Latest / Ask the Lawyer / 03-21-24 Ask the Lawyer with Harvey Peyton
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- 0:59fie. This is five eighty. Would you see ah as the voice of
- 1:03Charleston. Good Thursday morning to you, Thanks for joining us. And Harvey
- 1:07Payton is here with the Peyton Law Firm in Nitro and he questions about the
- 1:10law that you have. Harvey's here to answer them. Three oh four three
- 1:12four five fifty eight fifty eight. Three oh four three four five fifty eight
- 1:18fifty eight. Again lines are open. Three oh four three four five fifty
- 1:22eight fifty eight. Good morning, sir, Well, good morning, Jeff.
- 1:23It's great to be here. I guess uh. Yeah, last week
- 1:26I was on the show down in Florida. Yeah, with a West Virginia
- 1:30connection. You know there's that was a well. There is a young man
- 1:34named Brian Kenny house h Ass. He lives now down in near Vero Beach,
- 1:41Florida. But he was a great amateur golfer. He fed his second
- 1:44in the state am one time. He couldn't beat Pat Carter. And a
- 1:48few years ago he and his wife Amy went down south. He had some
- 1:52investment business and he just lights a fish. So he ends up in this
- 1:57thing called the Headwaters Lakes on the Saint John's River, ten thousand acre lake,
- 2:02bought a boat and started guiding people, got a license to guide,
- 2:07and now he's got himself and he's got two other boats and people working for
- 2:10him and a really good West Virginia connection. So I know Bride since he
- 2:15was a kid. I knew they had Kenny really well. And so we
- 2:17went down and spent two days last Friday and Saturday fishing for really big large
- 2:24mouth. Yeah. Well they use shiners or they go a minute. There
- 2:30may be six seven inches long, put them on a hook with a big
- 2:34bobber and what's kind of mean to the little shiners, But you know,
- 2:37fish is gonna eat him anyway. We just make them available eat more easily
- 2:42and toss him out there and then you can see the little devil swimming around
- 2:46and directly boom, mister big comes and gets them. So it was really
- 2:50nice and got because it came back with a cold. Because when you fly,
- 2:53you know, you go through airports a couple of times, it's just
- 2:55gonna catch up with you. But things have been good at Nitra this week.
- 3:00We've you know, smoothly operated along the town looks really good. I
- 3:06mean the trees along the railroad tracks are blooming, not daffidils. That that
- 3:10project didn't get off the round that I had hoped it would, but I'm
- 3:15trying to think of something else. I think that the you know, the
- 3:17city has a land reuse agency, and that agency purchased a lot of not
- 3:24necessarily dilapidated but outdated commercial structures along First Avenue in Nitra, the main street
- 3:32between twenty first Street and fortieth Street, twenty first being sort of the main
- 3:38drag, and First Avenue is the street if you get off the Interstate.
- 3:43If you're coming to our office safe from Charleston, you get off the Interstate
- 3:46at the Nitro interchange to take a left. You're on First Avenue. You
- 3:50drive about oh about a mile and on the left you'll see our office on
- 3:53the corner of twenty eighth Street and first if you're coming from Saint Albans or
- 3:58from the Institute interchange, you just stay on Route twenty five, which that's
- 4:00First Avenue. But you know a lot of buildings were built at or just
- 4:05after the First World War, and so they've got buildings with ten thousand square
- 4:11feet you know, office space upstairs, retail space downstairs. We're building even
- 4:15in as late as in the fifties with parking out front along the street but
- 4:23no other parking. Well, you just can't do business that way anymore.
