Latest / WCHS Network Podcasts / 07/17/2025 Ask the Lawyer with Harvey Peyton
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Unlock your dream property with Mex Realty Group, where Rich
- 0:03Speaker 1: the realtor makes real estate dreams a reality, whether it's
- 0:05Speaker 1: residential or commercial. We've got Charleston to Huntington covered. Your
- 0:09Speaker 1: key to exceptional real estate experience is start here Meeks
- 0:12Speaker 1: Realty Group contact us at Meeks dot us.
- 0:15Speaker 2: The views and opinions expressed on this program do not
- 0:18Speaker 2: necessarily reflect the views and opinions of five eight wcchs
- 0:22Speaker 2: it's employees or WVRC Media.
- 0:43Speaker 3: And very pleasantid morning to you. All right there, we
- 0:46Speaker 3: got it. We got this music that's put in here.
- 0:49Speaker 3: You have to tell me if you want to leave
- 0:50Speaker 3: this in how long you and time want to leave it?
- 0:52Speaker 3: And we have it as our rejoin We have it here.
- 0:53Speaker 3: It's so nice.
- 0:55Speaker 4: Well that's not sun at all.
- 0:57Speaker 2: I know.
- 0:57Speaker 5: Yeah, Brian Roberts married to my daughter Sarah, and he's
- 1:02Speaker 5: just quite a talented, quite a depth at at. You
- 1:06Speaker 5: know the guitar that's a twelve string, it sounds like
- 1:10Speaker 5: it's more than more than one guitar player.
- 1:13Speaker 3: Well, it sounds so great, man, I love twelve string acoustic.
- 1:16Speaker 3: Twelve string sounds so good. You're right, it sounds like
- 1:18Speaker 3: like you have an accompaniment with you. It sounds so good.
- 1:20Speaker 5: So that's our that's our music on the phone at
- 1:24Speaker 5: the office. So if anyone calls the Peyton Law Firm,
- 1:28Speaker 5: if you happen to have to be on hold for
- 1:30Speaker 5: a little while, you'll listen to almost Heaven right here
- 1:34Speaker 5: in West Virginia. It was almost having this past weekend.
- 1:37Speaker 5: It's well, it was, and we went to you know,
- 1:42Speaker 5: I first got out of law school and seventy fin
- 1:45Speaker 5: the spring of seventy four. I really wasn't I hadn't
- 1:50Speaker 5: been doing much about job seeking. I did pretty well
- 1:53Speaker 5: in law school. But you know, if you did well
- 1:56Speaker 5: and you were like on the Law Review and Order
- 2:00Speaker 5: of the KOI, which means you're pretty high in the
- 2:02Speaker 5: class ranking the jobs, the interviews that kind of sought
- 2:07Speaker 5: you out were like the gas company and larger firms
- 2:10Speaker 5: and done nothing against that. But I said, yeah, that's
- 2:12Speaker 5: not really what I want to do. So I was
- 2:13Speaker 5: sort of casting around. And then John Fisher, who was
- 2:17Speaker 5: one of the instructors at the law school, later became dean.
- 2:20Speaker 5: I was walked by his office one day and he said,
- 2:21Speaker 5: you know, where are you going to go to work?
- 2:23Speaker 5: And I said, well, John or mister Fisher, I'm I'm
- 2:26Speaker 5: not sure. Well, what do you think would you think
- 2:30Speaker 5: about working as a clerk for a federal judge?
- 2:32Speaker 4: And I said, well, that sounds interesting and I hadn't
- 2:36Speaker 4: thought about it.
- 2:36Speaker 5: Well, John Fisher had been a clerk for Judge Robert
- 2:40Speaker 5: Maxwell in the Northern District of West Virginia when we
- 2:42Speaker 5: didn't have very many federal judges in West Virginia. We
- 2:45Speaker 5: had one in the north, which was Judge Maxwell. Had
- 2:48Speaker 5: a swing judge that alternated between Huntington and Fairmont, was
- 2:52Speaker 5: said Christie. And then we had two judges here in
- 2:55Speaker 5: Charleston and that was it. And I said, well, so
- 2:58Speaker 5: I was just talking to him, and he's looking for
- 3:00Speaker 5: a law clerk, and let me see if I can
- 3:03Speaker 5: set up an interview. So I go over for an interview,
- 3:06Speaker 5: thinking this is pretty competitive. These federal law clerk jobs
- 3:10Speaker 5: are sort of sought after, covet it's a nice thing
- 3:13Speaker 5: to have on your resume. And uh so I waited
- 3:18Speaker 5: about a week and didn't hear anything, and so I
- 3:20Speaker 5: called the judge's office. He got on the phone and said,
- 3:23Speaker 5: you know, it hadn't Harry Sport, you know, John Fisher
- 3:27Speaker 5: sent you over here. You understand that you have this
- 3:29Speaker 5: job to do. Okay, Well, I didn't know how that worked,
- 3:34Speaker 5: but then it's a beautiful part of the stay. Was
- 3:36Speaker 5: a Randolph County in Elkins at that time. Unfortunately, they
- 3:40Speaker 5: had a couple of fires, had a lumber company burned down,
- 3:42Speaker 5: the railroad pulled out, the coal business wasn't doing well.
- 3:46Speaker 5: But you know, it was just a jaunt from used
- 3:49Speaker 5: to go with the other law clerk who was from
- 3:51Speaker 5: University of Utah, and we'd go up on cheap mountain
- 3:56Speaker 5: and get fishing and go across the mountain into Pocahontas
- 3:58Speaker 5: County and down through Durban and to Marlington, which I
- 4:00Speaker 5: always thought was an attractive little town, and I had
- 4:06Speaker 5: some problems with flooding, like a lot of eastern parts
- 4:08Speaker 5: of West Virginia have. But this past weekend I was
- 4:12Speaker 5: just casting about for something to do with Larry Dawson,
- 4:15Speaker 5: you know, who's a regular on this station. And I
- 4:18Speaker 5: were talking maybe six months ago. He has a place
- 4:21Speaker 5: up at Snowshoe and I was telling him, you know
- 4:23Speaker 5: how I liked Davis and Thomas. He said, well, try Marlington.
