Latest / Ask the Lawyer / 11/02/2023 Ask the Lawyer with Harvey Peyton

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11/02/2023 Ask the Lawyer with Harvey Peyton · Ask the Lawyer

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It's eight twenty two and this is fine you sehs the voice of Charleston's
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time for Harvey Payton of the Peyton Law Firm in Nitro. Any questions about
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the law, give us a call. Three O four three four five fifty
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eight fifty eight. Three oh four three four five fifty eight fifty eight.
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I'm Jeff Jenkins, and Harvey Payton is here. Good morning sir, Good
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morning to you Jeff Jenkins, and how are you today? Well, well
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we'll do listen, things are and things are well in Nitro. Where are
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the office of the Peyton Law Firm is and has been maintained for almost fifty
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years. A lot of our you know, we're in the Puttnam County end
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of Nitro and right near Rock Branch. I mean the children who live in
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the neighborhood around our office go to Rock Branch Elementary. Yeah, we had
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a we had another elementary in the Putnam County end of Nitro, but to
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close several years ago because of student enrollment fall off. And so yesterday Jennah
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Hamrick, one of the teachers at Rock Branch Elementary, was named a Milken
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Teacher of the Year, which is quite an a worse than national award,
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really hard to get, really hard to recognize. And we're really proud of
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that because there's a Nitro connection here that we you know where the Rock branchlem
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entry, it's about a mile a half from our office. And this weekend
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at Nitro, this Saturday, we have the this is going to be about
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the eighth year for the Wagon Tails and Nitro Ales Chili Festival right down there
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around the Memorial Park on Second Avenue and twenty first Street. You know,
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there's a hook up with dog Bless and some of the proceeds go to help
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hospice. So I think we're talking about from around eleven in the morning till
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four in the afternoon. Maybe it's ten until four. So if you're in
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the Nitro area, come on, buy great chili. There are beer,
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truck, soft drinks, things that nature available and you can always if you
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want a fuller meal, you can go to Shima's there on Bank Street or
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Catherine's Cafe and enjoy one of the best burgers Valley and where you can stop
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at the Dairy Queen on the way in and get the best hot dog,
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well the best fast you know, quickieat hot dog. Yeah, I would
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say not fast food. And uh, you know, a lot of our
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practice Putnam County and Mason County in southeast Ohio Magazine, Gallia County in Jackson
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County because Tom's licensed over to Ohio. And actually my family on my dad's
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side, at my grandmother, we got a lot of connection to Point Pleasant
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in the Henderson South Side Couch sixteen mile area, So big shout out to
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Point Pleasant High School boys and girls are playing in the Semis in the state
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soccer tournament today. I believe done it Beckley at the Klein Soccer Complex there.
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So let's go big black point Pleasant, right, yeah, point pleasant
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in it yeah yeah. And so at Area thirty four. You heard the
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Area thirty four Ashley offered with the Putdham Chamber was on the Dave Allan yesterday
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talked about more good things in Putnam County. The Area thirty four is actually
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down at the Winfield Interchange, exit thirty nine. It was a MA Marine
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Corps recruiting station. It was built several years ago by Alzeimer's and it was
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leased and now the Chamber took it over and it's sort of an incubator for
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small business. Great things are happening, and we've got big business new Core
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and Toyota and things are happening to the industrial park and now more Button County
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has a really vibrant small business community, really really vibrant. Nitro does Hurricane
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dies down in the valley. They're lined up, same with eleanor Buffalo.
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Things are going on into busting loose So and the Peyton Law firms there and
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we've been a part of, like I say, Putnam County for a long
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time, seen a lot of good things happen, a few bad things happen,
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but mostly good. And if you have a case, if you suffer
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an injury or a loss, you think you need a lawyer, you need
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to know. If you're going to be involved in litigation or have a claim,
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call us. We're at twenty eight oh one First Avenue in Nitro,
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easy to get to or Peytonlawfirm dot com or three oh four seven five five
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fifty five fifty six. Most of what we do is car wrecks right,
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but employment law, claims, civil rights claims, workers compensation, industrial injuries
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and in addition, about twenty percent of the works transactional. We help folks
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with everyday issues. They need some estate planning done or need just some advice.
