Blingle Lawsuit: The Full Story, Court Documents, and What Franchise Buyers Need to Know in 2026

Search interest in the “blinglelawsuit” has stayed steady for two years, and for good reason. A federal case filed by eight franchise owners against Blingle and its parent company, Horsepower Brands, put a spotlight on how one of the fastest-growing home service franchise platforms in the country recruits, charges, and supports its operators. The case was eventually dismissed on procedural grounds, but the underlying allegations did not disappear. They resurfaced in later disputes involving Mighty Dog Roofing and iFoam, two other brands under the same parent company.

This article lays out the case record in plain language: who sued, what they claimed, what the court actually did, and what has happened to Horsepower Brands and its franchise network since. Every claim below is tied to a filed lawsuit, a court docket, or reporting from Franchise Times, the trade publication that has covered this story since 2024.

Quick Answer: Is the Blingle Lawsuit Still Open?

No. The original Blingle case, Waldron et al. v. SVHB Marketing LLC d/b/a Horse Power Brands et al., Case No. 2:23-cv-03485-MSG, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, was dismissed in March 2024. The dismissal was not a ruling on the facts of the case. The court sent the dispute to mediation because the franchise agreements the plaintiffs signed contained a mandatory arbitration or mediation clause. That clause required disputes to be resolved outside of open court, which is standard in most modern franchise contracts.

So while the docket for that specific case is closed, the story is not over. Franchisees from sister brands Mighty Dog Roofing and iFoam have since filed their own lawsuits raising nearly identical claims, and those cases remain active in 2026.

Related Readings On Attorneys Magazine: Horsepower Brands Lawsuit: Every Case Against the Parent Company, Explained Mighty Dog Roofing Lawsuit: The Fraud Claims in Pennsylvania, Nebraska, and New Jersey

Who Filed the Blingle Lawsuit

On August 8, 2023, eight franchisee limited liability companies filed suit in federal court against SVHB Marketing LLC, doing business as Horse Power Brands, along with related entities. The plaintiffs were represented by attorney Anna Berman of the law firm Kutak Rock. One of the named franchisees, Jennifer Koepke, brought the litigation to the attention of Franchise Times, which broke the story in March 2024.

The lawsuit described a business relationship that started with big promises and ended with franchise owners burning through savings. According to court filings, none of the eight plaintiff franchisees had a single profitable year running their Blingle territory, and several never had a profitable month.

What the Franchisees Claimed

The complaint accused Blingle of running what the plaintiffs called a “Ponzi scheme developed with the sole purpose of extracting as much money as possible from each franchisee without offering any meaningful services of ‘World Class Business Support’ in return.” That is a direct quote from the filing itself, and it is the single most quoted line from the case across every article written about it since.

It is worth being precise about what that phrase means in a legal filing. Calling something a Ponzi scheme in a civil complaint is an allegation, not a verdict. No court in this case ever examined whether that characterization was accurate, because the case was dismissed before reaching the merits. Horsepower Brands has disputed the characterization.

Setting the Ponzi language aside, the substantive claims in the lawsuit fell into a handful of categories that are common across franchise fraud litigation:

Misrepresented earnings. According to the complaint, a Horsepower Brands executive told prospective franchisees during the sales process that they could expect first-year revenue between $400,000 and $600,000, climbing toward $1 million in year two. Franchisees claim their actual results came nowhere close.

A “business in a box” that wasn’t. Blingle was marketed as a turnkey operation that required no prior experience in lighting installation. The pitch, according to the lawsuit, was that a buyer could remain in their existing full-time job and run Blingle largely hands-off while corporate handled the heavy lifting. Franchisees say the training and support they received did not come close to matching that promise.

Required inventory that didn’t match demand. The complaint states that Blingle required franchisees to stock inventory that was irrelevant to roughly 90 percent of the customer base they actually served, tying up capital in products that didn’t sell.

