Latest / Ask the Lawyer / 06/25/2026 Ask the Lawyer with Tom Peyton

Transcript

06/25/2026 Ask the Lawyer with Tom Peyton · Ask the Lawyer

0:00
Speaker 1: The views and opinions expressed on this program do not
0:02
Speaker 1: necessarily reflect the views and opinions of five ad WCHS
0:06
Speaker 1: it's employees or WVRC media.
0:09
Speaker 2: Of course, oh created equal well last come here in
0:20
Speaker 2: a katy can drops up.
0:31
Speaker 3: It is twenty two minutes past eight o'clock and you
0:34
Speaker 3: are listening to the voice of Charles and Bob ADWCHS
0:37
Speaker 3: and you can put the law on your side. This
0:39
Speaker 3: morning with Tom Payton from the Peyton Law Firm is
0:41
Speaker 3: right here in studio with us this morning. Tom, Good morning,
0:43
Speaker 3: How you doing this morning.
0:44
Speaker 4: I'm doing great this morning. Last week was a stormy driver.
0:48
Speaker 4: I thought trunk you know, last week, like I said
0:51
Speaker 4: when we were on the on the air, you can't
0:52
Speaker 4: hear the weather warning break INDs. I think we had
0:56
Speaker 4: a lot of interruptions last week that we probably couldn't hear.
0:59
Speaker 4: But but good drive in. Everything was smooth. So glad
1:02
Speaker 4: to be here.
1:04
Speaker 3: Very good And if you if you need to put
1:06
Speaker 3: the power of patent on your side this morning, you
1:07
Speaker 3: can give us a call. The number to reach Tom
1:09
Speaker 3: Payton is Threes are a four, three, four, five, fifty
1:11
Speaker 3: eight fifty eight. Threes are a four three four five,
1:13
Speaker 3: fifty eight fifty eight. You can also text threes are
1:15
Speaker 3: four nine three five five zero zero eight three zero
1:18
Speaker 3: four nine three five five zero zero eight for the
1:20
Speaker 3: text line to get through to Tom Peyton from the
1:22
Speaker 3: Payton Law Firm. Peyton Law Firm in Nitro, West Virginia.
1:24
Speaker 3: You can find more information online Payton Lawfirm dot com.
1:27
Speaker 3: P E Y T you in Payton Lawfirm dot com.
1:30
Speaker 3: Lots of stuff going on that we can talk about.
1:31
Speaker 3: Of course you can kind of lead the way on that,
1:33
Speaker 3: Tom and will We then are calls and texts throughout
1:36
Speaker 3: the day.
1:36
Speaker 4: Sure always keep track of the current events. We actually
1:39
Speaker 4: had a it was an article on the WV Metro
1:43
Speaker 4: in his website. I think Brad did the article. Someone
1:47
Speaker 4: hadn't kind of read some snippets from the case. But
1:50
Speaker 4: there was a challenge to an effort by I think
1:54
Speaker 4: it was maybe five states, West Virginia was one of
1:56
Speaker 4: them to limit snap benefit purchases. I don't think it
2:03
Speaker 4: had been implemented yet. It may even have been stopped
2:05
Speaker 4: on a local level, unless that was the issue with
2:09
Speaker 4: the food in schools. It's also being adjusted where some
2:13
Speaker 4: trade groups filed saying it was unfair, but in any
2:15
Speaker 4: of it, snap benefits are it's an acronym. I mean
2:19
Speaker 4: food stamps basically is what they are. And of course,
2:23
Speaker 4: like most social safety net programs, it's largely funded by
2:28
Speaker 4: the Feds and and begins and is also largely administered
2:33
Speaker 4: at the local level by the state, but it derives
2:37
Speaker 4: its origins from federal law and regulations.
2:42
Speaker 2: And so.
2:44
Speaker 4: Remember when Secretary of Kennedy you know, came to West
2:48
Speaker 4: Virginia and a health initiative I think was it Mahas
2:51
Speaker 4: the Health Initiative. Altho, they has some unconventional opinions on
2:57
Speaker 4: on health, many of which I agree with, but many
3:03
Speaker 4: of which I don't. But in this particular case, this state,
3:07
Speaker 4: West Virginia, was trying to implement a program to limit
3:13
Speaker 4: the use of food stamps so the purchases couldnot be
3:16
Speaker 4: used for basically soft drinks. Then there was a really
3:19
Speaker 4: broad definition trying to define what soft drinks are. Because
3:22
Speaker 4: if you go and look in the cooler at your
3:25
Speaker 4: local go Mart or a little general, you'll see all
3:29
Speaker 4: kinds of drinks. And you know, I don't know if
3:31
Speaker 4: I would call half of them soft drinks, but most
3:33
Speaker 4: of them have dyes and sugar corn syrup, things like
3:36
Speaker 4: that that they're trying to aim that they're aiming to eliminate.
3:40
Speaker 4: So and then of course the retailers are I think
3:44
Speaker 4: there was like twenty one hundred or so retailers in
3:47
Speaker 4: West Virginia stores that except food stamps, and and so
3:57
Speaker 4: you know, it's not as simple as saying, well, just
3:58
Speaker 4: don't sell the listed items. They were gonna have to
4:01
Speaker 4: go in and redo their point of sale system, as
4:04
Speaker 4: I understand it. And then it would just essentially if
4:07
Speaker 4: you go to enter you know, Coca Cola as a
4:09
Speaker 4: purchase using the food stamps, that would reject it. So
4:14
Speaker 4: you just couldn't use you know, you know, people they
4:17
Speaker 4: really want their mountain dew and things like that. I
4:20
Speaker 4: mean practically on ground level. You know, they work around
4:23
Speaker 4: because they'll find somebody that wants to purchase something that's
4:26
Speaker 4: eligible via the food stamps. And I don't think there's
4:30
Speaker 4: any real way to like track that food stamp to
4:35
Speaker 4: a particular human, meaning you know, you don't show your
4:38
Speaker 4: picture or do thumb prints or something. So they'll just
4:41
Speaker 4: trade you know, hey, you good bye me some mountain
4:43
Speaker 4: dew and I'll give you three times the value of
4:47
Speaker 4: these food stamps or something like that, so it'll be
4:49
Speaker 4: worked around. But any event, actually, I mean nothing legal. Personally,
4:55
Speaker 4: I just think pop is not real good for you,
5:00
Speaker 4: and and I kind of I treat Papa's like a treat.