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We engage in that every day. That's pretty much my role. Now.
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I'm sort of an of counsel. I take phone calls as we had
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a call last week and gentlemen, I ask a question about, you know,
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an accident that's suffered some property damage. And as we explained, we
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do a lot of just counseling people to see if you even need a lawyer
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or if you have a claim that justifies lit gates. Now, we never
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charge anybody to see if you have a case. If you have a claim,
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then we'll talk about what it costs to hire us and have us handle
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your claim or do your work. But our position is we're here to help
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people. And how do you know if you can help somebody if you don't
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at least listen to what they have to say. Tom also does a number
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of Social Security cases. Oh yeah, he's he's quite the hand on soci
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screty disability. His record is about ninety five percent. Whence I guess you
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have to say five out of one hundred times he has to take no for
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an answer, But that's only after you go as far as you can go
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through the district court. And now he's got an incredibly he's incredibly thorough and
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dogging in his pursuit of that's because we screened the claims pretty well. I
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mean a lot of people about soci screty disability, you have to just talk
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to them. And so you just cannot sign up claims bulk, which happens
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with a lot of the bulk law firms. It's Social Security and figure well,
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maybe thirty percent of these are going to get their benefits regardless, but
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if we sign them up, we get a fee and we can't afford to
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do that. You can go broke if you take bad cases and you don't
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do your clients any favor. If you raise their expectations and so if you
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screen things pretty well and you know a lot about the guidelines and the procedural
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rules of social security, your success rate is going to be high. And
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ours is because it's hard work and it's technical word. You got to stay
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with it. That's what he said over the No, you got to hang
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with it. Yeah, you cannot just get your dabber down. You can't
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just run a client off. If you take them because you think they've got
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to claim. You're obligated to go as far as it has to go.
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And a lot of that means litigation down here in the district court. If
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you lose and you appeal and it's upheld at the appeals council level, go
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to the district court. And his record on NOE this is again about ninety
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five percent success, and that's not easy. Sometimes it's two or three years
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from beginning to end. But we don't have a lot of dissatisfying clients if
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we do, I'm not aware of them. So in the news this week
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that segues a little bit. And again, we do litigation work, and
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there has been a lot of news this week about some litigation that took place
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is taking place in the Southern District of West Virginia involving a class action claim
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brought by inmates and former inmates and the families of inmates who died either while
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incarcerated or shortly after having been incarcerated. The Southern Regional Jaalen Beckley. Now,
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that's the fact that that claim has been presented in the merits of the
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claim or secondary to what I want to talk about, what we've been talking
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about this week and what's resulted in yesterday, really radical action by the administration.
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When you follow a lawsuit, a civil lawsuit, whether it's an automobile
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accident, whether it's an employment claim, it's a boundary line dispute. Anybody
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who is involved in that lawsuit once it becomes a parent that a claim is
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presented or is potentially going to be presented. If you have in your possession
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what you know to be material evidence, you have a duty, an implied
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duty to use good faith to not destroy or dispose of that evidence, because
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once the lawsuits filed, you engage in discovery and the plantifests that defend it.
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Well, send me copies of all the emails sent to so and so.
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Well it's thought an answer to say, well I raised that phone yesterday.