- 4:27Speaker 5: They have an opera house, and you know, a little
- 4:30Speaker 5: bit of a social scene. So this weekend was their
- 4:33Speaker 5: Pioneer Days Street Festival, live music on the street, and
- 4:37Speaker 5: they at the Opera House.
- 4:38Speaker 4: They had a sort of an.
- 4:41Speaker 5: Improv group that did Macbeth in the round on Sunday afternoon.
- 4:45Speaker 4: So we.
- 4:47Speaker 5: I discarded maps on my phone and I told my wife,
- 4:51Speaker 5: so we're going to take the old way. If I
- 4:54Speaker 5: was going to go to Marlington forty years ago, this
- 4:59Speaker 5: is how it would have gone before the corridor through Somersville.
- 5:05Speaker 5: So we dropped. We had to tend to her sister's
- 5:07Speaker 5: cat her house up on Venable in Kanas City.
- 5:10Speaker 4: So it was.
- 5:11Speaker 5: Just no no interstate, no turnpike, just go up sixty
- 5:15Speaker 5: one to Shield.
- 5:16Speaker 4: You know.
- 5:16Speaker 5: We didn't cross the New Bridge. We didn't go all
- 5:18Speaker 5: the way to Montgomery and crosses at Smithers, but went
- 5:22Speaker 5: up Rout sixty to Galli Bridge instead of going on
- 5:25Speaker 5: over Galley Mountain to Mount Kneebom outlookout. I know, we
- 5:30Speaker 5: went up thirty nine up Golly River out of Golli
- 5:33Speaker 5: Bridge there and across through Fenwick and rich Wood and
- 5:38Speaker 5: over the mountain the mill Point and then the just
- 5:41Speaker 5: a delightful drive. Now it takes about three hours. But
- 5:43Speaker 5: if you want to really enjoy nice scenery in West
- 5:47Speaker 5: Virgina and you don't mind a little bit of winding roads,
- 5:49Speaker 5: it was really really relaxing and nice. And we got
- 5:52Speaker 5: to State above town there at the old Barlington Motor End.
- 5:55Speaker 5: It is an old open entry motel that's been there probably.
- 5:58Speaker 5: I mean it was there in the south, I know,
- 6:02Speaker 5: and bikers you know, there was a parking lot was full.
- 6:05Speaker 3: Oh right, yeah, I forgot about that. I remember that
- 6:07Speaker 3: from about fifteen years ago when I met my wife
- 6:11Speaker 3: we went on a similar like trip to this, where
- 6:14Speaker 3: we went all over the state, but we took back
- 6:15Speaker 3: roads everywhere we went and wanted to really enjoy the state.
- 6:18Speaker 3: But really something else, isn't it?
- 6:20Speaker 6: Yeah?
- 6:21Speaker 3: Gorgeous.
- 6:21Speaker 5: Yeah, these fellows were they were probably all twenty really
- 6:25Speaker 5: nice bikes, you know, and they were all wearing their
- 6:27Speaker 5: leathers and and.
- 6:30Speaker 4: So we went back to we were.
- 6:34Speaker 5: Eating and talking to some folks and we said, oh, yeah,
- 6:37Speaker 5: they're about a bikers. What do you feel safe? So yeah,
- 6:40Speaker 5: I mean those people generally, we're not talking about Hell's angels.
- 6:44Speaker 5: We're talking about people that like to ride bikes. And yeah,
- 6:47Speaker 5: they might look a little rough around the edges, but
- 6:49Speaker 5: they don't steal right, they don't get in travel because
- 6:51Speaker 5: people keep an eye on them all the time. A
- 6:54Speaker 5: couple of them were bad to pack heat. They opened
- 6:56Speaker 5: carry and right right, they had a couple of all
- 6:59Speaker 5: not a cop more than a couple of court jars.
- 7:03Speaker 5: And we have a call. We have a good morning.
- 7:05Speaker 5: That's really good.
- 7:05Speaker 3: You have a call right off the bat this morning.
- 7:07Speaker 3: We have kind of an auto Q feature. You call in,
- 7:09Speaker 3: you get put into Q and I'll ask your name
- 7:10Speaker 3: on the airs. We have our first caller on the
- 7:11Speaker 3: air this morning. What's your first name? You're on the
- 7:13Speaker 3: air with Harvey Peyton.
- 7:15Speaker 6: My name is Larry.
- 7:16Speaker 3: Hey, Larry, good morning. Now what's your question for Harvey?
- 7:20Speaker 6: Well, miss Peyton, Sir, I received on July seventh a
- 7:25Speaker 6: bill from my mother's doctor is dated April ninth, twenty twenty.
- 7:33Speaker 6: And she passed away in April twenty twenty one. And
- 7:39Speaker 6: do I owe this bill? I mean I went through
- 7:42Speaker 6: the County Commission and everything, and everything was approved or
- 7:47Speaker 6: whatever it do when somebody passes away.
- 7:52Speaker 5: So the services were rendered to your mother prior to
- 7:55Speaker 5: her death. And she passed in twenty twenty, right, and the.
- 8:00Speaker 6: Bill was in April twenty twenty, and she passed away
- 8:03Speaker 6: in April twenty twenty one. And now I get the
- 8:06Speaker 6: bill here in July twenty twenty five.
- 8:09Speaker 5: For services that were rendered in April twenty twenty. Correct,
- 8:14Speaker 5: that's barred by the statute of limitations. It's not an
- 8:17Speaker 5: enforceable debt period.
- 8:19Speaker 4: Okay, five years.
- 8:20Speaker 5: It's an unwritten contrasts a contract for cert to provide services,
- 8:23Speaker 5: but it's not in writing, and if no action was
- 8:27Speaker 5: brought to enforce it within five years, it's time barred.
- 8:30Speaker 5: What's probably happened as the doctor's office has sold some
- 8:32Speaker 5: old accounts to somebody and they're trying to work them
- 8:36Speaker 5: over if they can get ten cents on the dollar.
- 8:38Speaker 5: That's just more larded one. But you don't you don't
- 8:42Speaker 5: know it. No, you do not owe it. It's your
- 8:44Speaker 5: mother's bill. If no claim was filed against the estate,
- 8:48Speaker 5: and on top of that, it's time barred period.
