Latest / WCHS Network Podcasts / 03/06/2025 Ask the Lawyer with Harvey Peyton
Transcript
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- 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 WHS
- 0:22Speaker 2: it's employees or WVRC Media.
- 0:26Speaker 3: Put the power of Paype on the side. We have
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- 0:35Speaker 3: give up. We're prepared to fight for your rights. When
- 0:40Speaker 3: you need action, count on us. Put the power of
- 0:47Speaker 3: Payson on your side.
- 0:49Speaker 4: The power of pay Oh, that's right. If you've been
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- 0:55Speaker 4: you can do that this morning. Give us a call
- 0:56Speaker 4: this morning. Threezer of four three four two eight one
- 0:58Speaker 4: three one threeser a four the three zer three four
- 1:00Speaker 4: to eight one three one. Harvey Payton is in the
- 1:02Speaker 4: studio with us this morning. You can put the power
- 1:03Speaker 4: of Payton on your side. From micro West, Virginia, Harvey,
- 1:06Speaker 4: good morning, how you doing this time?
- 1:07Speaker 5: I'm doing quite well, and you won't have to You
- 1:09Speaker 5: don't have to be waiting for the power of Peyton
- 1:11Speaker 5: because we're here and we have been here on the
- 1:14Speaker 5: air for more than a quarter century, and the Peyton
- 1:17Speaker 5: Law Firm has been in in the valley here for
- 1:24Speaker 5: almost fifty years. Between Tom and I'm my oldest boy
- 1:28Speaker 5: who we make up the Peyton Law Firm, we have
- 1:31Speaker 5: i think now seventy five combined years of experience. He's
- 1:35Speaker 5: been doing it for twenty four years to my fifty one.
- 1:40Speaker 5: So that's a long long time and a lot of experience,
- 1:44Speaker 5: a lot of know how and you know, a lot
- 1:49Speaker 5: of a lot of opportunity to quote help people, which
- 1:51Speaker 5: is what lawyers are here for. That's what we should
- 1:56Speaker 5: be here for. That's what our producery obligation to the
- 1:59Speaker 5: public is to help you as much as we can
- 2:02Speaker 5: within the constraints of the law and ethical behavior. And
- 2:07Speaker 5: we take great pride at the Peyton Law Firm and
- 2:09Speaker 5: our one on one relationship with our clients and our
- 2:13Speaker 5: in our personal interaction with our clients. We don't do
- 2:17Speaker 5: a lot of we don't do any television advertising, and
- 2:21Speaker 5: our doors are open every day mostly we unfortunately folks
- 2:26Speaker 5: get injured by the negligence or misconduct of others. They
- 2:30Speaker 5: can suffer an injury an automobile accident, or suffer an
- 2:35Speaker 5: injury perhaps in a fall, or because of a defective
- 2:38Speaker 5: piece of equipment or a product that fails. Or you
- 2:43Speaker 5: can have another injury. Instance, if someone has a life
- 2:45Speaker 5: insurance policy and after they suffer a loss, the company
- 2:50Speaker 5: tries to do what's called reverse underwriting and dig dig
- 2:52Speaker 5: dig dig dig back into the background. So oh well,
- 2:54Speaker 5: wait a minute, this question is not correct, even though
- 2:57Speaker 5: there's their agent fill out the application because they wanted
- 3:02Speaker 5: the money. I mean, that's something that we can help
- 3:05Speaker 5: you with. We have a lot of cases where insurance
- 3:09Speaker 5: carriers were just misinterpret a claim. They won't pay a
- 3:12Speaker 5: legitimate claim. And you have to know you get a lawyer, and.
- 3:15Speaker 4: Of course the.
- 3:18Speaker 5: Incentive is it used to be for the insurance carriers
- 3:21Speaker 5: to deny claims.
- 3:22Speaker 6: All.
- 3:22Speaker 5: You know, you better take what we're offering because by
- 3:24Speaker 5: the time you hire a lawyer, you're going to not
- 3:26Speaker 5: least well, that's in claims against your own insurance company.
- 3:33Speaker 5: First party claims. It is if you are the insured
- 3:37Speaker 5: and you have the claim for a loss or injury
- 3:39Speaker 5: to yourself or the loss of a life of a
- 3:41Speaker 5: loved one, and you hire a lawyer to pro prosecute
- 3:45Speaker 5: that claim and we're successful. It is you quote, substantially prevailed.
- 3:49Speaker 5: Then the insurance company pays the fees. That's as a
- 3:52Speaker 5: result of a decision. It's called the hay Seeds case.
- 3:58Speaker 5: And now that sounds strange. There was a straught in
- 4:01Speaker 5: point Pleasant and in the least building in the restaurant
- 4:04Speaker 5: was hay Seeds. Right, let's get out of hay state.
- 4:07Speaker 5: But this sounds a little but this was in the eighties, right, haste,
- 4:12Speaker 5: and this suffer fire loss. And there was an allegation
- 4:15Speaker 5: of arson and the lawsuit was brought and uh, the
- 4:21Speaker 5: property enter prevailed and recovered against State Farm was the
- 4:25Speaker 5: insurance carrier. Hay Seeds was the insured. And the circuit
- 4:30Speaker 5: judge at that time, that amazing guy. He said, well,
- 4:32Speaker 5: you know there's an application here for attorney's fees and
- 4:36Speaker 5: I'm going to grant it in an amount equal to
- 4:39Speaker 5: one third of what you owed these folks. Well, that
- 4:43Speaker 5: was appealed and the Supreme Court Justice Neely wrote the opinions, Well, yeah,
- 4:47Speaker 5: if you're a if you go you go to insurance company,
- 4:51Speaker 5: you buy a policy of insurance, you have a contract
- 4:53Speaker 5: that I'll pay your loss, and I'll pay you the
- 4:56Speaker 5: full amount of your loss. Why is it fairy just
- 4:59Speaker 5: to say, well, I'm not going to pay you the
- 5:00Speaker 5: full amount and you have to absorb the cost of
- 5:03Speaker 5: getting me to do with the contract said I would do.
