FACT-CHECKBricks & Minifigs’ own statement of July 10, 2026, checked claim by claim against its own franchise disclosures and the court order it praises. Every verdict links the document behind it.
ASSERTED their own words, their own standard
“The answer is that accountability and integrity must run both ways.”
Bricks & Minifigs, on why it will not drop the lawsuit against its critic
Take that at face value. Accountability that runs both ways is something you measure against a record, and this page is the measurement. Checked against its own filings, the statement is accurate wherever it admits what changed, and inaccurate where it describes the court order it praises. The side asking that accountability run both ways is the side that misstated the one court document it cited.
The standard has a longer history with these same people. Legally Mine, the asset-protection firm built by the McNeff family, whose sons run the Bricks & Minifigs franchisor and are named plaintiffs in the same federal suit, sells one product: the legal condition in which no judgment can reach what a client owns. A demand that accountability run both ways, made from inside an enterprise whose original business is arranging that, for its clients, it runs neither, is the truest line in the statement. It simply points the other way.
On July 10, Bricks & Minifigs published its first consolidated response to weeks of criticism, a post titled “An Update on Brand Improvements and Pending Litigation.” Below, its load-bearing claims are taken one at a time and checked against a specific public document, the same way this site checked Legally Mine’s statement two weeks ago. The surprise is not how much of it is false. It is how much of it is true. Most of the statement checks out, and the parts that check out are admissions of what critics described. The one place it leaves the record is the court order it thanks the judge for.
“much of the public discussion has been based on incomplete or inaccurate information”
The statement opens by calling the coverage inaccurate, and then corrects not one specific fact, cites no figure, and quotes no critic. A claim of misinformation that identifies no misinformation is the frame of a non-denial. Everything after it is either an admission or a description of a document, and those are what can actually be checked.
“Since 2023, we’ve improved how we qualify new franchise candidates, including background checks, higher financial requirements”
This is true, and it is the most consequential sentence in the statement. Read against the calendar, “since 2023” concedes that before 2023 the vetting did not include background checks or a higher financial bar. That is the same hinge year the company’s own disclosure record turns on, and here the company places it there itself.
“recently required internal trade and inventory management system… We now require all franchisees to use this system”
“Recently required” and “now require” concede that until recently there was no required, standardized system for recording trades and inventory. A trade record that is not required and not standard is one that cannot be audited from outside the store, which is the exact condition at the center of the consigned-collection dispute in Keizer.
“standardized offboarding… including third-party evaluations of inventory and fixtures where possible”
Adding third-party evaluations “where possible” concedes that a departing store’s inventory was not independently valued before, and reserves the option to skip it going forward. Who values a departing store’s inventory, and at what price, is the whole of the dispute over the consigned collection in Keizer.
“the federal court’s issuance of a Preliminary Injunction”
This part is true, and worth saying plainly. District Judge David Barlow signed a preliminary injunction on July 6, and it was entered July 7. Conceding what is true is what makes the next verdict worth believing.
Order Granting Joint Motion for Preliminary Injunction (ECF 21)
“…from a host of unlawful activities and reckless behavior”
The order the company praises finds no unlawful activity. It grants a joint motion the defendants themselves filed, entered, in its own words, because “the Parties have agreed to mediate this case.” It records that “Defendants dispute these allegations… and contest Plaintiffs’ entitlement to any relief,” and that nothing in it waives any defense. Its own text then protects the reporting: “nothing in this order shall prohibit Defendants from… engaging in investigative journalism, expressing opinions, criticism, satire.” The phrase “unlawful activities and reckless behavior” is the company’s, not the court’s.
“Bricks & Minifigs Parts Ways with… Brandon Best and Joshua Johnson”
This is the headline of another of the company’s own posts, linked from the statement. A company can end a franchise relationship. What the phrase omits is that the same two men are plaintiffs in the very order the statement praises. Its caption, entered three days earlier, lists the plaintiffs as “BAM Franchising, Inc., Ammon McNeff, Matthew McNeff, Josh Johnson, Brandon Best, Baker Bricks, LLC dba Salem-Baker Bricks, Inc.” Parting ways in a blog post and suing side by side in federal court are both true at once.
The honest boundary. None of the admissions proves anyone intended harm, and a company can honestly tighten its rules in 2023 without conceding that anything unlawful happened before it. Overlapping roles and turnover are ordinary in franchising, and the statement’s apology and its stated willingness to mediate are real and worth crediting. What this page checks is narrower: whether the statement matches the documents it rests on. On the operations, its own words concede the record. On the court order, checked against the order, they do not. This is general information about public documents, not legal advice, and the pending claims are unproven, with every person presumed innocent.
Sources, all public and posted in full: Bricks & Minifigs’ own “Update on Brand Improvements and Pending Litigation” (bricksandminifigs.com newsroom, July 10, 2026); the Order Granting Joint Motion for Preliminary Injunction, signed by Judge David Barlow, No. 2:26-cv-00593 (D. Utah, entered July 7, 2026), on the public docket; and prior BAM Map reporting on the disclosure certification and the injunction’s scope.
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