CONFIRMED
This is the plain-language edition of Every party signed away the speech bans. The case now has a district judge: David Barlow. Same facts, same grades, none of the case citations, and nothing collapsed or hidden in boxes. Every claim below is stated again on the cited edition with its full legal sourcing attached.
Two things just happened in the BAM Franchising lawsuit against Benjamin Schneider, Reckless Ben LLC, Victor Nguyen, and Bryan Mansell, and they explain each other. On June 30, the lawyers for every plaintiff and every defendant signed one agreement: replace the June 9 state court restraining order with a federal injunction that drops the speech restrictions outright and states that nothing in it prohibits investigative journalism, opinion, criticism, satire, or commentary. On July 6, the court moved the case from Magistrate Judge Cecilia Romero to District Judge David Barlow. Those two facts connect: the order both sides asked for has been waiting since June 30 for a signature, and the judge it was addressed to did not have the power to sign it. The reassignment supplies a judge who does. Ground rule first: the underlying claims are undecided, and every person named here is presumed innocent.
The joint motion and its proposed order, both hosted here, ask the court to convert the state restraining order into a federal preliminary injunction so the sides can trade documents and try settlement or mediation. Nobody concedes anything: the same filing says the defendants dispute the allegations and intend counterclaims, and the plaintiffs dispute the counterclaims. What the proposed order restrains is conduct: threats, doxxing, coming within 100 yards of company and franchisee stores, offices, and homes except through lawyers or lawful process, impersonation to get access or recordings, tampering with signs, blocking customers, and recruiting company insiders to leak confidential information, record inside stores, or stage confrontations. One honest note: that insider rule is a real limit on one newsgathering method, and it is the only restraint here that reaches beyond conduct already unlawful for anyone.
Then the paragraph that removes the speech bans: subject to those conduct rules, nothing in the order prohibits the defendants from discussing the plaintiffs, commenting on the litigation, publishing court filings, or “engaging in investigative journalism, expressing opinions, criticism, satire, and/or commentary,” by any lawful means they choose, from YouTube to podcasts. The June 9 order restrained what the defendants could say. The substitute the plaintiffs themselves signed protects it. No bond is required of the plaintiffs for now, and no party waives any claim or defense.
Why did an order everyone signed sit for a week? The answer is structural, and no judge did anything wrong. When the defendants moved the case to federal court on June 26, it went to Magistrate Judge Romero, a standard assignment in this district that becomes permanent only if every party consents in writing. Federal law reserves a short list of motions for district judges when that unanimous consent is missing, and a motion for injunctive relief is on the list, even one every party signed. The agreed order carries a signature line prepared for Judge Romero; the judge it was addressed to had no authority to grant it. On July 6 the defendants returned their consent form, two weeks early, and the same day Judge Romero resolved the question: her order states that under court policy the pending injunction motion makes the case ineligible for magistrate consent, and it directs random reassignment. The draw produced Judge Barlow. Judge Romero stays on for routine pretrial matters, and the court’s settlement conference option stays available.
David Barlow, from the public record only: born in Provo, highest honors from BYU, law degree from Yale, most of two decades defending commercial cases at the firm Sidley Austin, with defamation and First Amendment cases listed on his Senate questionnaire. United States Attorney for Utah, 2011 to 2014, a Republican nominated to that post by President Obama; put on the bench by President Trump; confirmed 88 to 4 in December 2019, rated unanimously “well qualified” by the American Bar Association. His chambers guidance touches this case directly: restraining order motions are “generally decided on written briefing,” and absent extraordinary circumstances his court will not hear a one-sided request, one made without giving the other side a chance to respond. The June 9 order began exactly that way, sought and entered in state court with one side in the room. By the standing practice of the courtroom the case now sits in, that path is closed.
One more filing waits with the agreement. Gregory Belmont, a New York nonparty who follows the case, moved on June 29 to intervene, arguing the state order’s restraints chilled speakers and readers beyond the named defendants. After the agreement was filed, he narrowed his request (hosted copy): he does not object to the injunction entering immediately. He asks only that the speech-protective paragraph be clarified to cover the defendants or any nonparty, so nobody outside the case misreads it, and that he be heard if, in his words, “similar speech-restrictive relief” is ever sought again, pointing to the earlier one-sided emergency speech request that, he says, never materially addressed its obvious and substantial First Amendment implications. If none of that is needed, he asks that his papers be read as a friend of the court memo.
Add it up. In front of Judge Barlow: an injunction every party wants entered, a nonparty who agrees it should enter immediately, unopposed extensions for the answers, and a mediation both sides committed to. Not in front of him: any pending request to restrain anyone’s speech. One caution: the reassignment is routine case administration, not a ruling, and it signals nothing about how the new judge will decide anything. He may enter the order as written, modify it, set a hearing, or ask a question Belmont first raised, whether the June 9 order still has any legal effect at all. The conduct limits are ones the defendants agreed to. The claims are unadjudicated, the defendants dispute them and intend counterclaims, and every person named here is presumed innocent.
Primary sources, all public and linked above: the joint motion, the proposed injunction, and the nonparty notice from the federal docket, plus Judge Barlow’s chambers page and his Federal Judicial Center biography.
The BAM Map is independent reporting on matters of public concern. Nothing here is a finding of any person’s guilt; the criminal charges referenced are unadjudicated and every defendant is presumed innocent. Sources are linked so readers can check the record. · Home · Map · The law · Bodycam