- 4:27There's too much traffic on First Avenue. People want to park, and parking
- 4:30is the lifeblood of retail or actually even any commercial enterprise. And so the
- 4:38Dave case Bolt mayor case Bolts administration, they just had a hard, uh,
- 4:43a hard pull on this land reuse agency that the legislature authorized wisely,
- 4:48and they're using their leverage now to buy these tax properties that often in the
- 4:54past had ended up in the hands of just speculators and were left to sitting
- 4:59fester. And so we've got some really nice land available for investment. I
- 5:02think that some of it may be under contract, but certainly, you know,
- 5:06if someone were a business entity in the Kanaal Valley looking for a place
- 5:11to new structure, plenty of parking, unobstructed street frontage, no better place
- 5:17to look than Nitro, I think, although you know, the troubling thing
- 5:23I read Hopies commentary this morning about the loss of population. That's just really
- 5:28really troubling. Don't you think why the why is you don't know when there's
- 5:35a population loss. I mean, Putnam County actually had a stagnant population.
- 5:41It's just actually that was the same in the last census. They may have
- 5:45lost a couple of hundred people, but essentially stagnant. Kanah County really took
- 5:48a pound. It was about nine thousand loss in population in a three year
- 5:53period. Five hundred kids just this past year out of the school children out
- 5:58of the school system. You're going to lose fifth twenty five professionals, teachers,
- 6:01counselors, teachers' aides. That's just hard to deal with. I'm you
- 6:09know, it's not Berkeley County has the In Jefferson County, you've been up
- 6:12there, and you know how Mon County is. They have the the pleasant
- 6:17problem that Putnam had fifteen twenty years ago. And how do you handle that
- 6:23growth. When I started practicing law on Putnham County as the primary place where
- 6:29I practiced, it was back in nineteen seventy seven, the county had roughly
- 6:33thirty thousand people. Now it's got fifty five fifty seven thousand. I think
- 6:39on any given day out on a workday, when everybody comes to work from
- 6:42out of county. At you know, John Amos and at Toyota, we
- 6:46were tacking up around sixty five thousand folks. I suspect, and of course
- 6:50we handled it correctly. Putnam County has always been well governed, but the
- 6:58workforce is the issue. I was in a meeting last night an entity where
- 7:03I'm on committee we're seeking employees is always a problem. We do have a
- 7:11call and we're going to go to Eleanor with Glenn. Glenn from Eleanor,
- 7:15you're on with Harvey. Thanks Glenn, go ahead, morning, Glenn,
- 7:18Good morning, Good morning. I've had a question I've been meeting to ask
- 7:21for a while. It's related to inheritance. In two thousand and four,
- 7:29my grandfather passed away. He left a sizeable piece of land up in Pennsylvania
- 7:35to four surviving children, with the stipulation that it goes to the last surviving
- 7:47of the four. To me, that didn't make sense. Is there such
- 7:54a thing where will passes through in such a way? Well, there is,
- 8:00but you know, and let me say this, I'm not licensed to
- 8:03practice in Pennsylvania, and I don't I mean, I wouldn't propose to comment
- 8:07on the validity of a willer a transfer in Pennsylvania. But they're not that
- 8:13much different. When I was in law school back in the early seventies,
- 8:18we had a professor who taught wills and trusts and estates. There was Henry
- 8:24Collins, and his was, we should never create a beneficiary class that closes
- 8:31on the death of the last survivor, because you'll never sell it. Everybody
- 8:35thinks they're going to outlive the other one. It's it's really unwieldly and unmanageable.
- 8:39It essentially makes the property unless all four agree and you know, the
- 8:43fact is to think, well, I want to outlive you and I'll end
- 8:46up owning it all. But that's I mean, that certainly is a valid
- 8:50it's it's a it's a vested interest to a define the class of persons and
- 8:54that's a subject to investment. If they die before the probably their siblings.