- 8:51Speaker 6: I know it comes from the doctor's office, it says here,
- 8:55Speaker 6: but I thought, I mean over five years ago, and
- 8:58Speaker 6: then she passed away over four years ago. I thought,
- 9:00Speaker 6: wait a minute, here, Well, thank you for letting me
- 9:03Speaker 6: know that. I you know, it's only like thirty.
- 9:06Speaker 4: Five dollars but just discarded.
- 9:09Speaker 6: Okay, well, thank you so much, sir. No.
- 9:11Speaker 3: Probably appreciate your phone call. Thanks for calling in. That's uh,
- 9:14Speaker 3: that's like we like those phone calls. We like the
- 9:15Speaker 3: ones we can answer like that. And this is a
- 9:19Speaker 3: I heard the other day that there's kind of been
- 9:22Speaker 3: this on again, off again thought or this idea that
- 9:27Speaker 3: we're going to abolish medical debt from credit reporting. That
- 9:30Speaker 3: was something that was It's been talked about for years.
- 9:32Speaker 3: I think the Biden administration finally put it through earlier
- 9:35Speaker 3: this week. It was rescinded. So that's something that if
- 9:38Speaker 3: it was something that we were looking at, and I
- 9:40Speaker 3: don't think any of it had actually gone into effect yet,
- 9:42Speaker 3: but it was something that we were kind of waiting for.
- 9:44Speaker 3: But this might be something down the line if somebody
- 9:45Speaker 3: was thinking about, hey, we had this huge catastrophic thing
- 9:48Speaker 3: that happened years ago. We've been working on it. Oh
- 9:50Speaker 3: it looks like we don't inationally have to pay it
- 9:52Speaker 3: off as quickly, or you know, whatever the deal might be.
- 9:54Speaker 3: You might find yourself in a situation where suddenly you
- 9:56Speaker 3: do have to pay that debt again, or suddenly it
- 9:58Speaker 3: is going to hit your credit or I mean it
- 10:00Speaker 3: could happen.
- 10:01Speaker 5: And if you incura a bill, you owe the money.
- 10:04Speaker 5: That's unless there's some some reason, some valid reason the
- 10:11Speaker 5: service wasn't appropriate or the product wasn't acceptable once you
- 10:17Speaker 5: got it. But there's also the concept that you know,
- 10:21Speaker 5: potential disputes or claims should be put to rest at
- 10:24Speaker 5: some time. You know, if you have a written contract,
- 10:27Speaker 5: you sign a promissory note, for instance, and you default, well,
- 10:32Speaker 5: then the person who is the beneficiary that written contract
- 10:36Speaker 5: has ten years from the date of the breach to
- 10:39Speaker 5: bring a civil action to enforce it. If they wait
- 10:41Speaker 5: more than ten years. I mean the stational limitations is
- 10:46Speaker 5: it's an excuse, not a reason, but it's a legal excuse.
- 10:49Speaker 5: It says disputes should be brought. And when you talk
- 10:53Speaker 5: about written contracts, at least for the law that would
- 10:57Speaker 5: have applied in twenty twenty, you know, if it's a
- 11:00Speaker 5: non written it relies on the recollection of conversations had
- 11:06Speaker 5: between individuals and memories fade, and so our legislature collectively
- 11:12Speaker 5: determined decades ago that five years was an appropriate period
- 11:16Speaker 5: of time. If you feel someone has breached an obligation
- 11:19Speaker 5: to you that was represented by a verbal contract, and
- 11:22Speaker 5: verbal contracts are certainly as enforceable as written contracts. The
- 11:26Speaker 5: only difference is it's more difficult to ascertain the terms,
- 11:33Speaker 5: and so if you wait longer than that period of time,
- 11:37Speaker 5: you've lingered on your rights and you no longer have
- 11:39Speaker 5: the right to enforce them in court.
- 11:41Speaker 4: Period. We have another call, Yeah, we do.
- 11:42Speaker 3: Have another call. This morning, you were on air with
- 11:44Speaker 3: Harvey Peyton. What's your first name?
- 11:46Speaker 7: Caller names Pat?
- 11:48Speaker 3: Hey, Pat? What's your question for Harvey?
- 11:51Speaker 7: Arvey. I've got a complicated real estate situation. It's an
- 11:58Speaker 7: airship deal. A lot of people in the airship, and
- 12:02Speaker 7: one of the heirs of a minor percentage of the
- 12:06Speaker 7: estate just wants an unreasonable price for his share. What's
- 12:12Speaker 7: the process for clearing a piece of airship where the
- 12:19Speaker 7: majority of the people are on board to aggregate and
- 12:24Speaker 7: sell it, but one person is requesting or requiring demanding
- 12:29Speaker 7: an unreasonable amount that just makes the process too expensive
- 12:35Speaker 7: to move forward.
- 12:37Speaker 5: Well, there certainly is a there's a legal procedure where
- 12:42Speaker 5: airship property, which is h R ship airship means that
- 12:47Speaker 5: the property is owned by any number of the heirs
- 12:50Speaker 5: of someone who had a title. Originally, I think of
- 12:53Speaker 5: it as airship ai r s hip because it's up
- 12:57Speaker 5: in the air and it's hard to get your hands around,
- 12:59Speaker 5: and it makes a property worth The fact that it's
- 13:01Speaker 5: got fractional ownership actually makes it worth less that individual
- 13:07Speaker 5: small interest than if it was a bigger interest then
- 13:10Speaker 5: there were fewer heirs involved. But the scenario that you
- 13:16Speaker 5: just spoke of is the commonest reason that people go
- 13:20Speaker 5: to court for what's called a partition action, which is
- 13:23Speaker 5: to value and allocate or a lot the shares of
- 13:30Speaker 5: heirs who are recalceled or unreasonable. It's not an inexpensive process.
- 13:36Speaker 5: It's somewhat not complex, but it's technical work and I've
- 13:41Speaker 5: been involved in a lot of those. A lot of
- 13:43Speaker 5: these partition suits over real estate, particularly in Putnam County
- 13:47Speaker 5: years ago, involved a lot of money that lands worth
- 13:50Speaker 5: some money. But if you've got an heir, first thing
- 13:55Speaker 5: you need to do are there any lawyers involved in it?