5:04
Speaker 4: I drink some of it, but not very much. That's
5:05
Speaker 4: just my personal preference. But in any event, in the
5:09
Speaker 4: in a court in d C. Which is where you
5:11
Speaker 4: have to file this type of case based on jurisdictional issues,
5:15
Speaker 4: one of the kind of special interest groups fout a
5:18
Speaker 4: case challenging all i think five of the different states
5:24
Speaker 4: attempts to implement this program. And the judge ruled on
5:29
Speaker 4: it yesterday or the day before and found that the
5:33
Speaker 4: attempts by the states to ban the purchase of soft
5:37
Speaker 4: drinks was is illegal, so it can't go in place.
5:44
Speaker 4: And like has happened a lot with this administration, the
5:49
Speaker 4: reasoning behind it wasn't didn't have anything to do with health.
5:52
Speaker 4: That wasn't the point of the opinion at all. It
5:54
Speaker 4: wasn't an activist judge saying I think everybody should have
5:57
Speaker 4: access to pop. That's not that's not what it was.
6:01
Speaker 4: It was, but haphazard, I mean, you know, there's a
6:06
Speaker 4: federal law, you know, Congress passed not I don't think
6:10
Speaker 4: this is a rule. It's actually in statute that defines
6:12
Speaker 4: what food is under the Snap Benefits Statute, and food
6:19
Speaker 4: for the purpose of purchasing with food stamps is defined
6:23
Speaker 4: as any food or food product for human consumption. That's
6:28
Speaker 4: pretty broad, except alcoholic beverages. So you can't buy alcohol,
6:35
Speaker 4: tobacco and I forgot this one. But hot foods or
6:40
Speaker 4: hot food products ready for immediate consumption, So I guess
6:43
Speaker 4: that eliminates fast fitted.
6:45
Speaker 3: But that's where the whole the whole chicken exception, there
6:49
Speaker 3: was a recent chicken exception that there's getting trying to
6:51
Speaker 3: get passed through where you can get a ross with
6:53
Speaker 3: your chicken.
6:53
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's already ready made. That's when I read that
6:57
Speaker 4: is how that's interpreted for. I mean, clearly you can't
6:59
Speaker 4: go by McDonald's, I don't think, but yeah, if you've
7:02
Speaker 4: got what if you have, you know, hot dogs on
7:05
Speaker 4: the little roller at the convenience store, or you know,
7:09
Speaker 4: heated up pizza. I don't I don't really know what
7:12
Speaker 4: the rule is there, but it certainly doesn't exclude pop
7:18
Speaker 4: and so that's included in the statutory definition and not
7:22
Speaker 4: to get too much in the weeds. But basically, the
7:24
Speaker 4: court said, one, you can do some pilot programs that
7:28
Speaker 4: are authorized under the regulations where you can modify that
7:30
Speaker 4: a bit, but you can't change the definition of food
7:36
Speaker 4: just based on essentially some administrative type of orders, which
7:39
Speaker 4: was what they were trying to do. And then secondarily,
7:42
Speaker 4: even if you could use this pilot program statue, the
7:46
Speaker 4: administration or the states I guess did not. There's a
7:51
Speaker 4: notice requirement. You got to do publication and a certain
7:54
Speaker 4: amount of times. So those were the reasons why the
7:57
Speaker 4: court struck those down, even though they're perceived. I think
8:00
Speaker 4: the one about changing the definition of food will be
8:05
Speaker 4: hard to overcome because naturally it'll involve some act of Congress,
8:11
Speaker 4: which involves politics, right, and so you'll get a lot
8:14
Speaker 4: of jockeying, and you know, as we saw the other
8:19
Speaker 4: day or yesterday, even even if both houses of Congress agree,
8:22
Speaker 4: the President might not sign off one anyway. So I
8:26
Speaker 4: think probably that band's dead in the water for the
8:30
Speaker 4: foreseeable future. So if anybody's out there and I get
8:34
Speaker 4: snap benefits and must to buy pop as a treat,
8:37
Speaker 4: here is going to be allowed to continue to do
8:39
Speaker 4: that for the time being, and if there's any change
8:43
Speaker 4: and these hurdles are overcome, it's probably going to be
8:45
Speaker 4: years in the making, one way or another.
8:48
Speaker 3: So it's very interesting the way that ended up coming out.
8:53
Speaker 3: One thing that always kind of confused me about it.
8:54
Speaker 3: I guess that the leading thing on this was more
8:57
Speaker 3: the additives or the things that's soda because and the
9:02
Speaker 3: disconnect from me anyway, And this is just my opinion
9:05
Speaker 3: as somebody that years ago lost a considerable amount of weight.
9:08
Speaker 3: One of the biggest problems in West Virginia is obesity,
9:11
Speaker 3: and soda shirt has tons of sugar in it. A
9:13
Speaker 3: twelve ounce can of coke has one hundred and forty calories,
9:16
Speaker 3: twelve ounces of apple juice has one hundred and fifty
9:18
Speaker 3: five calories. So I mean, it's kind of a weird
9:22
Speaker 3: way to split hairs.
9:23
Speaker 2: It too.
9:23
Speaker 4: You've got high corn syrup and a lot of unnatural
9:26
Speaker 4: sugars and dyes and things that are added to it.
9:30
Speaker 4: I mean, it's hard to believe that would be good
9:34
Speaker 4: for you. And if you've got somebody who is you know,
9:37
Speaker 4: down their lock or had a problem in life and
9:40
Speaker 4: needs to rely on the food stamp program.