- 9:01Uh yeah, yeah, I mean, it's it's not an invalid transfer,
- 9:05at least certainly not in West Virginia. It's not encouraged, and it's not
- 9:09a good idea. And I won't write them. I mean, I tell
- 9:11people, just can't do this because you're going to set up an internal conflict
- 9:16in the family where it's just sort of like a ghoul. Watch right,
- 9:20when it goes down to the last two of the class, there's you know,
- 9:26how's your mom feeling? Well, how's dad doing? It's just right
- 9:30right good situation is unusual because it's not favored. But if that's what the
- 9:35person wanted to do in their will, there wasn't any legal impediment to stop
- 9:41them. Okay, okay, And the four have been uh whether it's been
- 9:48selective timbered over the years, it's been used for hunting, and they've all
- 9:52participated in that, and they all get together every year and pay the property
- 9:56tax or their own one fourth share. So but even considering that what you're
- 10:03saying is such a stipulation could be valid, Well, it is about I
- 10:09mean they each own an invested on one fourth interest in it, which is
- 10:13subject to divestment should they die prior to one of their siblings. It's just
- 10:16like a man and woman who owned their house jointly. You own invested interest
- 10:20in that the whole of that estate, but it's your interest is not separately
- 10:28alienable. Well it actually is, as theirs is, but it's subject of
- 10:31divestment if you still own it as a joint tenant at the time of your
- 10:35death, your interest goes to your spouse, not to somebody else. Now
- 10:39they can certainly in West Virginia they could correct that. I mean all they
- 10:45have to do is I mean they own the invested interest and the condition subsequent
- 10:50that would take their interest away they have some control over while they're alive.
- 10:56They could pool their interests conveyed into a central place and then convey it back
- 11:01out as tenants and commons each and an undivided fourth and and do away with
- 11:05that survivorship in West Virginia. Now again, I'm not licensed to practice.
- 11:13I've never actually had a well I've had some railroad cases in Pennsylvania, but
- 11:16those were federal law cases, so I would wouldn't know. But it's nothing.
- 11:22There's nothing inherently unlawful about leaving a piece of property to a class of
- 11:28persons which closes on the death of the last survivor, which is what you've
- 11:35got. It's just not recommended, understood problemnn. All right, that's a
- 11:43good question. That's a good destiny. I never never heard you discuss that
- 11:46scenario before. Well, I mean I've I've seen a couple of them.
- 11:50I saw one here that's not maybe a couple of years ago where But that's
- 11:54what happens. I mean, that's what it says. It goes to the
- 11:58to these and to the last survivor. Now, there are things that you
- 12:07can do to change that. But if not the person that is the last
- 12:09man standing or the last woman alive, it's theirs. And much to the
- 12:15chagrin, I tell you, it's just thought good because it sets up an
- 12:18internal conflict between the grandkids. Let's suppose it's our nieces and nephews, cousins.
- 12:24You've got three siblings or four, and there's a bequest of them with
- 12:30some property huntless like big acres in West Virginia. What do you do,
- 12:33Well, hey, go hunting fishing, right, maybe you camp and maybe
- 12:35you go hiking. That's where the family has their reunion. It's the home
- 12:39place. Well, so those four they're prolific readers, and maybe they're sixteen
- 12:46cousins. They are using it. Then one sibling dies, well, they
- 12:54all just continue to go along and use it. And the death of the
- 12:58last when the last persons standing. So, well, I own it now.
- 13:03And because I own it, it's going to descend to my children,
- 13:09not to you all, and bye bye. I'm selling it or I'm timbering
- 13:16it or that's it. I mean, it just it's a hard situation to
- 13:20deal with. I mean, and you have to sit and tell people,
- 13:22I mean, this seems unfairs, well it is. It may be unfair,
- 13:26but fairness is not the standard. The standard is what did the test
- 13:30stator want to do with their property. It's what they want to do.