Excessive and unnecessary fees. The lawsuit lists a series of required purchases and recurring charges that plaintiffs say existed to generate revenue for the franchisor rather than to build viable local businesses.

How the Case Ended

The Blingle case did not go to trial and there was no settlement announced publicly. It was dismissed in March 2024 because the franchise agreements each plaintiff signed contained a binding mediation clause. Under that clause, disputes between franchisee and franchisor are required to go through private mediation rather than a public courtroom.

This kind of clause is extremely common in franchise agreements nationwide, and it tends to work in the franchisor’s favor for a simple reason: it keeps the specific allegations, and any resolution, out of public court records. A case dismissed on this kind of procedural ground is not the same as a case where a franchisor was cleared of wrongdoing. It simply means the venue was wrong, and the real fight, if it continued, happened behind closed doors.

Both Koepke and attorney Anna Berman declined to comment on the litigation while it was pending, which is standard practice for parties in active legal disputes.

Horsepower Brands’ Response

When Franchise Times asked Horsepower Brands about the pattern of similar complaints surfacing across multiple brands in its portfolio, the company responded with a written statement rather than addressing the Blingle case specifically. The company said, “Unfortunately, there appears to be an industry problem with prospective franchisees failing to take the time to carefully review and understand these legally mandated pre-sale disclosures, hence the copycat style claims and allegations.”

In plain terms, Horsepower’s position is that franchisees are responsible for reading and understanding their Franchise Disclosure Document before signing, and that the complaints reflect a broader pattern in the franchising industry rather than problems specific to its brands.

Why the Blingle Case Matters Beyond Blingle

Blingle is one brand inside a larger holding company called Horsepower Brands, founded in 2020 by Josh Skolnick and Zachery Beutler. The company built its model around acquiring or launching home service franchise concepts quickly and scaling them nationally. Blingle, an exterior and holiday lighting brand, was one of its earliest and fastest-growing additions. The portfolio also includes iFoam, a spray foam insulation franchise, and Mighty Dog Roofing, a residential and commercial roofing franchise.

Less than two years after the Blingle case was dismissed, Franchise Times reported that operators at iFoam and Mighty Dog Roofing were raising strikingly similar complaints. Franchisees at both brands said they were told no prior industry experience was necessary, that the training they received didn’t prepare them for actual operations, and that corporate staff misrepresented how much capital they would need upfront.

One Mighty Dog Roofing franchisee told Franchise Times that out of the brand’s 143 territories, 40 had already closed and another 25 were “on the edge” of shutting down. Of those still operating, only 60 made enough money in 2024 to keep their doors open, according to that franchisee’s account.

By 2026, the situation had escalated. Mighty Dog Roofing franchisees filed formal fraud lawsuits against the franchisor, MDR United, and its executives in three separate states, and a group of Mighty Dog franchisees organized with the American Association of Franchisees & Dealers to push back collectively. We cover both of those developments in detail in the linked cluster articles below, because they represent the clearest evidence that the concerns first raised in the Blingle case were not isolated to one brand.

The Full Timeline of the Blingle and Horsepower Brands Litigation

2020. Josh Skolnick and Zachery Beutler found Horsepower Brands and begin building a multi-brand home service franchise platform, with a stated goal of scaling to roughly 25 brands nationally.

August 8, 2023. Eight Blingle franchisee LLCs file suit against SVHB Marketing LLC d/b/a Horse Power Brands in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Case No. 2:23-cv-03485-MSG, alleging fraud, misrepresentation, and breach of the franchise relationship.

March 2024. The court dismisses the Blingle case because the franchise agreements require mediation rather than litigation. Franchise Times publishes the first detailed report on the lawsuit and its dismissal.

Early 2025. Franchise Times reports that operators of iFoam and Mighty Dog Roofing are raising the same core complaints Blingle franchisees made: misleading earnings projections, inadequate training, and misrepresented startup costs. One former iFoam franchisee in the Houston area says he filed for personal bankruptcy in October 2023 after his territory failed.