9:43
Speaker 2: Yeah you think that.
9:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, bond pop if you've got limited resources, isn't the
9:48
Speaker 4: best thing to do. But again, you get a lot
9:52
Speaker 4: of the rural areas, I mean, I don't you probably
9:55
Speaker 4: got We've got some walmarts around, but little General or
9:58
Speaker 4: go marts might be the only deescible.
10:00
Speaker 3: Uh the food deserts.
10:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, food, you know, it's source.
10:04
Speaker 4: And there's not a whole lot of choices in there
10:07
Speaker 4: that don't include some some definition of of what the
10:11
Speaker 4: government has defined as soft drinks under this uh.
10:15
Speaker 2: Attempt to ban them from And I.
10:19
Speaker 3: Do understand it to a degree too. I know of
10:21
Speaker 3: a family that that that that I was close with
10:24
Speaker 3: growing up, that that was on government assistance. And one
10:27
Speaker 3: of the things that always struck me. I have no
10:28
Speaker 3: idea that they actually used their their benefits for this,
10:31
Speaker 3: because I was probably too young to really know, but
10:33
Speaker 3: one could assume, you know, if they were on assistance
10:36
Speaker 3: and they had these things, and the mom had like
10:38
Speaker 3: literally rows of two leaders of Mountain dew next to her,
10:42
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, like thirty of them at a
10:44
Speaker 3: time probably, I mean, just a ridiculous amount, and she
10:45
Speaker 3: would drink straight from the two leader. I mean it
10:48
Speaker 3: was a it wasn't a good look, but potentially a
10:51
Speaker 3: situation like that you could see, like, man, the government's
10:54
Speaker 3: funding that you know isn't so yeah, I can see
10:56
Speaker 3: that side of it.
10:56
Speaker 4: Sure there's extreme cases and that that. Man, I think
11:00
Speaker 4: people get. You can get addicted to sugar, just like
11:02
Speaker 4: caffeine and other things. And if somebody's stock piling mountain
11:06
Speaker 4: dew like that, they've got a they've got a probably
11:10
Speaker 4: some sort of addiction to it. But yeah, not from
11:15
Speaker 4: a policy standpoint when I think about it, common sense wise,
11:17
Speaker 4: it would be nice if there was some way in
11:19
Speaker 4: which the program could be modified, maybe where limitations on
11:24
Speaker 4: those types of purchases could be put in place. But boy,
11:27
Speaker 4: that's a real logistical and practical because I don't know
11:30
Speaker 4: how you keep trying. I mean, you know, to set
11:34
Speaker 4: up a point of cell system, which is you know,
11:35
Speaker 4: that's the barcode scan system for most places inventory and
11:39
Speaker 4: just when you go to enter, you know, purchase via snap. Uh,
11:43
Speaker 4: it just prohibits it. That's pretty makes sense. I mean
11:47
Speaker 4: that could be implemented with some costs, I'm sure, but
11:51
Speaker 4: to try and then limit but you can only buy
11:55
Speaker 4: one two liters of mountain dew every week or something
11:57
Speaker 4: like that. I think that's just you can put it
11:59
Speaker 4: in law. I don't know how you would effectively and
12:02
Speaker 4: how do you administer it. What's the multiplier per kid
12:05
Speaker 4: and you know, family all that, And that's the kind
12:10
Speaker 4: of haphazard nature of this. I mean, they sent out,
12:12
Speaker 4: they tried to defile what softwrinks were. It was all
12:15
Speaker 4: done really quickly. I mean, this type of kind of
12:19
Speaker 4: massive change of the of the SNAP benefit scheme. To
12:26
Speaker 4: do effectively was first you got to meet the legal requirements.
12:29
Speaker 4: But secondarily, I mean it seems that there would need
12:33
Speaker 4: to be probably years of studies to determine, you know,
12:38
Speaker 4: why this needs to be eliminated and that does not,
12:42
Speaker 4: and and how to just implement it practically and pass
12:45
Speaker 4: regulations with public comment and all that. And of course
12:48
Speaker 4: this was rushed through through Make America Healthy Again movement,
12:54
Speaker 4: but it's not going anywhere right now. So we'll see
12:57
Speaker 4: see if that changes in the future. But I think
12:59
Speaker 4: that POP is safe for the foreseeable future.
13:04
Speaker 3: Well at least that's off the table, I guess right now. Anyway,
13:07
Speaker 3: Tom Payton is here with us this morning. Once again,
13:09
Speaker 3: if you have any questions for us, you can send
13:10
Speaker 3: Tom a text threes or four nine, three, five, five,
13:12
Speaker 3: zers or eight. You can also call in this morning
13:15
Speaker 3: of course. Threes are a four three four five fifty
13:17
Speaker 3: eight fifty eight. Threes are a four three four five
13:19
Speaker 3: fifty eight fifty eight is our number this morning.
13:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can give us a call or send a text.
13:22
Speaker 4: If you aren't in a position to call or text
13:25
Speaker 4: this morning and you have a curious about a legal
13:29
Speaker 4: question that might affect you or a friend or family member,
13:33
Speaker 4: you can always give us a call at the office
13:36
Speaker 4: which is three or four seven five five five, five
13:39
Speaker 4: five six, or maybe even better, send us an email
13:44
Speaker 4: through our website which is good to Peyton Lawfirm dot com.
13:47
Speaker 4: It's p ee y t you in law Firm dot
13:50
Speaker 4: com and you can submit your email through the website
13:53
Speaker 4: and it doesn't go to a call center or you
13:57
Speaker 4: don't get canned response, as it goes right to my
14:00
Speaker 4: personal email and Dad's personal email, and we try and
14:03
Speaker 4: respond the same day, if not the next day. If
14:05
Speaker 4: you don't get a response, maybe send another email it
14:08
Speaker 4: could have gotten into junk mail, or give us a
14:10
Speaker 4: call and staff will tell me, Hey, Tom, this person
14:13
Speaker 4: says they email two days ago and.
