Latest / Ask the Lawyer / 04/16/2026 Ask the Lawyer with Tom Peyton

Transcript

04/16/2026 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 ADWCHS it's
0:06
Speaker 1: employees or WVRC media.
0:09
Speaker 2: Of Courts Oh created equal, Well mass come here and
0:20
Speaker 2: a Kate ray Can robson.
0:43
Speaker 3: It's a twenty two on five ad WCS the Voice
0:46
Speaker 3: of Charleston. I'm Jeff Jenkins with you this morning, and
0:51
Speaker 3: this is us the lawyer with the Peyton Law Firm
0:55
Speaker 3: in Nitro Harvey and Tom Peyton will be joining us
0:58
Speaker 3: in just a second, and you can give us a
1:00
Speaker 3: call three oh four three four five fifty eight fifty eight.
1:03
Speaker 3: Three oh four three four five fifty eight fifty eight,
1:07
Speaker 3: three oh four three four five fifty eight fifty eight,
1:10
Speaker 3: and we'll be able to ask them some questions and
1:14
Speaker 3: get what's on their minds this morning.
1:17
Speaker 1: Here on five.
1:18
Speaker 3: ETWCHS the Voice of Charleston, Jeff Jenkins setting in for
1:22
Speaker 3: Dale Cooper today and here he comes.
1:26
Speaker 1: Right on.
1:27
Speaker 4: Cue.
1:27
Speaker 3: Tom Payton is gonna sit down here, all right, we'll
1:30
Speaker 3: get started. We are on the area. Comes running in.
1:35
Speaker 3: He's ready. Good oh waiting a second?
1:37
Speaker 4: Good morning, sir, Good morning jee, How you doing?
1:40
Speaker 3: It's me today all right, Greg to spend It wasn't
1:43
Speaker 3: me for forty minutes.
1:45
Speaker 4: I wasn't late. I went to the new studio. I
1:47
Speaker 4: thought we were over there.
1:48
Speaker 3: Oh okay, that's fine, that's fine. That's where I missed you. Okay,
1:51
Speaker 3: all right, we crossed, so to be You're good to
1:53
Speaker 3: see you, Good to see you. What's going on all
1:55
Speaker 3: just the usual stuff. We're plowing along at the Peyton
1:58
Speaker 3: Law Firm.
1:59
Speaker 4: Weather's good, so everybody's in a great mood and everybody's
2:03
Speaker 4: getting out and getting active. So lots of stuff going
2:06
Speaker 4: on around uh here, locally in the in the legal field.
2:11
Speaker 4: Really the I can't remember if this came about before
2:14
Speaker 4: the show. Last week when Dad was on, we got
2:16
Speaker 4: the more legal wranglings involving the Greenbrier. Yeah, so it's
2:26
Speaker 4: it's uh yeah, it's a saga. It feels like I'm
2:32
Speaker 4: a broken record repeating it. But but it's had a
2:36
Speaker 4: turn of events that are kind of interesting over the
2:38
Speaker 4: last week so or two. So, you know, we not
2:43
Speaker 4: to rehash too much, but you know, the Greenbrier has
2:45
Speaker 4: is and its affiliated properties or security for a loan
2:51
Speaker 4: or loans that are to the tune of hundreds of
2:55
Speaker 4: millions of dollars around three hundred. Yeah, it's not probably
2:59
Speaker 4: a moving depending on if any payments are made or
3:02
Speaker 4: interest continues to accrue. But that was owned by Carter Bank,
3:08
Speaker 4: which has apparently a long history dealing with the Justice
3:12
Speaker 4: family and the and the Greenbrier. Maybe the initial principle
3:17
Speaker 4: was even a friend of Governor Justice, and I think
3:20
Speaker 4: there was some reference to him talking at his funeral
3:23
Speaker 4: or something like that, So, which is fine. It was
3:27
Speaker 4: like kind of like the old days of small banks
3:29
Speaker 4: and you know, handshakes, and but that's with this type
3:33
Speaker 4: of money. I mean, that's not really reality in modern
3:37
Speaker 4: times because you have a lot of compliance regulations and
3:41
Speaker 4: things like that relating to lenders. So what happened in
3:46
Speaker 4: the last few weeks is it is another entity bought
3:51
Speaker 4: that debt basically, which ordinarily it can be negotiated, but
3:56
Speaker 4: rarely is because usually the borrower isn't a position to
4:00
Speaker 4: negotiate the core terms of a of a promisory note,
4:05
Speaker 4: but to the bar really can't control whether their creditor
4:10
Speaker 4: sells the debt or not. But now I can't sell
4:14
Speaker 4: the debt to a creditor and have that new creditor
4:16
Speaker 4: have better terms than the original one. So theoretically the
4:21
Speaker 4: borrower is still in the same position. Now the new
4:25
Speaker 4: creditor can maybe start enforcing provisions of those debt documents
4:31
Speaker 4: that maybe the original creditor wasn't doing. And that's what
4:35
Speaker 4: I think we're seeing here. And of course, the new
4:37
Speaker 4: creditor that bought the debt is a I don't know
4:42
Speaker 4: if you'd call it a subsidiary, but an affiliate company
4:45
Speaker 4: of the I think it's Rallyings Rollings. I'm not sure
4:50
Speaker 4: the owners of the Omni Hotels group, and I think
4:54
Speaker 4: they own and run the homestead, and so they've taken
4:59
Speaker 4: more aggress of action. And you've got to go back,
5:01
Speaker 4: and you know, the Greenbrier was basically in bankruptcy status
5:07
Speaker 4: I think when Jim Justice bought it, so it obviously
5:10
Speaker 4: wasn't successful from a financial standpoint at that point. And
5:17
Speaker 4: I don't know about the previous enters and their practices,
5:19
Speaker 4: but you know, it was, it was. It was a difficult.