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Well, no, if you knew there was a suit pending, you
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didn't have business. You have a duty to preserve the evidence. If it's
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a document, you shouldn't throw it away. If it's a photograph. The
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cases that I've been involved in, I had a big one last year where
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an automobile was involved and the issue was did the seatback collapse at the rear
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impact at a level below which it should not have? I was a seatback
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de fact it caused a lot of injury. Car went to a salvage yard
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with a litigation hold and an adjuster in Texas. Just mistaken lee, I
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got an email from the car parts and said what about this car, and
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just mistakenly, without getting a release, said okay, sell it. They
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sold it and went to a scrapyard. Well so that they having had notice
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or on the hook for what's called spoliation, they negligently damaged evidence in a
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claim between other parties. Well, what happened in in Backly this week and
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with the ruling, I think everyone, I mean most of the listening public
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knows, if not the background is a US magistrate judge on Monday entered an
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order against the State of West Virginia saying that you did not preserve evidence as
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you should have, and you may have or did destroy some physical evidence that
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was material in this case. And these were like complaints emails about the conditions,
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right, complaints by inmates about jail conditions. They were irs internal reports
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of investigations into those incidents. It would have shown numerosity and content. And
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there was testimony by the superintendent of the jail that when he retired just before
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the lawsuit was filed, there were foul cabinets in his office and had these
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hard documents in it. Well, the plaintiffs are saying, we didn't get
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them. We asked for this, where is it? Apparently this went on
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for several months. The judge expressed is exasperation with the lawyers and the parties
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represents in the state just for not being forthcoming and acting in good faith in
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discovery. They had a hearing and at the hearing early in October. The
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question was to the former director of Homeland Security, and to the chief of
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Staff of Corrections, and to some current personnel, and to an assistant Attorney
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General, where are these records? And they said, we don't know.
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I mean that was their end. We don't know what happened. If they're
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not there, we don't know. Well, then al Whuson concluded, well,
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you know, we've got undisputed testimony from one of your own administrators that
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they were there. You haven't produced them, and they're not there now.
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And you say we don't know where they are. There's only one conclusion I
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can be doing. You got rid of them. And he made that finding.
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Now, yesterday Mark Sworsea, who's the new head of Homeland Security,
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said that he had just disputed that finding. Well, I think Mark,
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I mean, if Mark Sorsea says that the documents are there and they were
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not intentionally destroyed, that is the truth. Because Mark Sorsea doesn't lie period.
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I think what they would appropriately say, well, based upon the evidence
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as we now know it to be, the documents are there and we'll give
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them to you. I mean, these people who appeared at that hearing,
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I read the order and I looked at some of the other things that were
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cited by the court, and I looked at the Pacer documents. It just
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evidence that the people, one of whom was fired, two of whom were
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fired yesterday, had a cavalier attitude in which you develop your you deal with
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inmates, and they sue over my soups too called, and they soon over.
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You know, my sheets weren't clean, and you know it's like,
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oh I get here. How many times have you heard a sheriff say,
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oh, I get sued every month? Assume me? If you want to
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assume me. It's easy to get a cavalier sort of hardened attitude. But
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you can't have that. I mean, this is a suit in the federal
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court, right and the rules apply. And you know that was a default
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judgments very serious. The state could end up paying millions tens of millions of
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dollars out in this lawsuit if that ruling of default against the state is upheld
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by the district court at a minimum, at a minimum, assuming yesterday's proceedings
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where the former chief of staff and an assistant attorney general were summarily fired and
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Brian Abraham and Mark s Orsaya both say, these records were not destroyed.
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We've got them. Now, why these people said they didn't know where they
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were, that's inexplicable. And all I can say this is a attitude expressed
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of the court. But at a minimum, the state's going to be on
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the hook for significant costs and attorney's fees are going to be paid to the
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lawyers for these inmates who devoted hundreds of hours of their time trying to root
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out where these documents were in the face of this sort of cavalier, off
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hand flippant well, we just don't have them. I mean, that's the
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minimum that's going to happen. Is probably some six figure money is going to
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be paid. Now he can say, oh, okay, well that fixes
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it. Well, it doesn't fix it, because this is it doesn't surprise
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me at all. You know, you look at part of the testimony from
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the Assistant Attorney General who was General Accounts for Homeland Security, and I don't
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know what that means, admitted that he received what are called the protection letters
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preservation letters from the plaintiff saying we're bringing a claim, we're looking at this,
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don't do straight right, And keep in mind that there is to be
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a thirty days presuit and notice right well before the seit was followed given to
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the Attorney General and to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the
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How well, what do they do with that? I think the response from
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the gentleman who was terminated yesterday as well, by that time the insurance lawyers
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were involved in that, that was it. Well, that's just a breakdown
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in the system. The state has an insurance policy which is not it's a
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hybrid insurance policy. The Board of Risk and Insurance Management handles the liability insurance
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and another insurance matter, but primarily we're talking about liability auto accidents and personal
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injuries and other liability for other claims like these claims, and they have a
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policy with American International Group AIG from New York to do claims happening. Several
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million dollars in premium are paid and the deal is will pay claims in accordance
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with the terms of this policy that we're going to administer for the state.