14:14
Speaker 2: You haven't responded yet.
14:16
Speaker 4: Obviously we get busy, we can't do them all every time,
14:19
Speaker 4: but that's an excellent way if you just need some
14:20
Speaker 4: basic information and if it's something we can just reply
14:24
Speaker 4: back on an email and kind of give you the
14:27
Speaker 4: the ground rules for a certain situation. Sometimes that's all
14:29
Speaker 4: folks need. And we don't start charging any time, lawyer time,
14:35
Speaker 4: or anything like that unless we have some type of
14:37
Speaker 4: formal agreement. So all that is just under the paradigm
14:39
Speaker 4: of initial consultation. And you know, I have people ask
14:43
Speaker 4: me this confidential and that kind of thing, and I
14:46
Speaker 4: you kind of get offended a little bit as a
14:51
Speaker 4: lawyers like, well, of course I'm not going to tell anybody,
14:52
Speaker 4: but people don't know that. But even your initial consultations
14:56
Speaker 4: are are you know, confidential, So if you conduct our
15:01
Speaker 4: office or you have a situation, uh, you know, you
15:05
Speaker 4: can you can be rest assured that it's not going
15:07
Speaker 4: to go outside of our office. Whatever you whatever you
15:11
Speaker 4: tell us to me, it's I mean, it's really nobody's
15:14
Speaker 4: business even go to a lawyer, let alone asking questions
15:18
Speaker 4: or getting advice from an attorney.
15:21
Speaker 2: Uh. And of course, you know what we do.
15:24
Speaker 4: Primarily, we'd like to do litigation, civil litigation, so we
15:27
Speaker 4: do an awful lot of work where folks get unfortunately
15:31
Speaker 4: injured in automobile accidents and the other or or insurance disputes.
15:38
Speaker 4: So that's that probably comprises the majority of our business.
15:43
Speaker 4: But you know, most people don't get an automobile accidents
15:49
Speaker 4: and and don't have fights with their own insurance companies,
15:52
Speaker 4: and so we try and help people with their everyday
15:55
Speaker 4: needs to the extent we can. So we do some
15:57
Speaker 4: basic deed work, a state planning, social care disability, do
16:00
Speaker 4: a good bit of sister carey disability, and then really
16:03
Speaker 4: most types of litigation we can handle. But if you
16:07
Speaker 4: have a situation that that's not in our wheelhouse, we've
16:10
Speaker 4: been around long enough in almost one hundred percent of
16:13
Speaker 4: the cases, we can give you the name and number
16:17
Speaker 4: of a lawyer that you can call that this situation
16:20
Speaker 4: will be in their wheelhouse, so they can they can
16:22
Speaker 4: help you. So don't hesitate to contact us. And certainly
16:25
Speaker 4: if you've been you've got an issue with an insurance company,
16:27
Speaker 4: or you've been hurt or family member has been hurt
16:29
Speaker 4: in some way, you know, get right on and contact us,
16:35
Speaker 4: because you don't really know, not being in a lawyer,
16:39
Speaker 4: what you might need to do to preserve evidence might
16:42
Speaker 4: not be a case that we end up taking, but
16:44
Speaker 4: we can give you some advice maybe on this is
16:47
Speaker 4: when you might just handle yourself or do X, Y
16:51
Speaker 4: and Z to make sure that you've at least preserved
16:53
Speaker 4: your rights if you want to ultimately make a claim
16:55
Speaker 4: or retain us later. So don't hesitate to give us
17:00
Speaker 4: a call or contact.
17:01
Speaker 3: And I've mentioned on this show before just somebody obviously
17:05
Speaker 3: not in the profession and just kind of in the uh,
17:08
Speaker 3: living about in the world. Don't fall for the uh uh,
17:11
Speaker 3: don't be litigious? Uh what do you need an attorney for?
17:15
Speaker 2: You know?
17:15
Speaker 3: Some it feels like sometimes people get shamed into seeking counsel. Well,
17:20
Speaker 3: and and you really should not be shamed ever for
17:22
Speaker 3: protecting yourself.
17:23
Speaker 2: That's right.
17:23
Speaker 4: And I will assure you that one hundred percent of
17:27
Speaker 4: the entities funding that type of mass media campaign have
17:31
Speaker 4: plenty of lawyers. Yeah, And and what's happened. It's kind
17:36
Speaker 4: of cooled a little bit in West Virginia here recently,
17:38
Speaker 4: but it's it's part of a I believe, kind of
17:46
Speaker 4: a grand plan that you know, push that in people
17:50
Speaker 4: every day, people's heads that it's bad to hire a lawyer,
17:54
Speaker 4: it's bad to All you're doing is protecting your civil rights.
17:57
Speaker 4: I mean, there are frivolous lawsuits. There are, for les,
18:00
Speaker 4: lawsuits by businesses, big businesses, powerful people that are frivolous
18:04
Speaker 4: lawsuits that are filed by regular people, but there's not
18:08
Speaker 4: that many, and the court has ways to filter that out.
18:12
Speaker 2: And I'll have people.
18:16
Speaker 4: Nobody for the most part, nobody wants something for nothing,
18:19
Speaker 4: and I'll have clients that, well, I don't want to
18:23
Speaker 4: treat this insurance company unfairly, and well that's going to
18:26
Speaker 4: be impossible because their entire business is assessing risk and
18:33
Speaker 4: value of claims and they're not going to reach a
18:37
Speaker 4: settlement that's unfair to them and most likely economically so.
18:43
Speaker 4: But that's just kind of been this mass media campaign
18:46
Speaker 4: about what trial lawyers are greedy and and you shouldn't
18:50
Speaker 4: hire one, you shouldn't protect your civil rights.
18:53
Speaker 2: Is really part of.