- 13:59Speaker 4: Yet? No?
- 14:01Speaker 5: Well, we ought to get a you could actually if
- 14:05Speaker 5: you want to call, make an appointment, take a look
- 14:07Speaker 5: at it. See how many ears you've got involved in it,
- 14:10Speaker 5: and where the property is and what you' you know,
- 14:12Speaker 5: what's ultimately worth because what you have to evaluate, Well,
- 14:16Speaker 5: if the person wants X number of dollars to sign
- 14:20Speaker 5: a deed quick claim deed it to somebody who beat
- 14:23Speaker 5: it to the another here who is copasetic with the sale,
- 14:28Speaker 5: maybe there's some common ground between that and what other
- 14:32Speaker 5: people contemplates a reasonable price that actually would cost less
- 14:37Speaker 5: than litigating it, right, I mean, you know where you
- 14:39Speaker 5: want to go, you want to go to either a
- 14:43Speaker 5: liquidation of the property or consolidating ownership, then you need
- 14:47Speaker 5: to say, Okay, what's it going to cost to get
- 14:50Speaker 5: there through the legal process, which I can tell you
- 14:54Speaker 5: in an hour. If we sat down and looked at
- 14:56Speaker 5: it and saw the number of airs and where they
- 14:58Speaker 5: are and where the property is, then you have to say, well,
- 15:02Speaker 5: if we can pay this person, we don't want to
- 15:04Speaker 5: do it, you know, it's kind of rankle some of us.
- 15:07Speaker 5: But if we can get this person to take less
- 15:11Speaker 5: than what we think it's going to cost to litigate
- 15:14Speaker 5: this thing and get a final definitive resolution, then that's
- 15:20Speaker 5: probably the way to go. And if that won't work,
- 15:22Speaker 5: if the person's just grossly underredion, if you've got a
- 15:24Speaker 5: piece of property that's worth a one hundred thousand dollars
- 15:27Speaker 5: and somebody that owns a one fifth interest says, well,
- 15:30Speaker 5: I want to eighty grand from You're never going to
- 15:32Speaker 5: get anything done. You just have to bring a lawsuit.
- 15:35Speaker 5: But if it's in a more manageable range, you get
- 15:37Speaker 5: a lawyer involved, and the person understands they cannot hold
- 15:40Speaker 5: this up forever. The court has the authority to value
- 15:44Speaker 5: this property and order its sale or allotment among the
- 15:48Speaker 5: parties at what is determined to be a fair market value,
- 15:51Speaker 5: not somebody's arbitrary and capricious number. So there's some relief
- 15:56Speaker 5: to be had, but at all it's like a lot
- 15:58Speaker 5: of things in the laws factor. But if you won't
- 16:02Speaker 5: give me a call on the phone at the office,
- 16:05Speaker 5: I'm not going to be there today or tomorrow, but
- 16:06Speaker 5: i'll be around next week. Let's leave a number. If
- 16:08Speaker 5: I'm not there, I'll call you back. I can get
- 16:10Speaker 5: some facts and give you a rough idea and what
- 16:12Speaker 5: you be looking at. But there is a procedure to
- 16:14Speaker 5: address this, and that's the commonest scenario in which it
- 16:17Speaker 5: comes up, honestly, So you're not without some recourse and
- 16:21Speaker 5: there's a solution. We just have to look and see, well,
- 16:24Speaker 5: is there some way to get this result for less
- 16:26Speaker 5: than the time and money it would cost a lawyer
- 16:29Speaker 5: this thing, well, we're not happy with it. Let's get
- 16:32Speaker 5: a guaranteed result and get it now. Does that make sense?
- 16:36Speaker 4: Yeah?
- 16:37Speaker 7: You could give me an approximate lawyer fees?
- 16:40Speaker 5: Oh yeah, Well, and the thing is too about partition
- 16:44Speaker 5: airship property. A lot of it's involved in the just expense.
- 16:47Speaker 5: You know, if you've got forty or fifty airs, all
- 16:50Speaker 5: of whom have to be made parties, and you've got
- 16:52Speaker 5: to get them all summons as issued. You've got to
- 16:55Speaker 5: get service made. If people are unknown or they're outside
- 16:58Speaker 5: the area, you have to do public location and affidavits,
- 17:01Speaker 5: and that expense just piles up. Then you've got to
- 17:04Speaker 5: talk about when was the last appraise? Do we need
- 17:08Speaker 5: a formal appraisal? What's the cost of that going to be?
- 17:11Speaker 5: If there's some desire to divide it in kind, that is,
- 17:14Speaker 5: you can split the property up and parcels, then you've
- 17:16Speaker 5: got to think, well, what's it going to cost to
- 17:17Speaker 5: have this engineered? Yeah, I mean I could we could
- 17:21Speaker 5: have a fifteen minute phone conversation which we don't charge anything.
- 17:24Speaker 5: I mean, if you need, if you decide to use
- 17:28Speaker 5: legal help, I wish you would, you know, work with us,
- 17:31Speaker 5: but I mean I don't. I can sort of give
- 17:33Speaker 5: you an idea of what this thing would amount to
- 17:36Speaker 5: and then you can make a decision where you want
- 17:37Speaker 5: to go.
- 17:38Speaker 4: How's that perfect? Thank you a lot, Harvey, Hey, no problem.
- 17:42Speaker 3: Appreciate your phone call and you can now you can
- 17:44Speaker 3: get a hold of the PAYT law from of course,
- 17:46Speaker 3: the phone numbers is threes are four seven, five five
- 17:48Speaker 3: fifty five fifty six. Threes are four seven, five five
- 17:50Speaker 3: fifty five fifty six. Located in Nitro, West Virginia. It's
- 17:53Speaker 3: as easy as that.
- 17:54Speaker 5: It is, you know, real estate and Nitro has been
- 17:56Speaker 5: in the news lately. You had a story about the
- 17:58Speaker 5: U Nitro High School. I didn't attend Nightro High School.