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But the money to pay these claims comes from general revenue, so it's not
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like a real insurance company. But endorsement twelve on that policy, says AIG,
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who administers the claim but doesn't pay out the money has the sole and
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exclusive right to retain counsel of its choice to defend these claims. Well,
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okay, that's fine. So if you go to the PACER, which is
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the Federal Court Information System, and look at the doct sheet for this case,
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nowhere in there does it show that the Attorney General of West Virginia is
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an interested party. There's no notice of appearance by the Attorney General. There's
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certainly no prohibition against it. It's the mere fact that aig chooses their lawyer
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who answers to their claims agent, who theoretically the lawyer represents and has its
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sole duty to the client, but they have to answer to the claims agent
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to get paid. The Attorney General should be making a notice of appearance in
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all those cases. What does that mean? That means your name's on the
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certificate of service. That means that you get served with a copy of everything
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that happens in the case. That means that you can access the PACER system
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and simply look at everything that's happened in the case. And I can't imagine
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that in this case if you had a seasoned person and a real Civil Division
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at the Attorney General's Office. They would have not gotten that preservation letter and
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called with proper direction. Whoever AIG said, Look, we got this preservation
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letter. We got to sit down and talk to everybody involved. You've got
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to tell everybody in the office. And I've done it. I've had clients
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to get preservation letters. You just say, look, immediately, put that
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cell phone down, don't touch that cell phone. Do not erase any emails,
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period, Don't spread a file. I don't care what it's about.
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Don't s reread anything. You keep it until I tell you can get rid
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of it, and don't get rid of anything until you call me. I
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mean, that's how you handle it. So between the Assistant ag getting the
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preservation letter and just sending a copy of it to the other people involved,
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but not touching base with the insurance lawyers and what's up to them, the
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ball got dropped, right, the ball got dropped and instead of somebody saying,
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well, the next step is, we've got to give the Office of
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Technology a notice of this. Didn't do it because I think nobody he had
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the clear mission to do it, and had they notified the Office of Technology,
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one click of a mouse would have saved all of this and none of
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what would have happened, and the state wouldn't be on the hook for six
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figure money for attorney's fees and costs, which they're going to be if not
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the default judgment. Sir Albahausen, he catches, He calls them on it,
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basically say ords, just calls them on the you know, kind of
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on the negligents and just kind of blowing it off as another lawsuit, yeah,
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type of thing. Well, regardless what kind of lawsuit was, it's
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just a cavalier attitude and a failure internally in the system. That's just built
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to fail because you don't have anybody. I mean, you've got an assistant
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attorney general, but what is he supposed to do? What are his charged
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duties? What are the duties of the Attorney General's office? Who receives notices
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of civil actions? And you know no about this case being fouled? Do
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you just say, well, the insurance company's got a lawyer, so we
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worse our hands of it. To me, that's just built to fail.
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You don't know what the relationship is going to be between the lawyer, the
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insurance adjuster and the and the client. What are they telling them? Are
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they telling them something that may be good for the insurance carrier but may be
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bad for the overall interests of the state. And how do you know what's
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going on if you're not on the certificate of service? I mean, the
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legislature, if they don't do anything else, should absolutely mandate in the next
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session that the Attorney General's office make an appearance in every case in which the
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State of West Virginia's is political, its departments and agencies and officials are sued
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and in court and all it's all electronic. Now you don't have to worry
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about big paper being fouled. You have to put on duty or maybe shift
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the responsibilities of a couple of adapt litigators. They had Kelly Talbot up there
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for years. Kelly could have done this on her own, to sit there
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and review. And if you start seeing, well, wait a minute.
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There have been nine motions for orders to compel, discovery and sanctions filed in
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this case. What's going on? Call the lawyer for the insurance and say,
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hey, we need to meet here. I got to protect my client,
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the State of West Virginia. So let's just see what's going on here.