5:24
Speaker 4: I mean, I kind of felt like when Jim Justice bot, well,
5:25
Speaker 4: here's a billionaire from West Virginia. He'll just subsidize the
5:30
Speaker 4: operations and make it nice and maybe one day it'll
5:35
Speaker 4: get profitable, and it looks like, you know, the last
5:38
Speaker 4: what seventeen years, that just hasn't happened for the reasons.
5:43
Speaker 4: And but the new lender or creditor has taken some
5:53
Speaker 4: fairly aggressive action, which is uh to file a lawsuit
5:57
Speaker 4: in federal court asking that a receiver be appointed. And
6:01
Speaker 4: that's not rare but also not real common with debt
6:08
Speaker 4: collection actions. And as you can imagine, and and Brad
6:12
Speaker 4: mclheney's put it on I think w E Metro News.
6:15
Speaker 4: I mean, they're there's been relief to the borrowers along
6:20
Speaker 4: maybe extending or signing new agreements. I mean it was
6:23
Speaker 4: like what bearing a lot of amendments to the original
6:28
Speaker 4: lending documents. But and when you you know it's a
6:34
Speaker 4: commercial transaction. What I mean by that is if you
6:37
Speaker 4: go and borrow money for your home, like your home mortgage,
6:40
Speaker 4: or a car, or any other any other loan you
6:44
Speaker 4: get for your kind of personal or family use versus
6:47
Speaker 4: a business use, there are protections out there, predatory lending protections, laws,
6:54
Speaker 4: regulations that help protect the consumer generally, because the idea
6:59
Speaker 4: is that you know, this large lender, the bargaining power
7:03
Speaker 4: is not even I mean mostly it's take it or
7:06
Speaker 4: leave it type terms. When you're trying to you know,
7:08
Speaker 4: with a credit card, for example, you're not gonna call
7:11
Speaker 4: Visa or whatever the bank is that runs that credit
7:13
Speaker 4: card and negotiate down your interest rate most of the time.
7:17
Speaker 4: You know, that's just not the way it works. So
7:19
Speaker 4: those now in a commercial transaction, which is what this is.
7:24
Speaker 4: There's some exceptions, but a lot of times, you know,
7:28
Speaker 4: when you or a commercial entity, a large one, and
7:32
Speaker 4: you have lawyers on hand and professionals running it, you're
7:35
Speaker 4: pretty well bound by what you sign. I mean, it's
7:37
Speaker 4: presumed you read what you sign, and we know in reality,
7:40
Speaker 4: to me, Jim Justice sit down and read what a
7:43
Speaker 4: ninety page for barons agreement or something, I.
7:45
Speaker 1: Kind of doubt it.
7:46
Speaker 4: He might have. He probably has people that read that
7:49
Speaker 4: for him. And it also sounds like they're a little
7:53
Speaker 4: bit over the barrel in a way. So you're probably
7:55
Speaker 4: signing whatever you can to keep this debt from being
8:00
Speaker 4: foreclosed on or more aggressive collection efforts. So within those
8:05
Speaker 4: documents there is the opportunity for the lender if there's
8:10
Speaker 4: default two foreclose not collect collection efforts. And and ultimately
8:17
Speaker 4: you have to think of it as the Greenbrier and
8:19
Speaker 4: and I think it's also the one of the justice
8:23
Speaker 4: families personal assets as well all service collateral for this
8:30
Speaker 4: large debt. So think about the lender, Well, we've got
8:34
Speaker 4: to make sure our collateral is preserved because that's the
8:39
Speaker 4: only way we kind of know we can recover something
8:43
Speaker 4: via foreclosure, sale or whatnot. So what they've done is
8:48
Speaker 4: filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking the I'm not
8:53
Speaker 4: sure which judge it got to sound to, Okay, Judge Volgue.
8:56
Speaker 4: So they've asked the judge to a point, a receiver.
9:00
Speaker 4: I'm not sure they've asked for more than that in
9:02
Speaker 4: the lawsuit at this point. But a receiver is where
9:07
Speaker 4: the court will appoint someone oftentimes who has experienced in
9:11
Speaker 4: that in the field of the of the business collateral,
9:16
Speaker 4: so like operating a maybe a casino, hotel, resort, that
9:21
Speaker 4: kind of thing. Uh, and that person in essence manages
9:26
Speaker 4: it to make sure that the collateral isn't there's not
9:29
Speaker 4: waste committed. And and that's what the creditor has asked
9:34
Speaker 4: the court to do. And they've recited some some things
9:39
Speaker 4: that I don't really have knowledge of. I mean, there's
9:42
Speaker 4: allegations that you know, the the Greenbrier is under capitalized.
9:47
Speaker 4: It doesn't have cash on hand to maintain operations. I mean,
9:51
Speaker 4: if you ask, in a perfect world, there should be
9:53
Speaker 4: reserves in cash to cover so many months of operations.
9:57
Speaker 4: I mean, that's a good business practice. It doesn't happen
9:59
Speaker 4: in reality a lot of times. But so there are
10:03
Speaker 4: a legend there's been cash whereasset's filtered off, you know,
10:06
Speaker 4: to justice, either personally or to other business entities. And
10:12
Speaker 4: of course there's a gazillion business entities because they that's
10:15
Speaker 4: just the way it works. I mean, you've seen the pleading.