- 13:33I mean, they thought it was fair. It may seem to the cultural
- 13:39norm that it's not fair, but that's what the person wanted to do with
- 13:43their property, and it's theirs, and that's the result. It was a
- 13:46good question. Yeah, it's good questions. Go back to the line,
- 13:48Judge, Douglas is on the line, Douglas, go ahead. You are
- 13:52with Harvey, all right, Judge, how are you solicitations? Gentlemen,
- 13:56Harvey, I just wanted to make a comment on that last call. Of
- 14:01course, everything you said was absolutely correct. But I remember Londo Brown as
- 14:05you well did too, did Future Interests, and he also did a wheel
- 14:09course up there too. Both of us had him, I'm sure, but
- 14:13at the College of Law. But another problem with a class gift, especially
- 14:16if it's a small class, is a simultaneous death. The last two are
- 14:20in a car rat. Oh yeah, then you're in a problem right among
- 14:24the airs, either the legatives, divisis, or whatever they may take my
- 14:28intestate succession. And I was hoping maybe you would also devolve into the question
- 14:35about the rule against perpetuity. I'm not gonna touch that one. I'll tell
- 14:39you what. I was on this show right after he started on the air
- 14:43a long time ago, and I don't remember whether it was Paul Wheeler or
- 14:48Rick Johnsonbody said, well, we got to call her on the place names
- 14:54em so em guys, He said, I wonder if you could, if
- 14:58you could just take a minute and explain to me this. I heard about
- 15:03this thing called the rule against perpetuities. And once you finish that, what
- 15:05about this rule in Shelley's case? Well, I didn't do any better.
- 15:09I start talking about, well, you can't have an interest at vest City
- 15:13later than the life and being in twenty one years. Well it was Ian
- 15:16was Elliott Maynard. Elliott was one of my law school classmates. He let
- 15:22me get about two sentences into the explanation before we explained it. Listen,
- 15:26there's some things that I remember forever from law school on some things you want
- 15:30to forget, like yeah, Query calls them fragate and the bonus aspectatus,
- 15:35and you know all the mystic Latin remedies that existed. They're long. Well
- 15:41I still have them in my brain, but I don't remember what they mean
- 15:43because nobody ever cared, right. I Actually, one time in Claychowty,
- 15:48I ran into a situation about the Rule against perpetuities where God tried to have
- 15:54our class vesting twenty one years afterwards, you know, like the oldest two
- 16:00children of my brother that survived him and me in twenty one years. I
- 16:06actually saw that at one time. But I remember Judge Kidds said when I
- 16:11was working for him, he said, well, file that away, but
- 16:14you'll never see it ever again. And that's true, okay, But anyway,
- 16:17that's why I make that comment. I appreciate it, appreciate it.
- 16:19Thanks a lot. Yeah. Well, the leading case of the rule against
- 16:23perpetuities is a legal theory that devolved during the Middle Ages. You know,
- 16:30people tried to extend the hand from the grave forever. You know, I
- 16:33want the property to go to so and so and then to their child,
- 16:36and to their child and to their child. Well, that makes property inalienable,
- 16:41which is contrary to public policy, and so the rule against perpetuities was
- 16:48created by judges. It's a legal theory that says any interest in real estate
- 16:52has to vest and be alienable, yet be able to have an interest you
- 16:56can sell within twenty one years after the cessation of life of whoever is in
- 17:03being at the time you create the interest. That's that just doesn't make sense
- 17:07to say it, but I mean, I could explain it to you if
- 17:08we were sitting down. The most famous case in West Virginia right now,
- 17:12the most recent was the Saint Albans Women's Club. The Saint Obans Women's Club
- 17:17property actually violated the rule against perpetuities, and there was litigation in the state
- 17:22Supreme Court which invalidated an interest carried over. And then of course the women's
- 17:27club property there in Saint Albans on Conatairas was ultimately sold. The women's club
- 17:33ceased to use the clubhouse and the property was sold. Uh, you know,
- 17:37it's just actually, you know, tomorrow we're having a when there are
- 17:41a couple of things I want to talk about that I think they're important to
- 17:45the legal community. This morning, we take a break. Just take a
- 17:48breakak, take a break, and we'll come back with that. Harvey Payton's
- 17:52with us Peyton Law from a nighter. A couple of good questions and comments
- 17:55already, and the lines are open. Three or four three four five fifty
- 17:56eight fifty eight three or four three four five fifty eight fifty eight. It's
- 18:02eight forty one. Back with Harvey in a moment on five eighty whl injured
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- 20:12log on to bank Atcity dot com. Just have the one active accident listed
- 20:18in Putnam County. It's I sixty four West mall marker thirty three between Hurricane
- 20:22and Milton. You might be tapping your brake, says he Heading to downtown
- 20:26Charleston on Ice sixty four East. A little bit of congestion there at the
- 20:30Fort Hill Eugene A Carter Bridge. Also, maintenance crews are on the schedule
- 20:34to be out today. If you happen to spot a crew, please slow
- 20:37down and move over if you can. From the WCCHS Network traffic studio,
- 20:44I'm Jenny Murray. What the power pay on the side. We have the
- 20:51court room experience that you need. We never give up. We're prepared to
- 20:56fight for your rise. When you need action, count on us. Put
- 21:06the powers on your side. The powerma He's say forty three on FIVEHS.