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I can't necessarily tell you what to do when the insurance got me hired
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you, but I can tell you that on behalf of the client, here's
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what I want done. And you represent the client, not the insurance company.
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I mean, I've been It's common when someone say you have an auto
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accident, it's your fault, or arguably your fault. He turned into your
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insurance cottany they tried to negotiate a settlement, they're unsuccessful, lawsuits filed.
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You get a letter saying, hey, we received the claim papers. We
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have some coverage and the policy, we have the right, and we've exercised
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that. We've hired so and soon they'll tell you the lawyer's name. You
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can expect to be in touch with them or they'll be in touch with you
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shortly. Any litigation may result in a result that exceeds your coverage. We're
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telling you that. I'm telling you right now you have a right if you
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want to to hire your own lawyer at your own expense, to participate in
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this acipent. It will be at your expense, and the lawyer we have
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hired is going to have the primary responsibility. I've done that before you call
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the lawyers Hey, listen, put my name on the put my name down
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there on the answer, so I'll be a counsel of record. Oh,
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no problem, r We'll do it. Then I get copies of everything and
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I can look at them, and if the client calls me, I can
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say, I don't like the way this thing looks. You know, I
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think this is getting a little bit risky. Call the lawyer and say,
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look, you may be thinking about settling this case. This doesn't look good.
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My class worried about his assets. I mean, that's just the way
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it works. But you have to have clear directions to do that. And
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why didn't we have that? Oh we didn't, so he could beat that
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dead worse forever. But it doesn't have to be that way in the future.
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We do not have to do this humiliating, disgusting experience of being of
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a tongue lashing from a US magistrate judge. We can fix it simply.
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Now, you can fix that simply what we ought to do to fix it
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in my estimation, and nobody on either side in the private legal community likes
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this. As we should write a little FTC Federal Torque Claims Act, which
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governs tort claims or negligence claims brought against the United States have a West Virginia
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Tortue Claims Act, where at first these cases are administratively reviewed and often settled,
25:03
and if they're not, you bring a lawsuit in the name of the
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state of West Virginia, not against any of the individual people involved, and
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the Attorney General defends them through a vigorous civil division and attorney's fees are capped
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a twenty five percent, Right, I mean, it's just one of those
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things. I mean, that's what happens. In the Federal Tort Claims Act.
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We handle them. And if you have an accent involved in a mail
25:30
truck, it's a federal torkan. Actually, there was a case that originated
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from this show. I had a call a person who was exasperated about a
25:37
malpractice claim at a VA hospital in southern West Virginia. So I couldn't find
25:44
a lawyer because he wouldn't work for twenty five percent. Well, give me
25:47
a call. So we undertook and ultimately settled that claim quite nicely and administratively.
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With that litigation, we could do that here in West Virginia. Now,
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to set the stage for that, the Senate Finance Committee or the Legislative
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Auditor's Office should go over to the Board of Risk. It's a five member
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board. They're all centered here in Charleston. I think it's like four lawyers
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and an insurance person and say, look, we want a report of all
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the litigation costs and attorney's fees that were paid by lawyers hired by AIG but
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through our general revel we want that for last year and the five preceding years.
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And we want a list of every litigated claim that you settled, who
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the parties were, and how much was paid, so we can match up
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to what we're paying in lawyer's fees to what we're paying out in settlements to
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determine if we're getting our money's worth here as a state. And how does
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that stuck up? But let's just replace this plethora of six or eight law
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firms, some of whom are what I refer to as gypsies. They're based
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in like Toledo, Ohio, or Columbus or Cincinnati, and they opened a
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little office here and hire three or four lawyers just to get the business.
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And that's it. I mean, there's just no bones about it. It's
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just trying to cherry pick this state business through AIG and let's just wait that
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and see if we wouldn't be better off to beef up the civil division at
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the Age East office, which is how it was. I hate to say
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this. When I got out of law school, Chauncey Browning had a civil
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division. I mean, the state police were represented by Dave Cleek and Dick
27:44
Hardison, and before that it was Jack Goodwin and Leo katz Own. It's
27:47
two of the best trial lawyers around. If a state trooper got sued at
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Hampshire County, they called him and they had told the superintendent to send him
27:55
down here to Charles, let's talk to him and see what's going on.