April 2025. Dozens of Mighty Dog Roofing franchisees form an association with the American Association of Franchisees & Dealers to negotiate collectively with Horsepower Brands.

2026. Mighty Dog Roofing franchisees file fraud lawsuits against franchisor MDR United and its executives in Pennsylvania, Nebraska, and New Jersey, collectively representing eleven franchisee plaintiffs. The complaints allege MDR ran a “calculated fraudulent inducement scheme to sell franchises through deception” and misrepresented EBITDA margins in its Franchise Disclosure Documents. Horsepower Brands, in turn, files its own lawsuits against certain franchisees.

What “Ponzi Scheme” Actually Means in This Context

Because the phrase drives so much of the search traffic around this case, it deserves a direct explanation. A Ponzi scheme, in the strict legal and financial sense, is a fraud where returns paid to earlier investors come from money contributed by newer investors rather than from actual profit. It is a specific type of financial crime, most famously associated with Bernie Madoff.

The Blingle plaintiffs used the term descriptively, to argue that the franchise system depended more on constantly selling new territories to new franchisees than on making existing franchisees profitable. That is a serious allegation about business model sustainability, but it is not the same as a criminal Ponzi scheme charge, and no regulator or court has applied that legal label to Blingle or Horsepower Brands. No criminal charges have been filed against the company or its founders related to this litigation. Readers should treat the phrase as it was used: a franchisee characterization inside a civil complaint, not a proven fact.

What This Means If You’re Considering a Blingle or Horsepower Brands Franchise

If you are researching Blingle, Mighty Dog Roofing, iFoam, or any other Horsepower Brands concept as a potential investment, the litigation history is a piece of due diligence you should not skip. Here is what that actually looks like in practice.

Read Item 3 of the Franchise Disclosure Document closely. Every FDD has a section, Item 3, that discloses litigation involving the franchisor. This is the legally required paper trail, and it is far more reliable than anything in a sales pitch or a franchise fair.

Ask for franchisee contact lists, not references picked by the company. Item 20 of the FDD includes contact information for current and former franchisees. Call the former ones. They have no incentive to protect the brand’s image.

Get real numbers, not projections. Verify any earnings claims against Item 19 of the FDD, which discloses actual historical financial performance if the franchisor chooses to make those representations. If a salesperson gives you a number that isn’t backed by Item 19, treat it as marketing, not fact.

Understand what you’re signing regarding dispute resolution. Ask directly whether your franchise agreement contains an arbitration or mediation clause, and understand what that means if a dispute arises later. As the Blingle case shows, that single clause can determine whether your grievance ever sees a public courtroom.

Talk to a franchise attorney before signing anything. A one-time consultation with an attorney who specializes in franchise law is inexpensive compared to the capital most home service franchises require upfront, which frequently runs into six figures once buildout, inventory, and working capital are included.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a Blingle lawsuit open right now? The original 2023 federal case against Blingle and Horsepower Brands is closed and was dismissed in March 2024 in favor of mediation. Related litigation involving sister brand Mighty Dog Roofing is currently active in three states as of 2026.

Did Blingle admit to wrongdoing? No. The case was dismissed on procedural grounds before any court examined the merits of the allegations. Horsepower Brands has disputed the franchisees’ characterization of the business.

Who owns Blingle? Blingle operates under Horsepower Brands, a franchise holding company founded in 2020 by Josh Skolnick and Zachery Beutler, headquartered in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.

What other Horsepower Brands franchises have faced similar complaints? iFoam and Mighty Dog Roofing franchisees have both raised comparable allegations about misleading earnings projections, inadequate training, and misrepresented startup costs. See our dedicated articles on the Horsepower Brands lawsuit and the Mighty Dog Roofing lawsuit for full details.

Where can I read the actual court filing? The case docket, Waldron et al. v. SVHB Marketing LLC d/b/a Horse Power Brands et al., Case No. 2:23-cv-03485-MSG, is available through PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) for the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Last Updated on: 23rd July 2026