- 21:19The Force of Charleston. Jeff Jenkins with you, with Harvey Peyton and the
- 21:22Peyton Law Firm in Nitro. Three oh four three four five fifty eight fifty
- 21:26eight three oh four, three four five fifty fifty eight numbers to call,
- 21:30the number to call, And Harvey's got a couple of things he wants to
- 21:33talk about here on the legal size, the primary thing that I would like
- 21:37to speak of. You know, thank goodness, the Ohio primary election is
- 21:42over and we're no longer bombarded because we're in the Tristate area. We get
- 21:47ads for political ads from Ohio, which if our primary season heats up,
- 21:53well, it already has sort of heat it up with gubernatoral coundidates blowing up
- 21:57things, and it's just I don't know, but and I think that has
- 22:03a tendency to turn some voters off, particular on the Democrat side. On
- 22:10my side of the ballot, there aren't a lot of people to vote for.
- 22:15The Republican primary has now become what the Democratic primary used to be.
- 22:18It's may decide ultimately the race. But remember on May the twelfth, it's
- 22:26the quote primary election, but it is the only election. Yeah, May
- 22:32fourteenth, fourteenth, I'm sorry, that's right. The twelfth is I know,
- 22:36that because that's the day I'm leaving for Twelice is Sunday. Yeah,
- 22:38I'm going to take the Cardinal to Chicago and catch the California Zephyr and ride
- 22:42it out to San Francisco. And Nanny Janes says, it's a great round.
- 22:45So I'm going to think anyway, May the fourteenth, Tuesday, and
- 22:51early voting and absentee voting. It's really important. It's willimportante if you're one
- 22:56of if you just came across, because that's the day that we elect all
- 23:02of our judicial officers, about all of them. I mean, there's one
- 23:06seat open on the Supreme Court of Appeals. Now that race is uncontested right
- 23:11to the bun seat. And yeah, but they're uncontested and Charlie Trump and
- 23:15Charlie Trump, but still vote express your opinion. It's important. I think
- 23:23if someone is going to judge you, that they have a significant, if
- 23:29not a majority, at least a significant plurality of the vote to give some
- 23:32legitimacy to their rulings. Then we've got one seat on the Intermediate Court of
- 23:37Appeals. That's a three judge panel, and so one seat makes a whole
- 23:41lot of difference. Ryan White from here in Charleston, a really really good
- 23:45business oriented candidate. I think there's a lady from Wheeling perhaps as well.
- 23:49It's on the ballot, but those are going to be decided. There is
- 23:53no primary. The person who has the most votes of the field is going
- 24:00to be the Supreme Court justice, the intermediate court judge that we've got,
- 24:04all the circuit court judges and some there are some contested races. I will
- 24:11have to admit. Glamour shots now seem to be the norm, and judicial
- 24:18races. I've noticed a couple all magistrates and so those are really and those
- 24:26are things that can touch you every day of your life. You know,
- 24:30you talk about, well, who's going to be in the House of Delegates.