- 18:02Speaker 5: I graduated if I'm proud graduate of Saint Alban's High School,
- 18:05Speaker 5: a Red Dragon class of sixty seven, which is hard
- 18:08Speaker 5: for me to even say. You know, at this we're
- 18:11Speaker 5: having our fall class dinner in September. It starts at
- 18:18Speaker 5: four o'clock. I thought, my wife, I feel like Jerry
- 18:22Speaker 5: Seinfeld's parents going to the buffetot I fire get the
- 18:28Speaker 5: early Bird special, but night through High School. It was
- 18:32Speaker 5: right in the middle of town. It was a building,
- 18:34Speaker 5: part of which was built I think right after the
- 18:38Speaker 5: First World War, and it was expanded upon, expanded upon,
- 18:41Speaker 5: and then you know, with the building was just outdated.
- 18:46Speaker 5: I had a lot of best to send out that
- 18:49Speaker 5: limited the ability to remodel, and so Nitro High School
- 18:53Speaker 5: was relocated over on Park Avenue where they consolidated what
- 18:57Speaker 5: was the Junior High and the grade school into the
- 19:00Speaker 5: high school. And the building has been repurposed several times.
- 19:03Speaker 5: It was part of actually the City Development Authority owned
- 19:07Speaker 5: it at one time, sold it to a church, and
- 19:10Speaker 5: then it was operated. They rented some parts of it
- 19:13Speaker 5: and it's just functionally shot. I mean, there's just nothing
- 19:18Speaker 5: you can do with the building except unfortunately, it could
- 19:22Speaker 5: be allowed to sit like the Junior High did in
- 19:24Speaker 5: Saint Albans, which was bad and to deteriorate. But the
- 19:29Speaker 5: Nitro land Reuse Agency, which is doing a really good Actually,
- 19:32Speaker 5: Larry Dawson I think is on that agency. He and
- 19:35Speaker 5: a couple other businessmen and they had some money and
- 19:38Speaker 5: the owner of the old high school, I think they
- 19:42Speaker 5: sold it through Joe R. Pyle, an auction one of
- 19:45Speaker 5: the auction services, and he paid one hundred and sixty
- 19:47Speaker 5: six thousand dollars for the building. I was all for
- 19:50Speaker 5: I'm all for it. I mean some of the folks
- 19:54Speaker 5: in town now because the city has been buying and
- 19:57Speaker 5: demolishing a lot of old properties, particularly some along First
- 20:00Speaker 5: Avenue or you know, it's like always there's always a
- 20:03Speaker 5: conspiracy somewhere. Well, the mayor worked for real estate office,
- 20:06Speaker 5: and he's friends with these real estate people. You know,
- 20:09Speaker 5: there's always somebody with their finger in which there's not.
- 20:13Speaker 5: I mean, they're interested people who are really interested in
- 20:16Speaker 5: seeing the city of Nitro progress. And I hope and
- 20:22Speaker 5: I think I think the Mayor's probably of the same
- 20:27Speaker 5: line of thought that where the high school is it
- 20:30Speaker 5: occupies it's probably two acres that are occupied by the building,
- 20:34Speaker 5: maybe a little more if we can find the money
- 20:38Speaker 5: to do the demolition. Perfect place for load of moderate
- 20:42Speaker 5: income housing, really, because we have a cute shortage of
- 20:46Speaker 5: housing everywhere and in Nitro, h you know, for one
- 20:50Speaker 5: of these old bungalows that's torn down in a new
- 20:52Speaker 5: one's built, they're not on the market for two weeks now, right,
- 20:55Speaker 5: they say, I mean it's just a nice it's on
- 20:58Speaker 5: the bus line. We don't have a grocery store. Now,
- 21:01Speaker 5: we did maybe have something in the works on that.
- 21:04Speaker 5: Drug stores there, doctors' offices, dentists. I mean, it's a
- 21:08Speaker 5: decent place for folks in starter homes, have a really
- 21:11Speaker 5: good police department, the sanitation is good, city services are good.
- 21:16Speaker 5: So hopefully that's going to be an uptick. We'll see
- 21:22Speaker 5: the real estate. Most of what we do with the
- 21:25Speaker 5: Peyton Law Firm, what we do that is our bread
- 21:29Speaker 5: and butter and have for almost fifty years, is injury work.
- 21:34Speaker 5: Car automobile accidents. People fall because of the negligence of someone.
- 21:40Speaker 5: People get into a dispute with an insurance company because
- 21:43Speaker 5: they won't pay a claim. They get a dispute with
- 21:46Speaker 5: a life insurance company that wants to retroactively underwrite a
- 21:49Speaker 5: claim and deny benefits. People become disabled, they have workers
- 21:54Speaker 5: compensation claims. That's really the array of what eighty percent
- 21:58Speaker 5: of our work is. But unlike other firms which advertise
- 22:05Speaker 5: heavily and don't do anything else, we actually spent about
- 22:11Speaker 5: twenty percent of our time doing things that people need
- 22:14Speaker 5: when they're not injured and when they're not in a dispute,
- 22:17Speaker 5: and that is things like like the gentleman path that
- 22:20Speaker 5: called let's see what we can do. How can we
- 22:23Speaker 5: solve your help you solve your problem? I notice we
- 22:26Speaker 5: have another call?
- 22:27Speaker 4: We do?
- 22:27Speaker 3: We do have another call? Call it. You're on the
- 22:29Speaker 3: air with Harvey. Think what's your first name, Bob?
- 22:32Speaker 4: How you doing?
- 22:32Speaker 3: What's your question for Harvey?
- 22:34Speaker 8: Well, I didn't have a question. Harvey just mentioned the
- 22:38Speaker 8: Nitro High School being torn down, and it's kind of
- 22:42Speaker 8: reflecting on those days. Nightcru High School actually was built.
- 22:47Speaker 8: At the same time, the new Saint Albans High School
- 22:50Speaker 8: was built and Dunbar High School was built. All three
- 22:55Speaker 8: of them opened as new high schools in fifty four,
- 22:59Speaker 8: and I remember we had a big contest between the
- 23:03Speaker 8: three schools on who could keep it the cleanest at
- 23:07Speaker 8: the end of the year.
- 23:09Speaker 4: Who won.
- 23:11Speaker 8: I don't remember.
- 23:14Speaker 2: It.
- 23:14Speaker 3: Off Well, I would like to be Hervey.
- 23:17Speaker 8: I'm a graduate of Fairview Grade School too, like you.