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And they'd run up there to Hampshire County and interview. The bitness is now
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were not settling. We don't settle claims against the state police. If they
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if we got a decent defense, says, go up there and sit,
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stay in a motel in Romney for about a week, track case and come
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on back. Now times have changed this cent. It's a lot bigger,
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it's a lot more complicated, but we deal with change all the time.
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So that's my Well, let's take a break. Taylor and the lines are
28:22
open three or four, three four five fifty eight fifty eighty and questions about
28:26
the law Harvey Payton and the Peyton Law Firm, Mid Nitrose here three oh
28:29
four three four or five fifty eight fifty eight lines are open, will take
28:33
your call. So I want to ask Carvy, now, what's the next
28:34
step in these lawsuits? Now that the States something has to be found,
28:40
some evidence. We talked to Harvey about that in a moment on five eight
28:42
WCCHI. So you want a lawyer who has no nonsense, hardworking and equipped
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with years of successful experience. You want the Peyton Law Firm. Let Tom
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and Harvey put the power of Peyton to work for you. If someone has
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injured you or a family member, contact the Peyton Law Firm before it's too
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late. Stay ahead of the game by calling Peyton Law Firm three oh four
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seven five five fifty five fifty six or online at Paytentlawfirm dot com. Again
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the number to call is three oh four seven five five fifty five fifty six.
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Let's get started today. Still have an active accident listed on Winfield Road that's
30:26
going to be at Bill's Creek Road, going to be doing some paving today
30:29
I seventy seven North near Edens Fork. Also storm drain work on I sixty
30:33
four East that's going to extend from Milton all the way to Dunbar. And
30:37
they're going to be mowing today on one nineteen North from Pinch to mild marker
30:41
twenty nine. And we have a little bit of traffic congestion through the work
30:45
zone in Putnam County and on I sixty four East coming into Charleston from the
30:49
WCHS Network traffic studio, I'm Jenny Murray. What the boy on the side
30:57
we have the court room said, you need we never give up. We're
31:04
pre better to fight for your rides. When you need action, count on
31:11
us. Put the power of Babson on your side, the power of Baby
31:23
fo on five, ABC AHS, the force of Charleston quickly moving show Harves.
31:30
That's okay, this is all great, This is great. What's going
31:33
to happen next? What happens next? Now? So the latest developments we
31:38
reported after the media briefing yesterday, Brad had a conversation our Brian Michael Haney
31:44
with Brian Abraham. Brian Abraham, the chief of staff of the Governor's office,
31:48
confirmed that two employees had been fired too, pretty high ranking employees and
31:52
that's very unusual for nybody to get fired from state government. That doesn't happen
31:56
a lot and so and Abraham shared that they have found some of the evidence.
32:01
So now what happens, Well, you know, the matter has to
32:07
go based on Judge Apple Houston's recommended orderer. What happened subsequent to that really
32:14
isn't immediately relevant. The matter has to get to Judge Frank Volk to review
32:20
Judge Ablehusen's findings. Now, their findings a fact, and so it's a
32:25
preferential review, which says, you know, unless it's clearly erroneous, the
32:31
judge has to uphold it. But you're dealing with the most severe sanction that
32:36
a court can impose, that is the fault judgment. You just lose the
32:39
case, and all you talk about after that's money. Now, I would
32:43
think there was a change of counsel for the individuals involved in late August on
32:52
the state side. On the state side, another law firm, and they
32:54
immediately did what you would think should have been done before was contact the office
33:00
some technology to see what they could do. But the witnesses who testified in
33:05
early October were two of them were people who were terminated yesterday who came up
33:10
with this story we don't know where it is. Well, this didn't look
33:15
or didn't ask. I mean, that's all you can conclude. It's just
33:17
gross. If it wasn't intentionally destroyed, then the people who responded were grossly
33:22
negligent in not fulfilling their duty to protect the state's interests and find this stuff
33:30
if it's there. What effect will that have on Judge Volk I don't know.