- 24:33Well, that's certainly as important. County commissioners are important. But people
- 24:36on the Board of Education and a magistrate or the circuit judge in the circuit
- 24:42where you live and work, those folks have more potential to directly touch your
- 24:49life and affect how you conduct your affairs than one legislator. Right if you're
- 24:57in because we single legislator districts, now you cast to vote for one of
- 25:00one hundred. Well, it's important of course you should vote. You should
- 25:03know what they stand for, and you should vote in the primary. Then
- 25:07you've got the general election to further consider. But you don't have that luxury
- 25:11in judicial races, and judicial races are non partisan. There is a troubling
- 25:21tendency. I think now I've seen it now this election cycle more than I've
- 25:26ever seen it before. I've heard an ad that says, hi, I'm
- 25:32so and so glamour shot, I'm a lifelong Republican and I'm running for the
- 25:37non partisan see it on the circuit court. I mean, that's pushing the
- 25:41envelope. To me, they're non partisan races because you should delve into what
- 25:48a candidate stands for, what their practice is, what their experience has been,
- 25:53what their educational background is, who the other candidates are, what their
- 25:59experience is, and decided to vote on that basis. Most trial lawyers,
- 26:03most plan of lawyers, were pretty much opposed to non partisan judicial selection.
- 26:11The Democrats, because well, Democrats tend to be more sympathetic to the people
- 26:18I represent, working people, small business, pretty well, small government,
- 26:23keep your hands off of me types, and the ded by the name of
- 26:29Well that sends a message even if you don't know the candidate, but you
- 26:30know, one day I was sitting in Jim Holiday's office. I had a
- 26:33lot of respect for Judge Holiday. He would serve two terms and whatever the
- 26:38occasion. I was just having to be sitting in his office. He and
- 26:41I talking and he said something about nonpartis. So I don't know judges.
- 26:45I want to tell you something, Arvey. He said, you know,
- 26:48there are a lot of good judges there, a lot of good lawyers I
- 26:51know who would have made great judges who cannot get elected in some kuindies in
- 26:56the state just because they're Republicans and they're not going to change. I kind
- 26:59of took that to heart, and I was always there there after. I
- 27:04was pretty much in favor of non partisan selection of judges, and I think
- 27:08it's a good thing. I mean, you go down below that to the
- 27:11boards of education. I think of the board of education, the way they're
- 27:14selected in West Virginia, you really cannot find a system of local, collective
- 27:26community control that a board of education. I mean, they're elected on a
- 27:30staggered basis. There are five of them. They're non partisan, truly non
- 27:33partisan. I mean I've thought I don't even hear any of them mentioned.
- 27:37They're party affiliation, they're geographically limited in the county and they can only have
- 27:44so many for any district more than two. So nobody says so Charleston can't
- 27:48load up on the board and dominate, or the you know, the bigger
- 27:52parts of the county can't load up and dominate the Board of Education. And
- 27:56you know, you've got pretty much direct control your children go school. You
- 28:00can go to a board meeting and you can look at the five people who
- 28:04within the limits control the curriculum and who hire and fire the superintendent of schools.
- 28:08And then the next up you go to the magistrates. You know,
- 28:14there's the lowest level of the judiciary. You've got municipal judges. They're generally
- 28:19selected by a mayor by the city council. But again, if a municipal
- 28:25judge is appointed by a mayor or selected by council, and you have bad
- 28:29experiences, you know who to go to. They're your next door neighbors.
- 28:33So it's just really really important. I mean, don't get discouraged all this
- 28:37rank corps. Go vote or vote early, or vote absentee on May the
- 28:42fourteenth, and paper to pay particular attention to the nonpartisan races for Supreme Court,
- 28:51Intermediate Court of Appeals, Circuit Court, and magistrates and w's of Education.