18:54
Speaker 4: A mass campaign to create bias and folks heads. And
19:01
Speaker 4: you know, there are people out there that commit insurance
19:04
Speaker 4: fraud and file frivolous cases, but they're those are by
19:08
Speaker 4: far the exception to the rule, and so you shouldn't
19:11
Speaker 4: hesitate to at least seek some legal advice so you
19:14
Speaker 4: know where you stand. Because all those massive advertising campaigns
19:18
Speaker 4: are pushed by people who have lawyers, and that is
19:21
Speaker 4: a strategy they're you know, just putting that out there,
19:24
Speaker 4: spending millions of dollars in those campaigns just for the
19:26
Speaker 4: fun of it.
19:27
Speaker 3: It's usually lobbyists that have been hurt in some way
19:29
Speaker 3: by having consumers that protected themselves that are trying to
19:33
Speaker 3: talk consumers out of that protection.
19:35
Speaker 2: Well, the jury, jury trial is the great equalizer. You know.
19:37
Speaker 4: We can somebody can hire me have an argument with
19:42
Speaker 4: maybe the biggest casually insure in the world, and they
19:48
Speaker 4: might have to come down and sit in front of
19:51
Speaker 4: six people in Winfield and Putnam County and have those
19:54
Speaker 4: six people decide a case and just you can't pret
20:00
Speaker 4: what juris are going to do for sure. And so
20:03
Speaker 4: you know, big business doesn't like that because it's something
20:05
Speaker 4: less predictable. And they also don't like, as a general matter,
20:10
Speaker 4: an even playing field, I mean, the bargaining power you're
20:14
Speaker 4: other than picking different types of coverages. If you go
20:17
Speaker 4: to buy automobile insurance, you're not going to be able to.
20:21
Speaker 4: First of all, if you read your policy, good luck
20:23
Speaker 4: understanding it's very I mean I've read them for twenty
20:27
Speaker 4: five years, so I know what to look for. But
20:30
Speaker 4: you're not going to go to your agent say I
20:33
Speaker 4: don't like this clause in my policy or this exclusion.
20:37
Speaker 4: Let's negotiate that language. It's not going to happen. So
20:40
Speaker 4: you have this. I mean, the bargaining power ways in
20:44
Speaker 4: favor of the industry, and that holds true for premiums
20:51
Speaker 4: and a lot of other things. But what they can't
20:54
Speaker 4: control is if they violate your civil rights. What a jury,
20:59
Speaker 4: six people one a jury are going to do it.
21:01
Speaker 4: And that leveling of the playing field is disfavored by
21:06
Speaker 4: a big industry.
21:07
Speaker 2: And that's probably.
21:09
Speaker 4: One of the reasons we what is one of the
21:10
Speaker 4: reasons we like trying cases and litigating and kind of
21:14
Speaker 4: standing up for the everyday person or small businesses here
21:17
Speaker 4: in West Virginia, Ohio. And because it gives you pride
21:21
Speaker 4: to be able to, you know, make sure folks rights
21:24
Speaker 4: are vindicated in the face of massive resources.
21:28
Speaker 3: It's Tom Payton from the Peyton Law Firm this morning.
21:30
Speaker 3: You're welcome to give us a call. If you have
21:31
Speaker 3: any questions about the law, you can put the law
21:33
Speaker 3: on your side. Tom Payton is here at threes are
21:35
Speaker 3: a four three four five fifty eight fifty eight three
21:37
Speaker 3: four five fifty eight fifty eight. You can text over questions.
21:39
Speaker 3: The threes are four nine three five five zeros er eight.
21:41
Speaker 3: Let's go to do this.
21:42
Speaker 2: Let's take our break.
21:42
Speaker 3: We'll do that and come back and we'll have the
21:44
Speaker 3: rest of the program for your questions and comments. If
21:46
Speaker 3: you want to get in this morning one ask the
21:48
Speaker 3: lawyer Tom Payton from the Payton Law Firm. Threes are
21:49
Speaker 3: a four three four five fifty eight fifty eight. Threes
21:51
Speaker 3: are a four three four five fifty eight fifty eight.
21:53
Speaker 3: Text he I see your message. We're going to go
21:54
Speaker 3: ahead and take a break and I will have Tom
21:58
Speaker 3: address that when't we come back. So we'll take a
22:00
Speaker 3: break and be back right after this. You're listening to
22:02
Speaker 3: ask the lawyer with Tom Payton from the Paython Law
22:04
Speaker 3: Firm on five eighty see HS The Voice of Charleston.
22:07
Speaker 1: Why do so many West Virginians choose the Peyton Law
22:09
Speaker 1: Firm after an injury? Because Tom and Harvey Payton are
22:12
Speaker 1: from here and they fight for their neighbors every day.
22:16
Speaker 1: When you're dealing with an injury claim, you need experience,
22:19
Speaker 1: straight answers and results you can trust. Don't let insurance
22:22
Speaker 1: companies or out of state firms push you around. Call
22:26
Speaker 1: seven five five fifty five fifty six or visit Peyton
22:29
Speaker 1: Law Firm dot com.
22:30
Speaker 3: The attorney's referenced in this ad our lifelong residents and
22:33
Speaker 3: our license to practice law in the state of West Virginia.
22:37
Speaker 5: They say the kitchen is the heart of the home,
22:39
Speaker 5: So this spring, give yours a heartbeat you'll actually love.
22:43
Speaker 5: We're so much more than floors, from stunning custom cabinetry
22:47
Speaker 5: to elegant granite and courts countertops. Our local design experts
22:51
Speaker 5: are ready to help you plan the ultimate kitchen transformation.
22:55
Speaker 5: Come visit the area's leading design center to bring your
22:58
Speaker 5: vision to life. Visit our show room at two one
23:01
Speaker 5: New Golf Mountain Road and Cross Lanes, Nitro Carbon and
23:04
Speaker 5: Design Center. Beautiful Kitchens made Easy.