- 23:21Speaker 4: Oh yeah, buddy, that's one of the fondest memories. You know.
- 23:24Speaker 5: I lived right across the hill from Fairview and so
- 23:29Speaker 5: we could walk to school every day. My dad went
- 23:31Speaker 5: to Fairview Grade School and then we actually when Ruth
- 23:35Speaker 5: Perry was the principal over there, the last principal before
- 23:38Speaker 5: they closed it. They had a student reading program that
- 23:41Speaker 5: we everybody in our office volunteered to. We've went over
- 23:45Speaker 5: for an hour a piece a week and engaged in
- 23:49Speaker 5: the reading. I don't know who was the principal when
- 23:51Speaker 5: you went to Fairview. Was it Roy Ferrell?
- 23:54Speaker 8: Actually there was a change. Had the first four years
- 23:58Speaker 8: with CP Guys, which I still say is the toughest
- 24:02Speaker 8: principal that ever had a school in West Virginia. And
- 24:06Speaker 8: Roy Ferrell my last two years. Did you have a
- 24:12Speaker 8: teacher named Mary? It was Mary Carter when I had it.
- 24:17Speaker 8: It might have been Mary Ellis when you had her.
- 24:22Speaker 4: I don't remember Mary.
- 24:23Speaker 5: Else remember Miss Bragg and I could have, you know,
- 24:27Speaker 5: memories fade. I started in the fall of nineteen fifty
- 24:32Speaker 5: five at Fairview in the first grade. But we at
- 24:37Speaker 5: that time were having split grades.
- 24:39Speaker 4: You know.
- 24:39Speaker 5: The classrooms were so big, the classes were so big
- 24:42Speaker 5: that half the room would be first grade, half the
- 24:45Speaker 5: room would be second grade, and the same you know,
- 24:47Speaker 5: so it's hard to keep track. But mister Ferrell, I
- 24:51Speaker 5: always remember, first of all, he'd been like everybody else
- 24:56Speaker 5: who was an adult when we were in grade school,
- 24:58Speaker 5: they were all World War two vets.
- 25:00Speaker 8: That's that's we spent the first four years of Cpgeis
- 25:07Speaker 8: praying that he would retire and get out there.
- 25:10Speaker 5: Well, my dad was there when cpgeist was there, and
- 25:13Speaker 5: he had not so fond memories as well. But you know,
- 25:16Speaker 5: everybody wore you. You really made it in grade school
- 25:20Speaker 5: at Fairview when you got yourself a blue jean jacket
- 25:23Speaker 5: and you can sew your dad and your uncle's patches
- 25:26Speaker 5: all over it. Now there's patches off their uniform. That
- 25:29Speaker 5: was a big, really big deal.
- 25:31Speaker 8: Well, trying to get rid of CP though, was one
- 25:33Speaker 8: of those things where be careful what you wish for,
- 25:37Speaker 8: because we got replaced by a Marine sergeant who had
- 25:43Speaker 8: just finished a tour of the South Pacific with the Marines,
- 25:49Speaker 8: and he was just as tough as In fact, it
- 25:53Speaker 8: didn't take me long to get a good wooden paddling from.
- 25:57Speaker 4: Roy, mister Farrell's favorite.
- 25:59Speaker 5: But you know things, the thing about Roy Ferrell, and
- 26:01Speaker 5: I think about this all the time, Like recently we've
- 26:06Speaker 5: had a lot of public discussion, and this is not
- 26:08Speaker 5: any sort of political statement about food security. And Fairview
- 26:13Speaker 5: was then and always was over there on the west
- 26:16Speaker 5: side of Saint Albans. We were sort of the redheaded
- 26:19Speaker 5: stepchild of schools. And Roy Ferrell would come around about
- 26:26Speaker 5: every morning around ten o'clock and he would tell the
- 26:29Speaker 5: class a joke and he would say hi, he might
- 26:31Speaker 5: talk a little bit about his service. They would bring
- 26:35Speaker 5: a tray of crackers and everybody remembers commodity cheese, right
- 26:40Speaker 5: and then or he'd have Greg Cyrus's mom who worked
- 26:42Speaker 5: down there as the cook. They would make these little
- 26:45Speaker 5: sandwiches out of peanut butter, honey and carrots chopped up together,
- 26:50Speaker 5: and everybody got a little snack. Well, you know that
- 26:52Speaker 5: that was nice, But then later you realize he did
- 26:56Speaker 5: that in sort of a communal sort of way, because
- 26:59Speaker 5: that was the only mourning food that a lot of
- 27:03Speaker 5: those kids that I sat in class with ever got.
- 27:06Speaker 5: Now they had at lunch time, they could get free lunch.
- 27:09Speaker 5: Free lunch came in. You know, I got free lunch
- 27:13Speaker 5: partly because I passed out the milk, you know, on
- 27:15Speaker 5: the cafeteria line.
- 27:17Speaker 4: But I always thought about.
- 27:18Speaker 5: That that was such a humane act by a person
- 27:22Speaker 5: who could otherwise be pretty stern and me, well.
- 27:25Speaker 8: He was a disciplinary. You mentioned the size of the classes,
- 27:30Speaker 8: and I was going to say about I had Mary
- 27:33Speaker 8: Carter for the fourth grade, and nowadays you hear teachers
- 27:37Speaker 8: say that they just cannot handle over twenty one twenty
- 27:42Speaker 8: two in my fourth grade class, and I think this
- 27:48Speaker 8: was an aberration. But there were fifty two kids in
- 27:51Speaker 8: my fourth grade class with Mary Carter, and I never
- 27:55Speaker 8: heard that lady raise her voice once the entire year.
- 28:00Speaker 5: Well, of course, it was a it was a vastly
- 28:03Speaker 5: different time and a country that at that time was
- 28:06Speaker 5: much less complex. And I believe that for our generation,
- 28:10Speaker 5: one of the real positive influences was that, you know,
- 28:15Speaker 5: my dad grew up on a farm. I mean he
- 28:18Speaker 5: was His father was a disabled veteran. My grandmother didn't work.