10:19
Speaker 4: So there's there's like twenty different companies all affiliated, you know,
10:22
Speaker 4: with mostly with the same principal owners and operators. But
10:27
Speaker 4: that's what they've asked the court to do. So I
10:32
Speaker 4: don't I don't know about whether there's been money kind
10:35
Speaker 4: of filtered away from the Greenbrier Resort to other entities
10:39
Speaker 4: when it shouldn't have been. Now, there's some things we
10:42
Speaker 4: do know, and I think will be when they go
10:47
Speaker 4: for a hearing before it juts. It's going to be
10:49
Speaker 4: difficult to explain. And you know, the Greenbrier, if you
10:54
Speaker 4: haven't been there, you've heard of it. So you know,
10:56
Speaker 4: of course it's a hotel and there's various outdoor and
10:59
Speaker 4: recreational activities you can do. But you know, they have
11:03
Speaker 4: bars there, they have a casino there. Last time I
11:06
Speaker 4: was there was for I don't really I don't go
11:09
Speaker 4: to the Green Brier volunteer, I mean volunteer on my
11:12
Speaker 4: I don't put my but I go for there's conferences
11:15
Speaker 4: and things I have to attend in the State bar.
11:17
Speaker 4: I'm on the board there and we went I guess
11:20
Speaker 4: maybe last spring, and honestly, the casino wasn't and the
11:25
Speaker 4: bar down there, I don't know if it's getting a
11:29
Speaker 4: five star rating anymore. The Green Briar not no, okay, yeah,
11:33
Speaker 4: because it was not the service and atmosphere and you
11:39
Speaker 4: know you had like a roulette table that that's the
11:43
Speaker 4: thing where the wheel spins, and I mean there's a
11:46
Speaker 4: there's a boardlet up, so if you're not looking right
11:47
Speaker 4: down at the wheel that was broken, it wasn't on,
11:51
Speaker 4: you know, and didn't look like it had been in
11:52
Speaker 4: a while, and just things not available. So I don't
11:57
Speaker 4: know how much money there, but I do know this
11:59
Speaker 4: from serving on boards of some nonprofit retail type establishments
12:03
Speaker 4: that your margins, meaning your profit margins on sales alcohol
12:11
Speaker 4: is a pretty good one for a retailer. Gambling is
12:16
Speaker 4: a pretty good one. I'm more familiar with the I mean,
12:19
Speaker 4: I do some work for small businesses that have limited
12:22
Speaker 4: video lottery in their establishments, and I know that really
12:25
Speaker 4: keeps them going a lot of times as opposed to
12:27
Speaker 4: selling beer and sandwiches and pop and things like that.
12:32
Speaker 4: But so what we do know is that over the
12:35
Speaker 4: last I don't know, a year and a half to
12:36
Speaker 4: two years, the Greenbrier entities have not been remitting their
12:41
Speaker 4: sales tax. And we've talked about it, but just to rehash,
12:47
Speaker 4: so when I go to the Greenbrier, if I go again,
12:52
Speaker 4: on my invoice for let's say a sandwich and a
12:58
Speaker 4: pop or a pepsi, there's going to be added I
13:01
Speaker 4: think six percent. If you're in certain muspitalities, maybe seven
13:05
Speaker 4: isn't on food well anyway, but it's they collected. It's
13:11
Speaker 4: the retailer just is a trustee for that money and
13:14
Speaker 4: is to remit it then to the state at regular intervals,
13:17
Speaker 4: which I can't every thirty days, I think. So what's
13:22
Speaker 4: happened over the last two years is the state tax
13:27
Speaker 4: department has. It's kind of an automatic thing. But you know,
13:31
Speaker 4: they can file lians without winning lawsuits and getting judgments
13:36
Speaker 4: like normal people can. So we've seen these liens be
13:39
Speaker 4: filed in the record room where deeds are recording. Those
13:41
Speaker 4: lians then immediately attach as leans to all real estate
13:47
Speaker 4: interests of the entity that didn't remit their sales tax,
13:51
Speaker 4: and I think at one point it might have been
13:54
Speaker 4: over a million dollars if you add them all up.
13:56
Speaker 4: The older ones have kind of slowly been withdrawn, which
13:59
Speaker 4: meaning means they're getting paid. But according to Brad's report,
14:04
Speaker 4: just in the last month, there was one that was
14:06
Speaker 4: almost a half or yeah, almost a half million dollars.
14:10
Speaker 4: It was close to five hundred thousand dollars just filed recently.
14:16
Speaker 4: And that's problematic for multiple reasons. One may can be
14:21
Speaker 4: a crime. I mean, there's just nobody seems to be
14:24
Speaker 4: prosecuting it or doing anything about it from a I
14:29
Speaker 4: guess law enforcement standpoint. But in the Greenbrier, that amount
14:34
Speaker 4: is an amount that is based on the Greenbrier's sales
14:39
Speaker 4: and presumably money they collected, and that's not supposed to
14:43
Speaker 4: be used for other things like for anything. It's supposed
14:45
Speaker 4: to be passed along one to the state, the state
14:50
Speaker 4: consumer sales tax, and not to be used for other
14:54
Speaker 4: operating expenses, which appears it obviously we don't know what
14:59
Speaker 4: other option there is, and they've been using those funds
15:02
Speaker 4: for things that they're not supposed to use them for.