23:22
Speaker 3: It's about fifteen minutes now to the top of the hour.
23:24
Speaker 3: You're listening to five adwhs the Voice of Charleston. This
23:27
Speaker 3: is asked the lawyer Tom Payton this year from the
23:29
Speaker 3: Pathon Law Firm, and we are talking this morning about
23:32
Speaker 3: whatever you want to talk about. And that brings us
23:34
Speaker 3: back to the text line. We did get a text
23:36
Speaker 3: message just as we were going to break a moment ago,
23:39
Speaker 3: and this was from the three zero four three eight nine,
23:44
Speaker 3: Good morning, quick two cents two quick cents worth comments
23:48
Speaker 3: on state workers' rights being taken away. Didn't catch it
23:51
Speaker 3: all on the news, so that comes from Jojoe. We
23:54
Speaker 3: did get your question here, so yeah, we did run
23:56
Speaker 3: across that information to the comments on that Nick.
23:58
Speaker 2: We'll get into that.
23:59
Speaker 4: I want to hit them the Country Roads, oh yeah, real quick,
24:02
Speaker 4: just because you know, I'm a soccer fan. Actually was
24:04
Speaker 4: out until almost midnight last night playing indoor soccer in
24:08
Speaker 4: our league and our team, Peyton Law Firm's team won
24:10
Speaker 4: the championship. But any event, it's funny because you know,
24:14
Speaker 4: we got tons of fanfare when the Mountaineer baseball team
24:17
Speaker 4: was doing so well and they played Country Roads at
24:19
Speaker 4: the conclusion of the games.
24:20
Speaker 2: We win.
24:21
Speaker 4: And I noticed the last two games in the World Cup,
24:25
Speaker 4: the US men's national team is playing and singing country
24:30
Speaker 4: conclusion of their games, which is it's an international song.
24:35
Speaker 4: But that's pretty amazing and it just kind of came
24:39
Speaker 4: out of the blue. The players I think, suggested some
24:43
Speaker 4: songs and somebody just said, well, it's just I can't
24:46
Speaker 4: help to think it. You know, dovetails right into it
24:50
Speaker 4: being played for the Mountaineers during the great baseball run
24:53
Speaker 4: we had, and it's been in some news articles that
24:56
Speaker 4: we play it in relation to the World Cup games
24:59
Speaker 4: for US men's national although they did cost University of
25:02
Speaker 4: West Virginia games instead of West Virginia University. But anyway, yeah,
25:08
Speaker 4: so good question. What most I think teachers have their
25:13
Speaker 4: own systems, so it's still in place, but most non
25:18
Speaker 4: probationary state employees have the protection of a civil service
25:27
Speaker 4: type administrative process. So if you have a problem at work,
25:34
Speaker 4: you think you weren't promoted and somebody else less qualified
25:39
Speaker 4: was promoted, or you have an issue with pay or
25:42
Speaker 4: even harassment or conditions at work, if you're a state employee,
25:49
Speaker 4: you weren't completely at will.
25:52
Speaker 2: So most private.
25:53
Speaker 4: Employees that aren't don't have written contracts or not a
25:57
Speaker 4: member of a union where you have a collective bargaining agreement,
25:59
Speaker 4: which is a same an employment contract in West Virginia
26:02
Speaker 4: are what they call at will employees, So you can
26:05
Speaker 4: be you can quit any time you want no consequence,
26:09
Speaker 4: but you can also be separated from employment for no
26:13
Speaker 4: reason at all. There doesn't have to be good cause.
26:16
Speaker 4: It can be a wrong reason. It could be a
26:21
Speaker 4: you know, your employer thought you stole something, but it
26:23
Speaker 4: turns out you didn't, so they fired you. Well, even
26:27
Speaker 4: though they're wrong, if you're an at will employee, you
26:29
Speaker 4: don't really have a case for wrongful termination. It has
26:32
Speaker 4: to be, uh, you have to prove it was a
26:35
Speaker 4: reason that's violation of law based on race, gender, disability,
26:41
Speaker 4: maybe whistleblower depending on the situation, things like that age.
26:46
Speaker 4: But if it's just bad or incorrect decisions by you know,
26:53
Speaker 4: your employer, you don't really have a case. So take that.
26:56
Speaker 4: And then as far as state employees, at least till recently, uh,
27:02
Speaker 4: they had an administrative process. So if you let's take
27:06
Speaker 4: the same example, easy one like say you're accused of
27:09
Speaker 4: stealing something at work. UH, turns out, oh, it was
27:13
Speaker 4: a mistake, you didn't steal it, but your employer won't
27:18
Speaker 4: hire you back. You can file a grievance process. Agrievance
27:22
Speaker 4: is just kind of a I mean it kind of
27:25
Speaker 4: defines itself, but it's found an administrative complaint and just
27:29
Speaker 4: the civil service system then starts an internal process. And
27:33
Speaker 4: and even like harassment and things like that were defined
27:38
Speaker 4: by regulations and state code for state employees so that
27:42
Speaker 4: they would have some protection and from things, you know,
27:47
Speaker 4: from Basically the political changeover I think is a big
27:51
Speaker 4: big deal. You get administrations that will just let people
27:54
Speaker 4: go because they don't just want who they want in there.
27:59
Speaker 4: Protects from nepaty things like that in government. But over
28:04
Speaker 4: the last two legislative sessions, I think last year, I
28:08
Speaker 4: mean twenty twenty five, they removed as I understand, I
28:13
Speaker 4: haven't read the bill in detail, but they removed those
28:16
Speaker 4: civil service type protections from I think three or four
28:19
Speaker 4: state agencies. Then, as the Texter kind of alluded to it,
28:25
Speaker 4: kind of went under the radar, but then they applied.