- 28:57They're really the closest things you've got at the magistrates, Circuit, judge
- 29:02and Board of Education level, the really true community collective action by them,
- 29:10by the populace. So that's my soapbox for today. Let me let me
- 29:15ask you something else, because we've got a couple of minutes. I've wanted
- 29:18to get your take because you and I have talked a lot about the Huntington
- 29:22opioid case, and now the Fourth Circuit asked a certified question to the State
- 29:27Supreme d did Indeed, that's a major that's a major development in that case.
- 29:32That Judge Faber heard the apoid case for several months and took it under
- 29:37advisement for several months, and uh then ruled that there was not a sufficient
- 29:45showing to constitute the opioid dumping to be a quote public nuisance, which is
- 29:49a it's somewhat complicated legal theory. Won't go into it, but that was
- 29:55the lynch pin well that was appealed to the h for certain Court of Appeals
- 30:02on a lot of issues. I mean, some of them may be how
- 30:04the judge handled the evidence and how he interpreted the facts. But the first
- 30:08issue the court said it was, well, wait, the lynchpend of this
- 30:12decision is that there wasn't a quote public nuisance that was actionable. You couldn't
- 30:19bring an action to remedy a public nuisance based on these facts. And as
- 30:25the Planoffs attorneys pointed out, but wait a minute. In state court in
- 30:30West Virginia, in front of the multi judge panel, actions have proceeded and
- 30:41been brought to conclusion on the theory of public nuisance. Now that hasn't gone
- 30:48to the Supreme Court. That's the mass litigation panel. But they're judges appointed
- 30:52by the Supreme Court working under their supervision. So what's what I mean?
- 30:57The federal court is to apply in a case based on diversity of citizenship,
- 31:03which that one was, is to apply the law in the state where the
- 31:07action is brought and if there is no established law, to apply the law
- 31:11as the circuit of the district court judge believes the law would be where it
- 31:17decided about state court. So that went to the Court of Appeals. They
- 31:21have sent back under a particular procedure what's called a certified question. There's only
- 31:26one issue for our Supreme Court to decide, is the dumping of opioids in
- 31:32this particular community with this sort of effect. They quote public nuisance. That's
- 31:36actionable under West Virginia law. Now, that's really going to be a tremendous
- 31:45case that's going to come up. I mean, it could decide hundreds of
- 31:49millions of dollars in this litigation. It could decide of the course that Huntington
- 31:55and Capbell County take going forward. It actually could decide the ability of other
- 32:00entities to proceed, even after these most recent settlements, to pursue an act
- 32:07for public nuisance. I mean, it doesn't necessarily have to be drugs.
- 32:09It could be the dumping of alcohol, it could be the VP products that
- 32:13are lied about. So we'll see. I mean that was it was probably
- 32:19bigger news that it was made of here, and it didn't make any national
- 32:23news. I look for that story in the Times, in the Post.
- 32:25I just didn't see it. But I think that really is a significant thing,
- 32:30and we'll watch it. I mean, it shouldn't take long. Now.
- 32:32My question is, and I don't know what they'll do. Does the
- 32:37Supreme Court just answer it. Do they hold hearings or they just answer it?
- 32:40Answer the question. Yeah, you can't ask You can't certify a question
- 32:44of fact. You can only certify a question of law. And so the
- 32:47question was answered by Judge Faber. His answer was no, the question has
- 32:53to be answered by the lower court. I've done a lot of certified questions
- 32:57from circuit courts, and the federal courts have the ability to ask the state
- 33:02Supreme Court to answer a question, and that's what they've done. If judge
- 33:07favorite answer to noo, is that answer correct? Or is the answer yes?