15:06
Speaker 4: Of course, if I got the Greenberger and it's like, well,
15:08
Speaker 4: you know, maybe you ought to just not charge me
15:11
Speaker 4: sales tax and I'll pay my tax directly to the
15:15
Speaker 4: government here. You know, it's just because it would bother me,
15:18
Speaker 4: you know, to know that, because those rooms are expensive
15:21
Speaker 4: me They're hundreds and hundreds of dollars a night, and
15:23
Speaker 4: and and well, where's my six percent going? It's you know,
15:27
Speaker 4: I'm afraid if I pay you, it's not going to
15:29
Speaker 4: ever get to where it's supposed to be. But going
15:32
Speaker 4: back to we'll just call it the the omni wanning
15:38
Speaker 4: a receiver. This whole thing about diverting cash and under
15:41
Speaker 4: capitalizing it, I don't I don't have knowledge of that,
15:44
Speaker 4: but I do know that both the Lottery Commission and
15:50
Speaker 4: the Alcohol Beverage Control Commission for the state operate on
15:53
Speaker 4: fiscal year. So once you get your initial light and
15:56
Speaker 4: you got to go jump through a lot of hoops.
15:57
Speaker 4: I've done it for entities where I was helping manage.
16:01
Speaker 4: But once you get your liquor beer license, and once
16:04
Speaker 4: you get your lottery license, you just have to do
16:07
Speaker 4: a renewal every year. And it's ordinarly not real com
16:10
Speaker 4: You fill out a form, pay a fee if they
16:13
Speaker 4: get it in in time. June thirtieth, I think is
16:16
Speaker 4: the deadline. But both the Lottery Commission and the ABC
16:22
Speaker 4: Alcohol Beverage Control Commission are cross linked to things like
16:30
Speaker 4: the Insurance Commission's Office on Workers' Compensation, the State Tax Department,
16:34
Speaker 4: and so when you send those renewals in, they don't
16:39
Speaker 4: do a whole lot of betting of it. I think
16:40
Speaker 4: because it's a renewal, you don't have to have a
16:43
Speaker 4: whole new background check or anything like that. But they
16:46
Speaker 4: cross reference with those other entities and like the State
16:51
Speaker 4: Tax Department in this case, and if you're not in
16:54
Speaker 4: good standing, they want renew your liquor license or your
16:59
Speaker 4: lottery license. Now I don't know how Like last summer,
17:04
Speaker 4: I'm not really sure how the Greenbrier continued to operate
17:09
Speaker 4: because I've seen small businesses that I know or have
17:12
Speaker 4: done work for well, all of a sudden they don't
17:15
Speaker 4: have any beer in their taps. Well, it's because they
17:18
Speaker 4: didn't pay their workers. They don't they don't have evidence
17:20
Speaker 4: there in good standing with workers compensation, or they got
17:23
Speaker 4: behind on something with the state tax department. And once
17:27
Speaker 4: they cure that problem, then their license will be renewed.
17:31
Speaker 4: But I've seen businesses go without the ability to serve
17:36
Speaker 4: alcohol four months until they get that straightened out. Now,
17:41
Speaker 4: if you so, when when they go to court before
17:45
Speaker 4: Judge Volk, that's going to be a real difficult one
17:48
Speaker 4: to explain because it's on paper, it's objective, and if
17:53
Speaker 4: I was the omni, I'd say, well, look, you know,
17:55
Speaker 4: here's how much we're making off the rooms. But a
17:58
Speaker 4: lot of these people come in is they like to gamble,
18:01
Speaker 4: and when they gamble, like to have a few drinks.
18:04
Speaker 4: And you know this, there's no way to get around
18:08
Speaker 4: the fact that word millions, hundreds of millions of dollars
18:13
Speaker 4: and the state is owed at least hundreds of thousands
18:17
Speaker 4: of dollars in tax they've collected. I mean, Judi Volk,
18:20
Speaker 4: I think would say, well where is this? The rubber
18:23
Speaker 4: might hit the road with this proceeding, because somebody is
18:26
Speaker 4: going to have to show up from the Greenbrier an
18:28
Speaker 4: answer which we'd never heard, an answer you get medium
18:31
Speaker 4: mouse stuff, you know, and all, well, don't worry about that,
18:34
Speaker 4: everything will be fine. Or that's not what regular people
18:37
Speaker 4: get to say. When they don't remit their sales tax,
18:40
Speaker 4: they might get charged. You know, a lot of the
18:42
Speaker 4: politicians love to talk about how they're cutting down on waste,
18:45
Speaker 4: fraud and abuse. This would be one of them. If
18:48
Speaker 4: you're collecting tax from the consumers and then not remitting
18:51
Speaker 4: it like you're supposed to, and using it so you can,
18:54
Speaker 4: I don't know, fly private planes back and forth in
18:56
Speaker 4: DC or whatever. I don't know what they're diverting it for.
19:01
Speaker 4: There's allegations too about not paying employee benefits and things
19:04
Speaker 4: like that, which they're all very serious, but I don't
19:06
Speaker 4: have knowledge of whether that's accate or not. But you know,
19:10
Speaker 4: I expect some principle from the Greenbrier or their lawyer
19:13
Speaker 4: is going to be required to say, well, what gives?
19:16
Speaker 4: How are you going to correct this? Because if you
19:19
Speaker 4: don't reading the law then there might be obviously there's
19:23
Speaker 4: some way to work around it. Maybe negotiate with the government,
19:26
Speaker 4: but it will look like on paper that the Greenbrier
19:29
Speaker 4: won't be able to operate it's casino or serve any
19:34
Speaker 4: beer alcohol or beer liquor coming up into June. So
19:39
Speaker 4: that's a serious concern for a creditor and is to me,
19:44
Speaker 4: you know, pretty good reason to appoint a receiver. And
19:49
Speaker 4: I think that's all they're really asking for in the case,
19:51
Speaker 4: is to point a receiver to preserve the asset that
19:56
Speaker 4: serves as cloud or for this note now you know
19:59
Speaker 4: it's omni. And then we now know because there's been
20:02
Speaker 4: this other lawsuit filed by a local lawsuit. Yet a
20:05
Speaker 4: local lawsuits the counter suit. Yeah, we can go into
20:08
Speaker 4: that a little bit.
20:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, in Greenborough County Circuit Court, this says this whole
20:12
Speaker 3: thing is illegal to sell the debt.
20:15
Speaker 4: Right, which I don't think. Now you can negotiate, you know,
20:20
Speaker 4: with a lender if they're willing the inability to assign
20:23
Speaker 4: or sell the debt. I don't. I haven't seen that
20:27
Speaker 4: in these documents. But again I haven't gone through and
20:29
Speaker 4: with a fine tooth calmb actually what I so, you know,
20:36
Speaker 4: the Justice Entities filed their own lawsuit in the Circuit
20:39
Speaker 4: Court of Greenborough County, which is a state court versus
20:42
Speaker 4: a federal one. I think it's going to get removed
20:45
Speaker 4: to federal court. If all the the plaintiffentities, let's say,
20:50
Speaker 4: are all West Virginia entities, and all of the defendants are.
20:54
Speaker 4: They can be different states, but as long as they're
20:56
Speaker 4: not West Virginia, there's what it's called diversity. Because the
21:00
Speaker 4: plaintiffs and defendants are from different states. That allows the
21:04
Speaker 4: federal court to get jurisdiction. So I suspect that the
21:07
Speaker 4: defendants will remove at the federal court and it'll probably
21:10
Speaker 4: get consolidated with the previously filed federal lawsuit. So well,
21:17
Speaker 4: we'll see where that goes. But I mean, the core
21:19
Speaker 4: of the allegations were there was apparably some negotiations between.
21:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, like last week said that there was a basically
21:26
Speaker 3: a deal that that OMNI was going to have fifty
21:30
Speaker 3: percent control and the Justice but OMNIE would run it
21:33
Speaker 3: run the Greenbrier and the Justice would still be prominent
21:38
Speaker 3: because as I think, the lawsuit said that there were
21:41
Speaker 3: really no other choices for the justices, you know, and
21:44
Speaker 3: so but then they said the deal changed, like the
21:48
Speaker 3: next day they said.
21:49
Speaker 4: Yeah, well I don't when you of course, when you
21:51
Speaker 4: say deal to me, a deal means you have an agreement,
21:56
Speaker 4: and I'm not sure i've seen. I mean, talk about
22:00
Speaker 4: things or negotiating is not an agreement. I mean you
22:03
Speaker 4: gotta have it. What's called a meeting of the.
22:05
Speaker 3: Mind, supposed to have an offer sheet but got never
22:08
Speaker 3: got signed or something.
22:10
Speaker 4: And you know, if nothing's actually signed, there's not details.
22:16
Speaker 4: You can have letters of intent for example, or memorims
22:20
Speaker 4: of understanding. They aren't they don't make somebody go through
22:23
Speaker 4: with a deal. They're kind of preliminaries to kind of
22:28
Speaker 4: allow everybody to do more due diligence, so they're not
22:30
Speaker 4: wasting your time. And I haven't seen any you know,
22:36
Speaker 4: document where that was any type of enforceable agreement that
22:40
Speaker 4: I can tell. Now. The local lawsuit will call it
22:42
Speaker 4: filed by the justice entities, and it'scott allegations that that
22:46
Speaker 4: maybe there was an agreement, or it's actually kind of
22:50
Speaker 4: conspiratorial that you know, the omni folks use their it
22:58
Speaker 4: was all bad faith negotiation just you get insider information
23:01
Speaker 4: about the Greenbrier and steal their trade secrets or something,
23:05
Speaker 4: which I find hard to hard to believe because usually
23:09
Speaker 4: a lender that's controlling hundreds of millions of dollars where
23:13
Speaker 4: the debt has the right to access financials and things
23:17
Speaker 4: like that as a part of their debt agreements. I
23:20
Speaker 4: would say that's in there somewhere. So I don't think
23:23
Speaker 4: a whole lot about the local lawsuit, as you can tell.
23:26
Speaker 4: I mean, I think it's probably not going to get anywhere.
23:28
Speaker 4: It's mostly to me a delay tactic. But I don't
23:34
Speaker 4: have personal knowledge of all the documents and back and forth,
23:37
Speaker 4: but sounds to me like they were in negotiations about
23:42
Speaker 4: a possible resolution and then one side halted those negotiations
23:49
Speaker 4: before any type of final enforceable quot deal or contract
23:54
Speaker 4: was signed or agreed to. Otherwise, where there was a
23:59
Speaker 4: meeting of the minds, meaning personally in person, B understand
24:04
Speaker 4: the terms and they're on the same page, and then
24:06
Speaker 4: that could be enforceable. So I don't I don't see
24:10
Speaker 4: a whole lot there.
24:12
Speaker 3: Well, here's the thing in is Tom Payton's with this
24:15
Speaker 3: a Peaton law firm in Nitro. It is who is
24:20
Speaker 3: going to hold the first hearing? You know, is Volte
24:22
Speaker 3: going to schedule hearing? He doesn't have to he get
24:24
Speaker 3: a re appointed receiver I guess without holding a hearing,
24:26
Speaker 3: but he probably would hold a hearing, or would Greenbroo
24:29
Speaker 3: County judge hold a hearing on this? And they're asking
24:32
Speaker 3: for an injunction and I mean.