- 28:22Speaker 5: They had a chicken farm there across from Fairview, and
- 28:25Speaker 5: he and his brother, they Pearl Harbor, started they joined
- 28:28Speaker 5: the service. I mean, they learned discipline. My dad told
- 28:33Speaker 5: me shine your shoes before you do anything. Don't get
- 28:36Speaker 5: an even if nobody's going to sleep in that bed
- 28:38Speaker 5: before the night times, you make your bed, you behave
- 28:43Speaker 5: If you know, I'll deal with you when you get home,
- 28:46Speaker 5: but you behave out there. I mean, there was a
- 28:48Speaker 5: whole generation of people, and of course we had a
- 28:51Speaker 5: degree of prosperity. Carbye Monsana DuPont. They were just kicking off.
- 28:55Speaker 5: You know, men could and women could get a house
- 28:58Speaker 5: up in Ordon's Park or even up you know, on
- 29:00Speaker 5: High Street out Virginia Heights, Lick Skillett.
- 29:04Speaker 8: And two parent families too, right, And that's.
- 29:07Speaker 5: You know, unfortunately economics dictate now that I mean most
- 29:13Speaker 5: of the people that I went to high school with,
- 29:16Speaker 5: I would say the majority their mothers didn't work outside
- 29:20Speaker 5: the home. They stayed home and took care of the house.
- 29:25Speaker 5: This man worked at Carbide, and once they've lived in
- 29:27Speaker 5: the park for a few years, they got a little
- 29:29Speaker 5: bit better job. My dad worked a post office. He'd
- 29:31Speaker 5: always call them carbyd millionaires. And once they got two
- 29:34Speaker 5: big feeling Fordnan's Park, they'd get a house at Ranch
- 29:37Speaker 5: at river Lake. Then you really were in tall cotton, buddy,
- 29:40Speaker 5: when you had a house out of River Lake.
- 29:42Speaker 4: And if you really hit it big.
- 29:43Speaker 8: When you think of all of the differences today compared
- 29:48Speaker 8: to nineteen forty eight, when I had fifty two kids
- 29:51Speaker 8: in my class, and there are all of the differences
- 29:55Speaker 8: today makes it difficult. All of those differences that made
- 29:59Speaker 8: it difficult today aren't going to change the no.
- 30:04Speaker 5: No, but but we need to, which is why we
- 30:06Speaker 5: need to adapt. I mean, that's just you know, we
- 30:09Speaker 5: live unfortunately. I think particularly in West Virginia, where it's
- 30:13Speaker 5: easy to look back. It's it's you know, you talk
- 30:16Speaker 5: about people talk about the town of Welch or Logan,
- 30:19Speaker 5: delightful places. Say well, but I remember when we had
- 30:22Speaker 5: an opera house and yep, but wait a minute, that's
- 30:24Speaker 5: not going to happen again. I don't if we had
- 30:27Speaker 5: the leadership, I think they could sit down and honestly
- 30:33Speaker 5: look at people. I mean people are younger than us.
- 30:36Speaker 5: I mean we are circling the drain of life, right,
- 30:40Speaker 5: It's that little world wool starts on top of us,
- 30:44Speaker 5: the full sink and it just slowly and you know
- 30:47Speaker 5: that sucking sound of death is going to hit us
- 30:49Speaker 5: sometime not too far off. But for those people who
- 30:52Speaker 5: are younger, just this is not going to happen again.
- 30:55Speaker 8: That's right. Let me let me add one thing here
- 30:58Speaker 8: about Roy Farrell. I've managed to finished college and past
- 31:04Speaker 8: the CPA exam and I worked with one of the
- 31:07Speaker 8: national firms in town. And about nineteen seventy two, I
- 31:13Speaker 8: left the office headed for the elevator, and just as
- 31:16Speaker 8: I did, guy got off the elevator.
- 31:19Speaker 6: And this is.
- 31:22Speaker 8: Twenty two years after I last saw Roy Ferrell. But
- 31:26Speaker 8: the guy that got off of the elevator grabbed my
- 31:28Speaker 8: arm said don't I know you? And I Bob Childress.
- 31:34Speaker 8: He said, well, I'm Roy Ferrell. And I ended up
- 31:38Speaker 8: doing Roy Farrell's tax return for two.
- 31:40Speaker 4: Years and that's a small world.
- 31:43Speaker 8: Kept thinking, here's a place where I can get even
- 31:47Speaker 8: for that, and that didn't.
- 31:52Speaker 4: Thank you.
- 31:53Speaker 5: We've got to take a break right now. We only
- 31:54Speaker 5: take one break a half hour, so it's time for
- 31:56Speaker 5: it now and we'll be back directly. Keep this call
- 32:00Speaker 5: that's coming. We like these kind of calls.
- 32:01Speaker 4: This morning.
- 32:02Speaker 5: We're going to talk about the Payton Law firm and
- 32:03Speaker 5: a little more depth before we get back.
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- 32:36Speaker 10: We know summer's not over yet and school is probably
- 32:39Speaker 10: the last thing on your mind, but don't get cut
- 32:41Speaker 10: off guard with back to school shopping when the time
- 32:43Speaker 10: sneaks up on you. Right now, at Members Choice West
- 32:46Speaker 10: Virginia Federal Credit Union, you can get it back to
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- 33:03Speaker 10: Additional restrictions may apply.
- 33:16Speaker 4: As Virginia.
- 33:18Speaker 3: You're listening to ask the expert, ask the lawyers, indeed
- 33:23Speaker 3: right here in West Virginia by the native West Virginias,
- 33:26Speaker 3: all of whom.
- 33:27Speaker 5: Live here and work here and know how things operate here.
- 33:30Speaker 5: And that's the really strong, one of the really strong
- 33:34Speaker 5: points about the Peyton Law Firm that we try to
- 33:37Speaker 5: get across. You know, it's sort of a two edged sword,
- 33:44Speaker 5: you know, I think that what would really help us
- 33:47Speaker 5: here in West Virginia is a real influx of some
- 33:51Speaker 5: in migration, not necessarily. I'm not talking about immigrants to
- 33:55Speaker 5: the United States, although that wouldn't hurt anything. That's how
- 33:57Speaker 5: we all got here to start with. But you know, somebody,
- 34:01Speaker 5: somehow to replace the chronic drain on our population that
- 34:06Speaker 5: we've experienced and continue to experience. I mean, the projection
- 34:09Speaker 5: is that we're going to lose statewide twenty four thousand
- 34:13Speaker 5: elementary school commencing students within the next five years. That's
- 34:17Speaker 5: crippling if you talk about building a workforce. But I
- 34:21Speaker 5: think while we're here, as you can tell from Bob,
- 34:26Speaker 5: we know a lot about where we grew up and
- 34:29Speaker 5: where we came from and what folks here are like.