- 33:12And that's what the court's going to decide. And it's going to be
- 33:15decided. It's going to be a big case. Mean, they are really
- 33:16good lawyers involved in this case. On the plane off side, you got
- 33:21the Farrells and if you ever want anything done right now, I'll tell you
- 33:23how good they are. So you had to put up with that. But
- 33:25Farrell's from Huntington, that's an esteemed family of lawyers. And got Tony Maijestro,
- 33:31I thank you from here in Charles. There are other people involved.
- 33:34I just name those two because I know actually Mike Ferrell, who's sort of
- 33:38the patriarch at the Grip. He's an uncle to Paul. He and I
- 33:44were classmates, and so I hope Mike, like in three weeks there's the
- 33:50State Bar conventions and all of us have been practicing now for fifty years.
- 33:53I talked to Tom Flaherty yesterday or day before yesterday. He's going to go.
- 34:00That'll be quite an all star cast, and Tom flairt in well.
- 34:04Oh, maybe Chambers will come back, but I don't know if Chambers Price
- 34:07still by. I doubt John still has a law license. I mean Peggy,
- 34:09Peggy worked Peggy work when Elliott was in our class, but he's unfortunately
- 34:14no longer with a Stuart Calwell otis man uh may Grove from Morgantown a lot.
- 34:22Yeah, it'll be interesting to see who shows up, but that yeah,
- 34:25i'll report on that after it's on a Sunday sometime in April, and
- 34:30so I'll let you know who all shows up. Hopefully they'll get a group
- 34:32photograph. Yes, bunch of old codgers. It's like going to a high
- 34:36school unions. Who's that old guy? That's what he's asking about you?
- 34:40All right, Peyton law Firman Nitro Harvey. The Peyton Law Firm in Nitro
- 34:45is a sort of a boutique law firm, and that we were. We're
- 34:51a small law firm, but we're not. But we handle big things.
- 34:53We have big ideas, we have big results for our clients. Our primary
- 34:59focus is on people who have been injured either physically financially, they've been wronged
- 35:05by a bank or an insurance company or some business entity, or they've suffered
- 35:08an injury or death as a result of an accident, an auto accident,
- 35:13industrial accident, some product. And we don't advertise on television because our goal
- 35:20is not to get more than we can handle. We take cases and we
- 35:22prosecute them full war, with excellent financing in place to prosecute those cases.
- 35:30But at the same time we do and I do some general practice, which
- 35:37is an important part. Like tomorrow there's a small and solo practice seminar here
- 35:43in Charleston, and it's important lawyers. We need to get back a little
- 35:47bit to that niche of being a part of the community that go back to
- 35:52the days when bankers drove cadillacs, doctors drove buis, lawyers who represented planets
- 36:00drove thunderbird confrontabulls and the defense lawyers do Volkswagen bugs because they were good on
- 36:08gas valleys that we could return to that we'd be better off, I think
- 36:13in the practice of law. And we're at twenty eight at one First Avenue
- 36:16in Nitro, which is only about twenty minutes from here where we're sitting,
- 36:21or from these valley cross lanes. A lot of our businesses, certainly in
- 36:24Putnam County. We've been a part of Putnam County for almost fifty years,
- 36:30and I see people all the time that are living in subdivisions where I did
- 36:34the legal work. I drive by buildings that I did the legal work on.
- 36:38Ie people say, you know, I remember what you told me when
- 36:42my mom and dad adopted me a CFL. He's a really prominent realtor own
- 36:47of Putnam County. Now remember when he was scored. We weren't a car
- 36:51wreck and we got him the money that started off. So Peytonlawfirm dot Com
- 36:55is the best way going on Peytonlawfirm dot com. Send an email to only
- 37:00time and I see and we will respond. If you can call three four
- 37:05seven, five five fifty five fifty six, or if you're in the area.
- 37:08Stop bye. We'll greet you from there and we can talk. We
- 37:13will. If not, we'll make an appointment. All we can ask is
- 37:15you think about us, is we're here to help you, all right,
- 37:17Harvey Good See