24:35
Speaker 4: Well, here's the way it works with removal, so you
24:39
Speaker 4: know they I don't know if the Justice Entities will
24:42
Speaker 4: be able to get a hearing very quickly in Greenbroo
24:44
Speaker 4: County on this. If there is diversity of the parties,
24:51
Speaker 4: which would give federal court jurisdiction over that case, the
24:56
Speaker 4: defendants file a removed They actually file it's called a
24:59
Speaker 4: remove petition in federal court and that stops everything in
25:04
Speaker 4: the state court. So I expect if there are grounds
25:07
Speaker 4: to remove it based on diversity of the parties, it's
25:11
Speaker 4: gonna be done real quick, like anytime now. Still got
25:16
Speaker 4: to be served, and there's multiple entities and all generally
25:20
Speaker 4: the defendants all have to consent to removal, I believe,
25:25
Speaker 4: but it might take a little bit to organize that
25:27
Speaker 4: because there's multiple entities that have been sued individuals. I
25:30
Speaker 4: think they're all just the omni affiliates though, so they
25:32
Speaker 4: won't have any problem getting consent from each other to
25:35
Speaker 4: remove it. But I expect will see that soon like
25:39
Speaker 4: this today, tomorrow or next week would be my guess,
25:43
Speaker 4: and then the Circuit court won't really have an opportunity
25:46
Speaker 4: to hold any hearings of any any meaning. And I
25:50
Speaker 4: think a lot of times in federal court things go
25:53
Speaker 4: out on briefs, mean you don't get to have little
25:56
Speaker 4: argument or show up and argue your case. Judges just
25:58
Speaker 4: rule on them routinely. But I think on this, I mean,
26:01
Speaker 4: a receiver is almost like an injunction in a way
26:04
Speaker 4: where you have to have you know, we've seen a
26:06
Speaker 4: lot of these preliminary injunctions and things where there's there's
26:09
Speaker 4: supposed to be some evidence to support it, whether it's
26:11
Speaker 4: affidavits or oftentimes live testimony. So I think that's what
26:14
Speaker 4: we'll see, or we'll see a concession in some kind
26:18
Speaker 4: of agreement where they ultimately.
26:20
Speaker 3: Do and that's still possible.
26:21
Speaker 4: Yes, that's all sure. And I think there's some complaints
26:25
Speaker 4: about that were prevented from paying on the note or
26:27
Speaker 4: something like that. I don't I don't think there's a
26:30
Speaker 4: prohibition of pre payment in full, and I'm not sure
26:34
Speaker 4: there could be even so I mean, if if the
26:37
Speaker 4: Green Brier Entities want to resolve it and get I mean,
26:40
Speaker 4: Omni entities are just a creditor right now. They don't
26:44
Speaker 4: have an ownership interest in the property. They have a
26:47
Speaker 4: security interest in it security for that note. And so yeah,
26:52
Speaker 4: I mean if the Green Bar, if the Greenbrier Entities
26:54
Speaker 4: or the Justice Entities can come up with whatever the
26:57
Speaker 4: payoff is, they pay it, and I think the whole
27:00
Speaker 4: thing goes away. And they also alluded to that they
27:04
Speaker 4: were trying to borrow some money from some other bank
27:08
Speaker 4: or it's convoluted, you know, supposedly looking at one bank
27:12
Speaker 4: that I'd never heard of, and then that didn't work,
27:14
Speaker 4: so they were looking at a second bank. So it
27:17
Speaker 4: doesn't appear they have you know, three hundred and some
27:20
Speaker 4: million dollars in cash around they can just pay off
27:23
Speaker 4: this note with. But that that's kind of what I
27:28
Speaker 4: thought it was, this debt, and maybe it wasn't. Obviously
27:31
Speaker 4: wasn't the entirety of the debt because Quarterbank still owns it.
27:33
Speaker 4: But when they were on the brink of you know,
27:35
Speaker 4: foreclosure sales of like the Sporting Club, which is the private,
27:40
Speaker 4: you know kind of country club right beside the Greenbrier Hotel.
27:46
Speaker 4: I mean that was on the auction block for foreclosure
27:48
Speaker 4: and then it was saved because but apparently it was
27:50
Speaker 4: just a payment of a lump sum, not payoff of
27:54
Speaker 4: the debt, which which maybe got it back in good
27:56
Speaker 4: enough standing to keep going normally. In the and the
28:02
Speaker 4: in my experienced banks and commercial lenders, they don't really
28:06
Speaker 4: they don't want to foreclosed. I mean, they're not in
28:08
Speaker 4: the business of, you know, real estate development. When they're
28:12
Speaker 4: foreclosure sales, a lot of times you'll have just a
28:14
Speaker 4: local auction a year ago, and so it as is,
28:17
Speaker 4: you don't really get maximum value out of it. They
28:21
Speaker 4: certainly don't want to come in and be operating a
28:25
Speaker 4: massive resort and hotel that is already behind when remitting
28:28
Speaker 4: its consumer sales tax. Now that's a normal lender. Right now,
28:32
Speaker 4: we got one who's in the business of operating resorts,
28:35
Speaker 4: So that's you know, they they obviously have a different
28:38
Speaker 4: attitude and and all. This may just be a way
28:44
Speaker 4: to flex or leverage the justice entities so that the
28:49
Speaker 4: omni affiliates can come in and either own most or
28:54
Speaker 4: at least a substantial portion of the interest in the
28:57
Speaker 4: Greenbrier and run it and they may work something out. Yeah,
29:02
Speaker 4: maybe along the lines of those negotiations they had, but
29:05
Speaker 4: now there's more pressure on the justice entities to maybe
29:11
Speaker 4: concede some points, for example, because if you don't X,
29:14
Speaker 4: Y and zs happening, and obviously these omnifiliates are not
29:18
Speaker 4: messing around right.
29:19
Speaker 3: Where We'll take a break be back with Tom three
29:21
Speaker 3: oh four three four five fifty eight fifty eight. Three
29:23
Speaker 3: oh four, three four five fifty eight fifty eight Back
29:26
Speaker 3: in a moment on five eighty w CCHS.