28:28
Speaker 4: They removed them from a couple other agencies this twenty
28:32
Speaker 4: twenty six legislative session, including the Department of what used
28:37
Speaker 4: to be the Department of Health and Human Resources maybe
28:39
Speaker 4: Department of Human Services or something now, which is a
28:43
Speaker 4: massive agency. So if you're a CPS work child protective
28:49
Speaker 4: service worker for example, and you thought you retreated unfairly
28:52
Speaker 4: at work. You think maybe oh, somebody's buddy replaced me
29:00
Speaker 4: or was promoted over me. You could file an internal
29:04
Speaker 4: grievance and go through a process where you could vindicate
29:07
Speaker 4: your rights. As I understand, that's been removed now. So
29:11
Speaker 4: it's under the guise of we'll get better employees. We
29:16
Speaker 4: won't have the government will not have this roadblock to
29:22
Speaker 4: letting people go. And I think it's a bad thing.
29:26
Speaker 4: I think it's not gonna turn out. Well, it's going
29:29
Speaker 4: to probably. I mean, no systems perfect, but removing those
29:33
Speaker 4: protections is going to cause more turnover, which I don't
29:38
Speaker 4: think is good longet of you have employment. I mean,
29:42
Speaker 4: it's not good if you have an inconfident employee that
29:44
Speaker 4: just keeps hanging on. But again, you can always find
29:49
Speaker 4: examples of the exception to the rule. But I think
29:51
Speaker 4: overall the civil service system is for state employees was important,
29:56
Speaker 4: is important, and it's new this not having it in place.
30:01
Speaker 4: I'm not sure it's even gone into effect yet. If
30:04
Speaker 4: it passed this session, the DHS when may go and
30:06
Speaker 4: effect in July ninety days from passage, probably, but we'll
30:12
Speaker 4: just have to have to see how it plays out.
30:14
Speaker 4: I don't it's it's it's as many state employees we have. Yeah,
30:18
Speaker 4: it's it's it's important. And I've handled grievances from don't
30:22
Speaker 4: do a whole lot of them, but I've handled them
30:23
Speaker 4: from time to time, and it it gives Uh, it
30:26
Speaker 4: is a process, and it takes some state resources. Ultimately
30:29
Speaker 4: you get up to a administratively, you get to actually
30:31
Speaker 4: a third party hearing examiner normally a lawyer that kind
30:34
Speaker 4: of acts as the administrative judge and rules on it.
30:37
Speaker 4: And if you don't like that, you can appeal to
30:39
Speaker 4: circuit court. But with the removal of these protections, it's
30:43
Speaker 4: going to go back. I think it will go back
30:46
Speaker 4: to generally there's employees will essentially be at will, and
30:51
Speaker 4: so we'll see how that plays out. I don't think
30:53
Speaker 4: it's a good policy move in the long run, but uh,
30:57
Speaker 4: you know, it could be wrong, but I think that
31:00
Speaker 4: protection for employees was important and important for consistency, longevity,
31:04
Speaker 4: and it also prevented, you know, taking advantage of of
31:13
Speaker 4: certain you know, new administrations coming in and just pushing
31:16
Speaker 4: people around to maybe me on a whim, hire somebody
31:21
Speaker 4: else that they might claim is more well qualified, but
31:24
Speaker 4: maybe also has a relationship with the person doing the hiring.
31:27
Speaker 3: This seems to me a little bit to be on
31:28
Speaker 3: the same kind of vibe as the attack on the
31:30
Speaker 3: quote unquote Deep State, but more at a local level.
31:33
Speaker 3: I mean, we're really talking mostly about you know, employees, clerks,
31:37
Speaker 3: different things like that. And again this is just me
31:39
Speaker 3: looking at it. To me, I think it is good
31:43
Speaker 3: to have somebody that's been in place for ten or
31:44
Speaker 3: fifteen years in something like CPS or something. Now, obviously,
31:47
Speaker 3: performance reviews make sure you're doing your job and things
31:50
Speaker 3: like that, but institutional knowledge on something that's that important
31:53
Speaker 3: seems like something that should carry over from administration to
31:57
Speaker 3: administration and so forth, because you need that sort of ballast.
32:00
Speaker 3: It seems like it, and it worries me a little
32:03
Speaker 3: bit that suddenly somebody can come in clear out and
32:05
Speaker 3: you can almost get activist employees in situations that maybe
32:10
Speaker 3: don't even understand the nuances that somebody with ten or
32:13
Speaker 3: fifteen years of experience in that same space might know.
32:15
Speaker 2: Sure, you got a couple of things.
32:16
Speaker 4: One you might get an employee in there that you
32:18
Speaker 4: know is more kind of a politically political hire. I mean,
32:22
Speaker 4: I think that's part of the concern too. Certainly, Yes,
32:26
Speaker 4: longevity of employment is having employees with some longevity.
32:30
Speaker 2: I mean, like we do it.
32:32
Speaker 4: You know at the Peyton Lawfern, we don't have a
32:33
Speaker 4: whole lot of turnover, and I think it helps our office.
32:37
Speaker 2: I mean, if you.
32:38
Speaker 4: Need to get employees that have been around for a
32:41
Speaker 4: while up to speed on something or trained on something new,
32:43
Speaker 4: you can do that. But having that consistency knowing how
32:47
Speaker 4: things work practically in a in a business or or
32:52
Speaker 4: even a government program, I mean that's you You're going
32:59
Speaker 4: to miss things and you if you don't have those
33:03
Speaker 4: type of employees there, as opposed to throwing new employees in
33:06
Speaker 4: learning the system and not knowing how it works practically.
33:11
Speaker 4: It's one thing to read a rule or regulation or
33:16
Speaker 4: be told a process. It's a whole different thing to
33:19
Speaker 4: have lived through it and gone through it in practice
33:21
Speaker 4: for a number of years and they'll get you know,
33:24
Speaker 4: there's of course it's hard to fire incompetent state employees.
