I didn't mention it in the comment you replied to, but during this whole event including the 4 instances of police, Ben is in a car with a process server he hired to serve the papers. Ben himself stayed on public property the whole time.
The cops even tell Ben to get a process server, and he points out to the cops that yes, he has brought the exact person they described, she's right there in the car with him.
I don't know how effective the wording of the original consignment agreement would end up if tested in a suit. It reads "Consigned merchandise shall remain the property of Mansell until sold".
On the other hand, without the agreement, how can one prove the expectation that the goods were handed over with, at all? Without establishing that expectation wouldn't the ownership of the goods just stay with the original owner at all times?
It would make sense that there are some ways you can abandon property you own in a way that someone else can swoop up and take ownership it without having to give it back, but do any of those potentially apply here?
I am not stating that I think B&M would win. B&M's original intent was to force Ed and Ben into a pyrrhic victory via dragging out one lawsuit, even if they lost that one suit.
Without being able to run up Ed/Ben's legal costs, trying to defend these suits at all is just a further loss for B&M for no benefit.
I don't think it was the deciding factor, but Ben also sent a fake Guinness award to the store around the same time they were being served. It is within the realm of possibility that they thought Ben was bluffing with the lawsuits and tried to call his bluff just to find out it was all real after they failed to appear.
The video has Ed Mansell stating that all the lawyers he spoke to informed him that it would not be financially viable for him to pursue a suit.
Additionally, there is audio of one of the would-be defendants saying that they intend to drag things out as long as possible, basically taunting both Ed and Ben to sue him as they all understand that it is not a viable solution to the problem for Ed.
Part 2 starts with 10 separate $10,000 default judgements won against the store, but they are unable to recover any of the funds.
Ben brings a process server with him to serve new lawsuits against the owners as individuals, and 4 separate times on the same day in the same spot, cops are sent to him. The cops even take the papers from the process server, try to serve the defendant, and then give it back to the process server saying it was refused . After that they don't allow the process server to serve the papers, and then the cops show up the 4th time and Ben is eventually arrested.
Part 2's corruption and civil rights violations makes Part 1 look irrelevant. A lot of the coverage on this is still about the $200k and the lego sets.
Fun part to mention is the officer that takes the subpoena to the would-be defendant is the part of the 3rd set of cops that were sent to Ben's non-moving car that is on public property. The cop's bodycam discussion with the would-be defendant is also fully redacted, for some reason.
After telling Ben that the defendant doesn't accept the subpoena (can you even refuse being served like that?), the 3rd set of cops leave and a 4th set of cops shows up, make a phone call to verify that it's a real lawsuit they are trying to serve, question him further, and then after all that Ben is still arrested.
Ben also shows how the body cams are being redacted in ways that they should not be. Due to sloppy redacting, he gives an example where the content of the redacted audio is one cop telling the other that Ben is basically annoying but the thing he's doing that they got called over for is not illegal.
They lost default judgements because they did not appear. Either they thought it was fake or they thought they'd lose, but they were served and did not appear.
From what I understand ownership of the Lego sets never left the Mansells. The consignment agreement states as much.
Even if we take what corporate says at face value (there was no agreement, or the agreement is null, or it's an agreement that the previous owners agreed to) that still just means that the store possesses property that they do not legally own. Whether or not they legally came to possess the sets seems irrelevant here.
I'm not a lawyer but I don't see how the Mansells ever stopped owning the lego sets.
What's cool is a lot of the above terms are specific to NES tetris too. Tetris has a lot of depth and there's a ton of variants out there depending on what you want to get out of playing. Personally I love the TGM series but it's totally different from what you'd think of if you started with NES tetris.
The cops even tell Ben to get a process server, and he points out to the cops that yes, he has brought the exact person they described, she's right there in the car with him.