33:34
I can't speak for Frank walk he's quite experienced that he was the law
33:37
clerk to Judge Hayden, to Judge Copenhagen, he was in bankruptcy judge in
33:42
this district and now a district court judge. I'm sure that the UH,
33:51
the new council will appeal to the court said look, here's what we had.
33:53
We had poor legal advice, we didn't have enough input from the ags
33:59
off. We've terminated that person, We've terminated this person. These documents exist.
34:04
There was not intentional you know, we'd understand that based on what Judge
34:07
Apple, who'son heard, he made a finding that based on only what he
34:13
heard may not be clearly erroneous. But we'd like to reopen this record in
34:16
the sense of justice. And I would be surprised if this volte doesn't give
34:22
someone that if someone from the state deliberately destroyed hard copy evidence that they knew
34:31
was relevant, then the sanction of default is appropriate. The state suffers for
34:39
that because it's their employee. But if it was just simply a cavalier,
34:45
don't care, didn't think about it, attitude, and this evidence did exist
34:52
and it's promptly produced. To me, if I were the reviewing judge,
34:55
I would think, look, I'm going to look at this and we're going
35:01
to modify this. It's not going to change the obligation. I don't believe
35:04
of the state to pay these lawyers for the plaintiffs who spent hundreds of hours
35:09
arguing about this evidence that the state knew had been destroyed or that they hid.
35:16
That's going to have to be done, and maybe there'll be another sanction
35:20
or a fine imposed on the state. But I would say it's more likely
35:27
than not that the default would be set aside and we'd move forward, okay,
35:31
and that would be all right. Now that that evidence is there,
35:35
then the lawsuit can prove it. If that happens, it could end up
35:38
the lawsuit set for trial. Yes, set for trial, and yeah,
35:40
well question no class certification and they certify the class and pick out representative parties
35:46
and have a trial and get the matter resolved. It's going to be a
35:51
hard one to resolve because, man, this involves a lot of policy and
35:53
a lot of money. How can you know you get the legislation that appropriates
35:58
money. How can the States settle the case and promise we're going to spend
36:00
two hundred and fifty million dollars the insurance company you're not going to pay for.
36:05
We've got other things to spend it for. I don't know. It's
36:07
a difficult case to hammer out. That's why they have federal course, you
36:12
know, staff by really competent judges. But the case will move forward,
36:16
right, and it'll move forward I think under a completely different set of supervision.
36:21
The biggest thing is I think we've got to correct this gap between the
36:23
civil side of the Attorney General's office and the insurance lawyers so that our representative.
36:30
We elect an attorney general to be the lawyer for the state is in
36:35
the loop on every one of these litigation cases subjects of sum review and input.
36:40
That wasn't the case here, And I think that's where this thing got
36:44
dropped. All right, there you have it. There, you have it,
36:46
Okay, for what it is worth. Oh, it's good. It's
36:51
to you. I mean, you have been doing this all my life.
36:52
I've been doing litigation some on the insurance side. At the beginning, I
36:59
was it's a law clerk in the United States District Court. I know how
37:02
that works. My wife worked in the clerk's office down here at the US
37:06
District Court. I've litigated one of the longest trials down that ever took place
37:10
in the district court down here, back in the eighties. And I know
37:15
how it works. And I know how and I looked at this docket sheet
37:20
and certificate of service, and I looked at the summary of the Assistant Attorney
37:22
General's testimony and the chief of Staff's testament, so I can just see this
37:27
happen. I mean, the sort of cavalier attitude that has developed. You
37:31
get hardened when you deal with criminals and no real interface between that and the
37:39
AG's office, the insurance counsels being sort of devolved to take care of this.
37:44
It's just so many moving parts. Nobody don't know. We don't have
37:47
much time left. But if you want to benefit, if you have a
37:52
claim, you can benefit from the type of experience that we have at the
37:54
Fat Law Firm because this is what we do where we understand how this system
37:59
works, in every part of this system. So call us or Peyton Lawfirm
38:06
dot com. Yeah, ur three oh four seven five five fifty five fifty
38:09
six. Three oh four seven five five fifty five fifty six. Harvey predicted
38:13
the win over Central Florida Mountaineers. Get another one against people are eligibill come
38:17
this time? Okay,