29:28
Speaker 1: The Rents close out their series with the Giants at
29:30
Speaker 1: twelve thirty on one oh six seven and fourteen ninety WSWW,
29:34
Speaker 1: and a new Let's Talk tonight at seven on five
29:37
Speaker 1: eighty WCHS.
29:39
Speaker 5: Why do so many West Virginians choose the Peyton Law
29:41
Speaker 5: Firm after an injury because Tom and Harvey Payton are
29:44
Speaker 5: from here and they fight for their neighbors every day.
29:48
Speaker 5: When you're dealing with an injury claim, you need experience,
29:51
Speaker 5: straight answers and results you can trust. Don't let insurance
29:54
Speaker 5: companies or out of state firms push you around. Call
29:58
Speaker 5: seven five five fifty five fifty or visit Peyton Lawfirm
30:01
Speaker 5: dot com.
30:02
Speaker 4: The attorney's referenced in this ad our lifelong residents and
30:05
Speaker 4: our license to practice law in the state of West Virginia.
30:09
Speaker 6: According to Feeding America, over seven million seniors nationwide were
30:13
Speaker 6: food insecure in twenty twenty two. West Virginia is no different.
30:17
Speaker 1: Hi.
30:17
Speaker 6: I'm Jason, President and CEO of Union Mission Ministries. For
30:21
Speaker 6: one hundred and thirteen years, Union Mission has focused on
30:23
Speaker 6: helping people in need. Right now, our senior citizens need
30:27
Speaker 6: our help. That is why Union Mission is partnering with
30:30
Speaker 6: local senior living facilities to get food delivered directly to
30:33
Speaker 6: those in need. Will you help us reach more seniors?
30:36
Speaker 6: Visit Union Mission dot com to learn more.
30:52
Speaker 3: We're back on five eighty. Would you hs the voice
30:55
Speaker 3: of Charleston Jeff Jenkins with you this morning with Tom
30:58
Speaker 3: Peyton at the Peyton Law Firm in Nitro. Seven five
31:00
Speaker 3: five fifty five fifty six is the phone number of
31:03
Speaker 3: the Peyton Law Firm in Nitro. Beautiful office there and
31:09
Speaker 3: if you and you know, I'll let Tom talk about this,
31:11
Speaker 3: but if you show up in person, I mean anything.
31:14
Speaker 4: Walking any time, and you know it's rare that I mean, well,
31:17
Speaker 4: not rare, but if I'm there and available, I'll come
31:19
Speaker 4: out and talk to you if it's something we can
31:20
Speaker 4: help you with. But we have nice longevity with our staff,
31:24
Speaker 4: so they're good at, you know, basic common questions that
31:27
Speaker 4: can give you some information, not legal advice, but a
31:30
Speaker 4: lot of times that helps folks. But you can give
31:32
Speaker 4: us a call or you can actually send us an
31:34
Speaker 4: email to our website at Peytonlawfirm dot com that comes
31:36
Speaker 4: right to you know, my computer and dad's computer. It's
31:39
Speaker 4: not some canned answering service or something like that. So
31:43
Speaker 4: you get to talk to the real lawyers. And of
31:46
Speaker 4: course we talk about because kind of whatever we want
31:49
Speaker 4: to hear on the show. But our our bread and
31:51
Speaker 4: butter really is we like to do litigation, like to
31:54
Speaker 4: try case to a jury. Had a jury trial there
31:56
Speaker 4: three weeks ago where our client prevailed after five days battling.
32:02
Speaker 4: A lawyer actually was on the other side, you know,
32:06
Speaker 4: lawyer was the plaintiff when we were defending, so it
32:09
Speaker 4: was interesting. But but we do a lot of it
32:13
Speaker 4: automobile accident cases, people that are hurt or where they
32:16
Speaker 4: have disputes with insurance companies, because that's usually who you're
32:19
Speaker 4: dealing with. Giving automobile accident or hit by a tractor
32:22
Speaker 4: trailer or something. You're you don't normally have much dealings
32:26
Speaker 4: with the person who caused the accident. You're dealing with
32:28
Speaker 4: their insurance company. And we do a lot of that.
32:31
Speaker 4: So if you, if you all, we ask it, and
32:33
Speaker 4: we do a lot of other things, just because I
32:35
Speaker 4: feel like we're community oriented. That's just kind of how
32:37
Speaker 4: I was brought up, and dad as well, and so
32:40
Speaker 4: we try and help people with their everyday needs. And
32:42
Speaker 4: there's not a lot everybody's getting in a car wreck
32:45
Speaker 4: every day and you don't know when it's going to happen,
32:47
Speaker 4: and and you know, obviously those are cases where potentially
32:54
Speaker 4: a lawyer can make a lot of money. Certainly, not always,
32:58
Speaker 4: and it's not easy. But that's why you don't see
33:01
Speaker 4: advertisements on the new news or big billboards for we'll
33:05
Speaker 4: do your deed or your state planning or your small
33:09
Speaker 4: business needs. You see it for car x and serious
33:14
Speaker 4: accidents and druck excidents and all we asked. I mean,
33:18
Speaker 4: I guess if I was hurt, it's hard for me
33:20
Speaker 4: to back myself out of it because I grew up
33:23
Speaker 4: with my dad as a as a lawyer, and a
33:25
Speaker 4: small practice and then me doing it my entire life.
