Magistrate Judge Dustin Pead let BAM subpoena the names and payment records behind this site on BAM’s word alone, with no notice and no time to object.
BAM filed the motion Monday. Judge David Barlow referred it Tuesday. Magistrate Judge Dustin Pead granted it Wednesday, in three pages. BAM may now subpoena “third-parties, including Vercel, Inc. and Go.Daddy.com,” for “subscriber information, account records, IP address logs, deployment records and any other information” that might identify the people it is suing. The order requires no notice to anyone and sets no time to object. And the knowledge base the complaint calls “accessible only through individual accounts” was open to anyone on September 26. On September 30 it asks for a login.
PRIMARY SOURCEBAM Franchising Inc. v. Does 1-10, No. 2:26-cv-00895, District of Utah: the referral of September 29 and the two orders of September 30, both in the record below. The docket is on CourtListener.
UNRESOLVEDwhether the subpoenas have been served (the drafts set a return date of October 16, 5:00 p.m. MDT), and on which day between September 26 and September 30 the support portal went login-only.
Three days
- Monday, September 28. BAM filed its motion ex parte, with no one on the other side, for leave to subpoena Vercel, which serves this site, and GoDaddy, its registrar (reported that day).
- Tuesday, September 29. Judge Barlow referred the case in one line: “ORDER REFERRING CASE to Magistrate Judge Dustin B. Pead under 28:636 (b)(1)(A), Magistrate Judge to hear and determine all nondispositive pretrial matters. No attached document.”
- Wednesday, September 30. Judge Pead entered two orders. The first is the standard Order to Propose Schedule that every civil case gets. Its deadlines run from “the first answer to the complaint,” which no unnamed defendant can file. Its seventh paragraph says how a party gets discovery early.
The second order grants the motion that paragraph describes.
None of it was quiet. BJC’s live show that Monday, on air from 8:26 a.m. PDT, was already covering the suit (the show). At 12:13 p.m. PDT, checking PACER on air, she found the motion within half an hour of its filing: “They did file something new.” Then: “Motion for expedited discovery.” Then, at the exhibits: “Oh my god, there’s subpoenas on here.”
That afternoon, from 4:02 p.m. PDT, DFJ read the subpoenas aloud on her stream (the stream). Her video on the order, “JUDGE GRANTS BAM’S MOTION for Expedited Discovery to SERVE SUBPOENAS to Vercel & GoDaddy for BAMMAP,” went up at 2:19 p.m. PDT on September 30 (the video).
What the order says
Page one restates the rule: no discovery before the parties confer “except . . . when authorized by these rules, by stipulation, or by court order,” and the party asking bears “the burden of showing good cause.”
Page two finds good cause in two sentences: “BAM alleges defendants have leaked their proprietary information on-line and that the unauthorized disclosure has caused substantial harm. Additionally, Plaintiff has no other means to identify defendants, having exhausted its internal investigation methods.”
The footnotes are “ECF No. 1 at ¶ 46” and “Id. at ¶ 45.” That is the complaint: what BAM alleged, with nothing sworn beneath it. No declaration came with the motion.
Then the order. BAM may serve subpoenas “on third-parties, including Vercel, Inc. and Go.Daddy.com,” for “subscriber information, account records, IP address logs, deployment records and any other information that might allow BAM to identify and properly serve an amended complaint that contains the defendants’ true identities and capacities.”
In the subpoenas BAM attached to its motion, that means the name, address, email and payment details on this site’s hosting and domain accounts, every address that has logged into them, and the record of every deployment.
The order has no notice provision, no period to object, and no limit on what BAM may do with what it receives. It was entered the same day as the form scheduling order, before anyone but BAM had appeared.
Two findings, both footnoted to BAM’s own complaint. No declaration. No notice.
The knowledge base
The complaint the order rests on says, at paragraph 13(d): “Plaintiff’s Freshdesk knowledge base (bamfran.freshdesk.com) is accessible only through individual accounts created for each franchisee during their social media setup call, and contains proprietary operational articles not available to the public.” Paragraph 9(h) counts “52 proprietary articles.”
This site captured that portal in full on July 23: fifty-two articles, no account, no password (July 24). It read the portal again on September 26, the day after the complaint was filed: “the home page, the knowledge base, and an article on creating a new user, with no account of any kind” (September 26).
It was open in front of an audience, too. On September 26, fourteen minutes into a stream that began at 11:32 a.m. PDT, DFJ read paragraph 13(d) aloud and typed the address (the stream, at 14:33). The portal’s home page came up, the login button unused. “Plaintiff’s fresh desk knowledge base is accessible only through individual accounts. Well, I don’t have an individual account, right?” She opened an article and read from it. “I got to tell you, I’m not a franchisee, okay?” Two days later she reminded her viewers: “we literally went in there live on stream.”
On September 30 every address on bamfran.freshdesk.com, the home page, the knowledge base and the article on creating a new user, sends the visitor to a sign-in page: “You must be logged in to access this page.”
The complaint said the portal was locked. It was open, on this site and on a livestream. Now it is locked.
The fair reading, and its limit. Courts in this district routinely grant ex parte motions to identify unnamed defendants, and a magistrate judge ruling on an unopposed motion sees only the moving party’s paper. The order finds no fact against this site and names no one. It authorizes subpoenas for one stated purpose, to identify and serve the defendants BAM has sued. The right of reply is open to BAM and to its counsel, Matthew Orme and Kyle Tucker.
The record
The order granting expedited discovery, September 30. The Order to Propose Schedule, September 30. The docket on CourtListener. September 28: the motion. September 26: the complaint. September 24: the second takedown notice. September 9: the first. July 24: the support portal, captured in full. DFJ, September 26. BJC Live Show, September 28. DFJ, September 28. DFJ, September 30.
Sources. BAM Franchising Inc. v. Does 1-10, No. 2:26-cv-00895 (D. Utah): docket entries 4, 5 and 6 as entered September 29 and 30, 2026, quoted verbatim; the complaint (entry 1) and the ex parte motion with its proposed order and exhibits (entry 3), as reported here September 26 and 28. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(d), as quoted in the order. bamfran.freshdesk.com as read September 30, 2026, and as captured July 23 and read September 26. DFJ (DontFckwJustice), livestreams of September 26 and September 28 and video of September 30, and BJC Live Show, livestream of September 28, as published on YouTube; DFJ’s words as transcribed by this site from the September 26 and September 28 streams, and BJC’s from the September 28 show. Everyone named here is presumed to have acted lawfully; an order is not a finding against anyone, and this page reports one.