would be to sue all three entities and let the chips fall where they may, with the plaintiff being fully prepared to let parties out of the suit once information becomes available that shows they aren't liable. It's highly likely that the latter two parties would have been voluntarily dismissed once depositions had taken place, though it's possible BAM could be held in under a theory of principle-agent liability.
To recap the facts as they're presented in the suit, Bryan went to the BAM franchise owned by Crystal to sell his father's Star Wars Legos, which at the time were valued at $80,000, though this was later adjusted to $60,000. I don't know where the later $200,000 claim came from. There was supposedly a consignment agreement, though nobody has to date produced a signed copy, and he was told that the items would be stored off-site. After Chrystal violated her franchise agreement with BAM a cursory audit was done, showing that there was about $38,000 in inventory at the store, about $5,000 of which was Star Wars-related. Josh entered into a new franchise agreement to take over operation of the store.
Shortly after taking over, Bryan entered the store and confronted Josh about the consigned goods, and presented him with an unsigned copy of the agreement and an incomplete inventory list. Josh said that he wasn't aware of anything being held on consignment, but he was free to look through the Star Wars-related inventory and see if he recognized anything. At his point, Bryan became argumentative and started demanding payment of $80,000. Josh checked the back room for any inventory he might have missed and asked store employees if they knew anything about the consignment agreement or the subject goods, but they did not, and Bryan became irate when learning this, and accused Josh of theft. He came back later with police and ask that the store owners be arrested, but the police told him that it was a civil matter and escorted him from the premises when he became belligerent. He then began privately harassing the store. He contacted Chrystal and demanded payment, but she told him she had no money to pay him.
After the the sale of the franchise was formally completed, Josh gained access to the POS system, which showed sales of approximately $60,000 of Star Wars-related items, though there wasn't enough information to specifically identify the items or whether they were sold under consignment. It should be noted that, upon abandoning the store, Chrystal refused to provide any accounting, inventory, or other records to BAM. At some point after the Reckless Ben harassment campaign began, Josh discovered Star Wars-related items in a locked cupboard and told Bryan that he could look at them and see if he recognized them. Bryan said he wasn't interested in talking unless they were planning on paying the full amount. As a weird twist, Chrystal was also evidently in cahoots with Reckless Ben's campaign, claiming that BAM took her store from her in bad faith.
The_Nybbler writes about the UCC provisions regarding consignments, and while I don't want to get too in the weeds on that, I don't think that they really matter here. There are questions as to whether the UCC would apply to a consumer transaction like this, how Bryan would have been able to intervene in a non-judicial foreclosure, whether or not he can intervene after the sale, whether the law allows recovery from a creditor or bona fide third party purchaser, etc. But assuming all three parties are indeed independent, common law rules wouldn't save his case. Indeed, had he actually made the proper UCC filing it wouldn't save his case. The contention here isn't that BAM is entitled to the consigned items because they were unaware of any lien, but that the items were never in their possession. It looks to me like Chrystal sold the items, kept the money, and didn't bother telling Bryan about it, eventually just abandoning the franchise and moving overseas. Meanwhile, she has every incentive to tell Bryan that she's also the victim here and has no money besides, so he'll direct his anger elsewhere.
Would suing be worth it? Gattsuru writes:
Unfortunately, this is the sort of lawsuit that takes ten thousand bucks for a trivial chance of actually being made whole (and mostly in a settlement), a large chance of getting a useless judgment on a defunct or judgment proof target, and a larger chance of just never having a conclusion that’s mostly a shrug.
Which is true if you believe what's in the complaint, i.e. that the prior franchisee sold the goods and absconded with the money, and that neither BAM nor the current franchisees have possession of the goods or knowledge of what actually happened. The problem is that this scenario doesn't justify any self-help remedies being taken against either of those parties. If Bryan has a justifiable, good-faith belief that the items are worth $200,000 and that BAM is responsible for their loss, then it's worth filing suit. Hell, attorneys take suits on contingency that are worth a lot less. It seems to me, though, that what he wants is for BAM to take him at his word and accept responsibility for something they have no responsibility over. Any way you see it, his actions are unjustified. In any event, they're going to cost him a lot more now than if he had just kept his mouth shut.
Rov_Scam
16d ago
I think that for the journalists in question it's self-evident that this isn't a great path to pursue. It's also self-evident that there's a certain class of people who will be willing to do sex work regardless of the social stigma, and if there's some poor sap willing to pay them thousands of dollars, well, good for them I guess. I'm reminded of a conversation I had over a decade ago with a college girl who worked for me while I was with the Boy Scouts. A couple years later she was still in college and still working summers while I had left but come back for a week to help with training. I was on a canoe trip with just her and who would have been her boss. Someone had told me a couple weeks prior that she was dancing at a local strip club that the more senior staff had visited together a time or two in prior years, and we were discussing trying to go there while she was working just to see how she'd react. It never ended up happening, but on this trip she confirmed that she was working there, though our plan wouldn't have worked because she only worked afternoons.
Anyway, she said that the woman who handled the strippers or whatever told her how she could make even more money, because of course she could. The going rate was less than my salary at the time, but a lot for a broke college student, especially considering that it wasn't a 9 to 5. I told her that if you wanted to be a prostitute you couldn't be too selective about whom you slept with, since she seemed to be under the delusion that her clientele would be the same 30s office workers who stopped by the club after work. I asked her if she'd be willing to sleep with the big boss at the time, who looked like a younger, thinner version of Dr. Phil, and she was appalled at the idea. She told me that she was assured that they wouldn't pressure her into anything she was uncomfortable with, etc., etc., but I tried to explain to her that while that may be true, the ones who were overly selective weren't the ones who made the kind of money she was quoting. I have no idea who she ended up sleeping with or how much money she actually made, just that she was eventually canned from the Boy Scouts after she requested time off to work her "other job" and what must have been the worst kept secret was made abundantly clear to management. Needless to say, I didn't expect to spend that day trying to talk someone out of becoming a prostitute.
That being said, I think that the same thing applies to all of these "professions" that promise a lot of money for what looks like not a lot of work, or at least the kind of work one thinks they'd find fun. A friend on mine who teaches high school in a rural area says half the kids think they have a future as influencers and YouTubers. I'd be surprised if a single student she teaches over the course of her career is able to do it for a living, even for a brief period. Most of the people who blew up on YouTube started making videos for their own personal edification without any intention of quitting their day jobs.
It's fairly straightforward. If a normal guy goes for a walk and sees something unusual he either writes it off as nothing to worry about or tells someone about it, in which case he's just some guy who saw something and probably didn't know what he was looking at. If a scientist sees something unusual and it has nothing to do with what they're studying they write it off and ignore it. If a Navy pilot sees something he can't identify he has to file an official report because it might be enemy aircraft or something and it gets put in a file that's invariably classified for obvious reasons. The result is is that there's a small trove of documents that play right into the hands of people who are convinced that aliens exist and there's a huge government conspiracy to cover it up.
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