- 34:31Speaker 5: And you know, I graduated Saint Auban's High School in
- 34:35Speaker 5: sixty seven, My dad graduated Albans High School in nineteen
- 34:38Speaker 5: thirty nine, and my son in ninety four and my
- 34:42Speaker 5: daughter in ninety six. And that's just you know, we've
- 34:45Speaker 5: been here. The Peyton Law Firm, I mean, I've been
- 34:48Speaker 5: practicing law. Worked for a federal judge, Judge Maxwell. I
- 34:52Speaker 5: loved it. He was the nicest man I ever worked with, fair,
- 34:56Speaker 5: even handed, briefly worked with the law office here Charleston,
- 35:00Speaker 5: a sole practitioner I really liked, but he was doing
- 35:04Speaker 5: insurance defense work, which didn't appeal to me. I thought, well,
- 35:07Speaker 5: I'm on the wrong side of this equation here. I
- 35:10Speaker 5: really need to be over there with people who are injured.
- 35:13Speaker 5: Because insurance is insurance. It's a business. It's been to
- 35:16Speaker 5: make money. And the way you make money is first
- 35:18Speaker 5: of all, investing in the stock market, and the second
- 35:21Speaker 5: managing claims so that while you pay a claim not
- 35:25Speaker 5: a penny more than you have to pay to get it.
- 35:28Speaker 5: The dynamic on the other side is, well, we need
- 35:31Speaker 5: to see that our clients are treated absolutely fairly under
- 35:34Speaker 5: all the circumstances prevailing. And I like that that side
- 35:38Speaker 5: much better. So in nineteen seventy seven an opportunity opened up.
- 35:42Speaker 5: There had been a lawyer named Clarence Watt. He had
- 35:44Speaker 5: an office in Nitro, a solo practici st although he
- 35:48Speaker 5: had associated with some other lawyers. He was elected judge
- 35:51Speaker 5: when they expanded the circuit the two judges from one
- 35:57Speaker 5: his office was available, and so I went there, and
- 36:00Speaker 5: then in sort of outgrew that location, and in ninety
- 36:03Speaker 5: four we built a building down the street at twenty
- 36:06Speaker 5: eighth Street, but consistently it's been me and my wife
- 36:11Speaker 5: works in the office. He's from PoCA. Our receptionist melodies
- 36:16Speaker 5: a lifelong Buffalonian from Buffalo or dead Bill was the
- 36:19Speaker 5: mayor down of Buffalo, Bill Whittington. Uh you know Hambergo
- 36:24Speaker 5: who works with it was the WinCE from Nitro. Lives
- 36:26Speaker 5: in Saint Albans. Shannon's a Polka Dot Tom you know.
- 36:31Speaker 5: He's a St. Alban's High school grands as his wife
- 36:35Speaker 5: Maryanne Cold and they now live in Putnam County and Hurricane.
- 36:38Speaker 5: So we've been here a long time, and I've been
- 36:40Speaker 5: here since Pottnam County had just a fudge over or
- 36:45Speaker 5: under thirty thousand people, a lot of them concentrated on
- 36:50Speaker 5: the north side of the river because you had the
- 36:52Speaker 5: plants one great guns in Nitro. To now we've got
- 36:55Speaker 5: almost sixty thousand people, many of them concentrated down in
- 36:59Speaker 5: the valley along the corridor. And we're here to help you.
- 37:04Speaker 5: I mean, we know how things work. So if you've
- 37:06Speaker 5: got an issue, or a friend or family member has
- 37:09Speaker 5: an issue, you suffered an injury or a loss, all
- 37:11Speaker 5: we ask. Now, we can't put billboards everywhere or run
- 37:16Speaker 5: TV ads all through lunch hour on Channel three. But
- 37:20Speaker 5: if you just give a think about the Peyton Law Firm,
- 37:22Speaker 5: maybe give us a call, come and meet us. There's
- 37:24Speaker 5: no obligation for that, and I think not everyone. Everyone
- 37:29Speaker 5: can be satisfied with everyone, but I would wager that
- 37:32Speaker 5: our satisfied clientele far out number any others. And we'll
- 37:37Speaker 5: see you next week. I will be here next week
- 37:39Speaker 5: because Tom's going to be out on vacation. So uh,
- 37:42Speaker 5: you surped the Crown Prince.
- 37:44Speaker 3: How's that happy vacation to Tom? That's gonna be the
- 37:46Speaker 3: next week for that. Won't be here next week, herd.
- 37:49Speaker 3: We will be here next week on the Ask the
- 37:51Speaker 3: lawyer with a Patent law firm Paytent Law Firm located
- 37:53Speaker 3: in Niro, West Virginia. Their phone number three zero A
- 37:55Speaker 3: four seven five five fifty fipety six threes are A
- 37:57Speaker 3: four seven fifty five fifty six seven fifty five fifty
- 38:01Speaker 3: six and online Peyton Lawfirm dot com located at twenty
- 38:05Speaker 3: eighth one First Avenue in Nitro. That's gonna do it
- 38:08Speaker 3: for this program. Coming up next Dave Allen is coming
- 38:11Speaker 3: up with five AD Live. He'll be followed by Dave
- 38:13Speaker 3: Wilson and TJ on Talkline. Dave Allen will be back
- 38:16Speaker 3: with Amanda barn for Midday this afternoon, and then I'll
- 38:19Speaker 3: be back with Dave weekly on our day of Dave's
- 38:22Speaker 3: on Hotline this afternoon at three. Have a great day everyone.
- 38:24Speaker 3: On five adw CHS. We are the voice of Charleston.
- 38:31Speaker 2: W CHS AI W two four three d r F
- 38:34Speaker 2: M Charleston W two eight three HU Cross Lanes at
- 38:36Speaker 2: WVRC Media Station. We're proud to live here too,