33:28
Speaker 4: But if I was if I was hurt, and or
33:33
Speaker 4: if I had a family member killed and I was concerned,
33:38
Speaker 4: I would want to make sure. I mean, I wouldn't
33:40
Speaker 4: just call some ahead of billboard. There's nothing wrong with
33:42
Speaker 4: interviewing different lawyers to me. Of course, you've got to
33:45
Speaker 4: get somebody who I think has some experience as an
33:48
Speaker 4: effective but you got to get somebody to trust because
33:52
Speaker 4: you're going to rely on that person to give you
33:53
Speaker 4: advice on what may be some of the most important
33:56
Speaker 4: decisions of your life. If you're talking about, you know,
34:00
Speaker 4: being disabled or not able to work and that kind
34:02
Speaker 4: of thing. And so I think, and we don't have
34:07
Speaker 4: just dad and now right now, but you know, we
34:09
Speaker 4: are able to handle our workload and be selective in
34:13
Speaker 4: those type cases we take to make sure we give
34:15
Speaker 4: them individualized attention. So we're not having paralegals do our
34:19
Speaker 4: research or somebody. Nothing's wrong with it. I mean a
34:22
Speaker 4: lot of firms do that. Or we don't use ay
34:24
Speaker 4: to do our brief and things like that. We do
34:26
Speaker 4: it ourselves. And that helps us be really effective with
34:29
Speaker 4: the cases that we take. And if we take it.
34:32
Speaker 4: Whether it's a you know, you go to the chiropractor
34:35
Speaker 4: for a couple of months and you're better, whether it's
34:39
Speaker 4: something where you've got a longer term disability. We take
34:44
Speaker 4: a pretty aggressive and certainly a very detail oriented approach
34:50
Speaker 4: to all of our claims like that if we take
34:52
Speaker 4: the case. So all we asked is you think about us.
34:55
Speaker 4: If you're out there listening, if you've got somebody gets
34:56
Speaker 4: in a inn, onto a back stand or heard or
34:59
Speaker 4: has an insurance just be you maybe give us a
35:02
Speaker 4: call and see if you trust us to handle your claim.
35:04
Speaker 4: But we do at the same time, you know we
35:06
Speaker 4: do so scurity disability.
35:08
Speaker 1: We don't.
35:08
Speaker 4: We're not a mill of soch scurity disability cases. Sometimes
35:13
Speaker 4: in those cases you do have to take no for
35:14
Speaker 4: an answer. Any lawyer says they will never take no
35:18
Speaker 4: for an answer meeting. They'll just appeal everything to the
35:21
Speaker 4: it's not true. But you know, we have a decent
35:26
Speaker 4: case lad for those but we don't get you know,
35:28
Speaker 4: it's not just a number to us, So we pay
35:31
Speaker 4: particular attention to the ones we have. If we take
35:33
Speaker 4: the case, and we have a pretty high success rate,
35:36
Speaker 4: but you know, deeds will it's basic every day needs
35:39
Speaker 4: boundary issues state administration. If you get appointed or you're
35:44
Speaker 4: nominated to be an executive for someone, if you want
35:46
Speaker 4: help with that process, we kind of have a We
35:50
Speaker 4: normally categorize them at the beginning. Unless we see something
35:52
Speaker 4: complex as as simple a state administration. We generally charge
35:56
Speaker 4: us to reasonable flat feed to do that for you.
35:59
Speaker 4: So you're not out there in the unknown arena just
36:03
Speaker 4: trying to figure out yourself or asking the people at
36:05
Speaker 4: the courthouse. But like, they're not lawyers, the folks that
36:09
Speaker 4: work at the courthouse ordinarily, so they'll they'll try and
36:11
Speaker 4: give you information, but they can't really give you legal advice,
36:14
Speaker 4: and and and so I have a lot of a
36:17
Speaker 4: lot of that folks coming in with the courthouse told
36:20
Speaker 4: me this or that. I was like, well, it's it's
36:24
Speaker 4: partially right, and it's not that they didn't want to
36:27
Speaker 4: tell you the right thing, but it could be a miscommunication. Hey,
36:29
Speaker 4: we're out of time. Well yeah, we got fifty seconds.
36:31
Speaker 4: So yeah, so the best way to get hold of yes,
36:35
Speaker 4: twenty one first Avenue. That's the main drag through nitro there.
36:39
Speaker 4: In fact, I'm gonna be replanting the flower pot outside
36:41
Speaker 4: today my breast clothes, get me out of the from
36:45
Speaker 4: in front of the computer for a half hour at least, so,
36:48
Speaker 4: or give us a call three or four seven five
36:50
Speaker 4: five five five five six, or email us to the
36:53
Speaker 4: website three or four or Peyton Lawfirm dot com p
36:56
Speaker 4: E Y T O N. You can get some information
36:58
Speaker 4: on us there. But yeah, if you would send that email.
37:01
Speaker 4: If you don't get a response, just re email it
37:03
Speaker 4: the next day because we try, and we really respond
37:05
Speaker 4: to all of them unless they get you into the
37:07
Speaker 4: junk mail. Or of course we're human, so we could
37:09
Speaker 4: ever look an email with all the ones you get,
37:12
Speaker 4: but it's not because we don't want to talk to you.
37:14
Speaker 4: So call back your feet if you don't get a
37:16
Speaker 4: return call and sendilar email because we will be glad
37:19
Speaker 4: to talk to.
37:19
Speaker 3: You, all right. ABC News is next, follow my local
37:22
Speaker 3: news in five eighty live. This is five eighty w
37:24
Speaker 3: c CHS The Force.
37:25
Speaker 5: Of Charleston five eight WHS Anine six point five FM
37:30
Speaker 5: Charleston at one O four point five Cross Lanes, WVRC
37:33
Speaker 5: Media Station.
37:35
Speaker 1: We are proud to live here too,