Filed today in federal court: BAM, its executives, and its franchisee co-plaintiffs jointly moved, with Bryan Mansell, to end BAM’s case against him: every remaining claim dismissed with prejudice, gone permanently. The complaint that swore him into an alleged extortion scheme is three months old, to the day. The consent injunction the parties wrote stops in its second paragraph to spell out what it does not touch: his right to keep covering BAM, “investigative journalism” by name. What remains is the case against Benjamin Schneider, minus the man the disputed money was for. The proposed orders await Judge David Barlow’s signature.
PRIMARY SOURCEthe August 27 joint motion: BAM-side plaintiffs and Mansell stipulate to dismissal of all remaining claims against him with prejudice, plus a consent permanent injunction; the attached orders are unsigned as of filingPRIMARY SOURCEthe filing names the instrument behind it, an 8/16/26 “Settlement, Assignment of Claims, and Mutual General Release Agreement,” and its injunction expressly preserves Mansell’s “investigative journalism”INFERENCEthe shape of the exit: three months to the day after swearing its complaint, the plaintiff asks to erase its own claims against the man forever, untested, while holding his claims, leaving his channels open by stipulation, and reserving everything against the man with the audience
The shape of the exit
Bryan Mansell is the man whose family LEGO collection, left on consignment at a BAM franchise store, sat at the center of all of it. In May, BAM and five co-plaintiffs sued him in federal court, alongside the YouTuber Benjamin Schneider, whose videos had made the collection’s story public. Twenty-one months of record, nine dates:
The motion, hosted here, is four pages plus two proposed orders. BAM Franchising, Ammon McNeff, Matthew McNeff, Josh Johnson, Brandon Best, and Baker Bricks, on one side, and Bryan Mansell on the other, tell the court that “pursuant to a lengthy mediation and without admitting any fault, liability or wrongdoing of any kind,” they have “finally settled and resolved any and all disputes and claims” between them. They jointly ask for two things: a permanent injunction, attached as Exhibit A, and an order dismissing BAM’s remaining claims against Mansell “with prejudice,” attached as Exhibit B. Each side bears its own fees. The claims against the other defendants are “expressly reserved.”
One thing the filing is not, yet: an order. Both proposed orders carry blank date lines, awaiting the signature of Judge David Barlow. For a joint stipulation, entry is ordinarily a formality, and the court would keep “continuing and exclusive jurisdiction” over the injunction afterward. Until the signatures land, Mansell’s exit is agreed, not entered.
A consent injunction is a court order the parties draft and agree to before any judge rules on anything; the court adopts their bargain. This one runs two and a half pages of conduct: no threats of violence, no “doxxing information of any kind” about BAM personnel or franchisees, no approaching within “not less than 100 yards” of stores, offices, or employee homes except for legitimate business or court activity, no impersonation, no interfering with customers, no “staged confrontations,” and no soliciting BAM’s “employees, franchisees or contractors to leak confidential information.” The injunction reaches Mansell and, under Rule 65(d), anyone acting in concert with him. Mansell agreed to all of it without admitting he ever did any of it. Then comes the paragraph the parties wrote about everything the injunction does not reach:
“Subject to the foregoing, nothing in this Order shall prohibit Defendant Mansell from discussing Plaintiffs, commenting on this litigation, publishing court filings, engaging in investigative journalism, expressing opinions, criticism, satire, and/or commentary, through any lawful means or methods he chooses, including, but not limited to, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and podcasts, and/or other internet, television, radio, and social media platforms.”
Read it against the rest of BAM’s August. The company whose 60-day plan schedules review removal, and whose PR program engineers what a search for BAM returns, has stipulated in federal court that this critic keeps every channel he has: the discussing, the publishing of court filings, the journalism, the satire. The carve-out even covers “commenting on this litigation,” the case that goes on against Schneider. Reputation can be managed. A consent decree the other side must sign cannot, and this one says what it says.
And the machinery runs one way. The apology ran from BAM to Mansell. The agreed payment runs from BAM to Mansell. The injunction, the only piece of the bargain a court will enforce, binds only Mansell’s side, and it runs “until further order of the Court.” The man who received the apology is the man who leaves enjoined, indefinitely.
Courts dismiss claims two ways. A dismissal without prejudice leaves the door open: the plaintiff can refile another day. A dismissal with prejudice locks the door from the inside: the claims are extinguished and can never be brought again, ever. It is the strongest way a plaintiff can end its own case, and it is what BAM asked for here.
The claims being extinguished are the ones BAM brought when it swept Mansell into its alleged extortion scheme, in a complaint its chief executive verified, signing that its contents were true. Three months later BAM had apologized to him and agreed to pay; today it asked for the accusations to become unrepeatable. And ending them this way means they end untested: no court ever ruled on what the complaint swore about Mansell, and now none ever will, at the plaintiffs’ own request.
The filing gives the settlement its full legal name: a “Settlement, Assignment of Claims, and Mutual General Release Agreement.” An assignment of claims moves one party’s legal claims into another’s hands, and Mansell assigned his to BAM. The motion does not describe the assignment’s terms; what it does is place the instrument itself on a federal docket, in the settlement’s own title. The company that settled with the man is now the holder of the man’s claims.
The case does not end. BAM’s claims against Benjamin Schneider, Reckless Ben LLC, Victor Nguyen, and the unnamed Does are “expressly reserved,” and the filing is careful that nothing in the injunction or dismissal “shall be construed so as to affect any of such reserved claims.” With Mansell out, the federal case narrows to the man who filmed it all, and it narrows strangely. The scheme BAM swore to was joint; one of its alleged members has now been apologized to, promised payment, and released forever by the accusers themselves. And the demand at the scheme’s center was a demand for Mansell, money BAM has since agreed to pay. What survives is a case against the man who made the demand, on behalf of a man no longer in the case.
The press had already read the settlement this way: Techdirt called it BAM “gutting its own RICO case” against the remaining defendant. So the arc, on the record as of today: three months after BAM swore Mansell into a scheme, it asked the court to erase every claim against him, forever, while it holds his claims and its own stipulation holds his channels open. If the judge signs, Bryan Mansell is out, and no court will ever have tested a word of what was sworn about him. The case that remains is aimed at the man with the camera.
The fair reading, and its limit. Joint stipulations of dismissal are how settled cases end, consent injunctions are a routine way to buy peace without further litigation, and this one recites that no party admits “any fault, liability or wrongdoing of any kind.” The enjoined conduct list is protective drafting; its inclusion is not a finding that Mansell ever did any of those things, and the speech carve-out is standard First Amendment care. The orders are unsigned as of this writing, and until entered nothing here is a court’s act. Every party is presumed to have acted lawfully; the underlying accusations, in every direction, remain unadjudicated.
Sources. Joint Motion and Stipulation Regarding Entry of Permanent Injunction and Dismissal with Prejudice of Remaining Claims Against Defendant Bryan Mansell, BAM Franchising, Inc. v. Schneider, No. 2:26-cv-00593 (D. Utah filed Aug. 27, 2026), Dkt. 33, primary source, hosted here with its proposed orders. On the settlement and the assignment as announced: the August 19 update. On the town-hall narration of the settlement: here. On the reputation calendar: the 60-day plan.
The BAM Map is independent reporting on matters of public concern. Nothing here is a finding of any person’s guilt; every official named is presumed to have acted lawfully. Sources are linked so readers can check the record. · Home · Map · The law · Bodycam