33:28
Speaker 4: You'll hear that and it's like, well, it's really not
33:32
Speaker 4: that hard. I mean if I've been through them, and
33:35
Speaker 4: it's it's mostly good cause type standard versus at will
33:39
Speaker 4: which is just people can be fired for no reason
33:42
Speaker 4: at all, and you know the civil service system is
33:49
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't think it was a real roadblock
33:52
Speaker 4: to getting rid of or separating from employment problem employees
33:57
Speaker 4: or somebody who's just not confident to handle the job.
33:59
Speaker 3: I have like thirty years experience in management, and my
34:01
Speaker 3: opinion on this is usually when you're trying to address
34:05
Speaker 3: something on that end of things, if you're a proper
34:08
Speaker 3: manager and you're doing things progressively, you should never have problem,
34:11
Speaker 3: even in a protected situation like that and dismissing an
34:13
Speaker 3: employee that's not doing their job because you have performance reviews,
34:16
Speaker 3: you have write ups and different things along those lines,
34:17
Speaker 3: and so you have massive amount of evidence when it
34:20
Speaker 3: comes to, hey, I needed to dismiss this employee. Here's
34:22
Speaker 3: all my reasons. I think what happens is management is lazy.
34:25
Speaker 3: They don't document, they don't do the things that they're
34:27
Speaker 3: supposed to do with performance reviews, and then they just decide, man,
34:29
Speaker 3: this person's not doing their job. Then you try to
34:32
Speaker 3: fire somebody and you're like, for what reason? And I
34:34
Speaker 3: think if you do your job on the front end
34:35
Speaker 3: of things as a manager, even in that kind of position.
34:37
Speaker 3: There's really not much of a barrier to parting ways
34:40
Speaker 3: with a bad employee, right, I.
34:42
Speaker 4: Agree with that, And you know, or the management doesn't
34:45
Speaker 4: want to go through the basic civil service process, right
34:49
Speaker 4: because they don't want to spend resources on it, or
34:53
Speaker 4: they're afraid of it. But it's not most I think
34:57
Speaker 4: you have various levels of that grievance process. You mostly
35:01
Speaker 4: go back and meet with the employer, maybe mediate have
35:03
Speaker 4: a settlement conference, and then you get to have a
35:06
Speaker 4: hearing before administrative law judge, which you know, Ken, I've
35:09
Speaker 4: had them take multiple days before depending on how complicated
35:12
Speaker 4: it is. But if management has good calls and backup
35:18
Speaker 4: data like you're talking about documented, then in most cases
35:23
Speaker 4: they'll be permitted. If it was a if it really
35:27
Speaker 4: was based on job performance, I've not seen the civil
35:32
Speaker 4: service system result in incompetent employees continuing to be employed
35:37
Speaker 4: when management does its job and follows through to the
35:41
Speaker 4: fullest extent.
35:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a complicated matter, that's for sure. We've got
35:45
Speaker 3: a about forty five seconds left here, Tom. If you
35:47
Speaker 3: want to get folks out, tell them a little bit
35:49
Speaker 3: about the Peton Law firm. We have four we have
35:50
Speaker 3: to leave the yar waye today.
35:51
Speaker 4: Yeah, we talked about kind of employment law this morning.
35:53
Speaker 4: We don't talk about that a lot, but we do
35:55
Speaker 4: do some wrong for termination cases. And if you think
35:59
Speaker 4: you have initial work maybe a wage an hour issue,
36:02
Speaker 4: or you're wrongfully terminated or discriminated against because you foud
36:06
Speaker 4: a worker's comp claim, those are the kind of things
36:08
Speaker 4: we can address pretty quickly. You can send us an email,
36:10
Speaker 4: maybe give us a summary, and get them back back
36:13
Speaker 4: to you. If we take those cases, they're all contingency fee,
36:15
Speaker 4: so you're not going to pay us anything unless less
36:18
Speaker 4: we prevail. Have a lot of people inquire it just
36:20
Speaker 4: don't end up having cases. Maybe they were treated unfairly,
36:23
Speaker 4: but they don't really have a viable cause of action.
36:25
Speaker 2: So but if you want to get ahold.
36:27
Speaker 4: Of us at the office, you can call us at
36:29
Speaker 4: three zero four seven five five five five five six.
36:33
Speaker 4: You can also just stop by if we're available. I'll
36:35
Speaker 4: talk to you, but more likely you'll talk to staff.
36:38
Speaker 2: They'll take some.
36:38
Speaker 4: Information, your number, maybe an email, and we'll get back
36:42
Speaker 4: with you. And we're at twenty eight oh one First Avenue.
36:44
Speaker 4: First Avenue is like remain dragged through Nitro just a
36:47
Speaker 4: couple of minutes off off the interstate, about fifteen to
36:50
Speaker 4: twenty minute drive from downtown Charleston. Then, of course, like
36:53
Speaker 4: we've alluded to, you can go through our website at
36:56
Speaker 4: Peyton Law Firm dot com.
36:57
Speaker 2: So a lot of ways that communicate.
37:00
Speaker 5: Uh.
37:00
Speaker 2: Enjoy talking to folks.
37:02
Speaker 4: So if you don't get a response, it's not because
37:04
Speaker 4: we are ignoring you. We've probably overlooked something, or we've
37:07
Speaker 4: gotten busy in a trial or something like that. So
37:09
Speaker 4: you just just follow up once or twice and we
37:11
Speaker 4: will we will tell you what we think.
37:14
Speaker 3: Peyton Law Firms. These are A four seven five five
37:16
Speaker 3: andy five fifty six. The threes are A four seven
37:17
Speaker 3: five five fifty.
37:18
Speaker 2: Five afty six.
37:19
Speaker 3: We got to go leave the airways. David Allen's up
37:20
Speaker 3: next for five ADWCCHS The Boys at Charleston.
37:25
Speaker 1: Five Edwhsam ninty six point five, then Charleston one oh
37:28
Speaker 1: four point five Cross Lane on WVRC Media station. We
37:33
Speaker 1: are proud to live here too,