- 5:05Speaker 5: That's just unfair, it's improper. And so we've had the
- 5:08Speaker 5: Hayseeds doctrine in place here in West Virginia for gosh
- 5:14Speaker 5: now forty years and it's clearly a benefit to the insured,
- 5:18Speaker 5: to the consumer. It's such a benefit that the legislature
- 5:22Speaker 5: has kept their hands off that think of that, even
- 5:26Speaker 5: though the insurance companies don't like it, but it makes
- 5:29Speaker 5: you know, it imposes responsibility for their conducts rarely where
- 5:33Speaker 5: it belongs. Now, you know, the legislature, I follow, you know,
- 5:38Speaker 5: along with the daily news, and of course I'm a
- 5:41Speaker 5: member of the West Virginia Association for Justice, which is
- 5:44Speaker 5: the trial Lawyers association plaintiffs and consumer attorneys employment lawyers.
- 5:48Speaker 5: So we follow the legislature and I assume that later
- 5:54Speaker 5: in the session maybe they'll move beyond some of these
- 5:56Speaker 5: social issues that we're dealing with.
- 6:01Speaker 6: It.
- 6:01Speaker 5: Doesn't look like there's much on the horizon as far
- 6:04Speaker 5: as consumer rights, the rights of people access to a
- 6:08Speaker 5: jury trial. J. W. Acres is the Chairman of House Judiciary.
- 6:13Speaker 5: Really excellent guy. I mean he's a republic and I
- 6:16Speaker 5: don't agree with his politics necessary, but he's a good man,
- 6:21Speaker 5: got a lot of integrity. Actually worked off with our
- 6:24Speaker 5: office for briefly back I think in the late nineties
- 6:27Speaker 5: when we were short staffed. So we'll see what filters
- 6:30Speaker 5: through there. There is some talk about brim people see
- 6:34Speaker 5: that in the headlines. I know this in your headline,
- 6:36Speaker 5: and brim bill is up for debate. Those initials stand
- 6:40Speaker 5: for the Board of Risk and Insurance Management, West Virginia
- 6:45Speaker 5: in response to what was, oh gosh, almost forty years
- 6:51Speaker 5: ago again somewhat of a crisis in the insurance industry.
- 6:55Speaker 5: In the fact there's the stock market was way down,
- 6:57Speaker 5: investments weren't paying. Losses continue to stack up because people
- 7:02Speaker 5: continue to make mistakes. In order to to protect allow
- 7:10Speaker 5: the state agencies to protect themselves and employees to protect themselves.
- 7:13Speaker 5: We've got the Border Risk and Insurance Management. It is
- 7:16Speaker 5: a fund created I mean the premiums charged to agencies
- 7:20Speaker 5: are our taxpayer dollars that are put in the management
- 7:24Speaker 5: of br I M BRIM. A contract is let for
- 7:28Speaker 5: some insurance company or some claim service to handle claims,
- 7:31Speaker 5: but the money they're paying out for lawyers and claims
- 7:33Speaker 5: is taxpayer money. And uh, there is a move now,
- 7:37Speaker 5: I guess here in the legislature to limit some liability
- 7:43Speaker 5: for the claims paid by the Border Risk for child
- 7:46Speaker 5: care facilities. And you know that's that's one of those
- 7:52Speaker 5: things that you can tell a half truth about a situation.
- 7:58Speaker 5: Look at the size of these claims. But the problem
- 8:00Speaker 5: with this bill, as I see it, it's addressing an
- 8:03Speaker 5: issue that BRIM brought upon itself and from which they
- 8:06Speaker 5: can relieve themselves. And the Board of Risk was created
- 8:09Speaker 5: to ensure agencies in the state of West Virginia. Then
- 8:17Speaker 5: it can be expanded. You can be a county government,
- 8:20Speaker 5: you can be a city government, you can be a nonprofit.
- 8:24Speaker 5: There are certain rules of eligibility that you can insure
- 8:27Speaker 5: yourself through the Board of Risk. Well, then somebody got
- 8:30Speaker 5: the idea, well, wouldn't it be a good thing if
- 8:32Speaker 5: we could extend BRIM coverage, which is tradition, it's always
- 8:36Speaker 5: available and generally cheaper than commercial insurance to child care
- 8:40Speaker 5: facilities not necessarily state owned, but who take children? Well,
- 8:45Speaker 5: what okay, who becomes insured an outfit up in Harrison County.
- 8:49Speaker 5: What happens, No oversight, no underwriting, just issue of policy
- 8:56Speaker 5: and results in dozens and dozens of claims for the
- 9:03Speaker 5: sexual and physical and psychological abuse of the children. Now,
- 9:08Speaker 5: that's a fact for which millions upon millions upon millions
- 9:13Speaker 5: of dollars were paid by Brim to the victims who
- 9:17Speaker 5: were the most innocent, helpless of all folks. Children. Now,
- 9:21Speaker 5: in response to that, that cry is, well, let's give
- 9:23Speaker 5: these facilities immunity or reduce their potential exposure to me,
- 9:29Speaker 5: the crash should be well, Brim, you have no business
- 9:33Speaker 5: ensuring these people that you don't underwrite because this is
- 9:36Speaker 5: too high risk. If they want to conduct business, let
- 9:41Speaker 5: them go into the commercial market, and if they can
- 9:44Speaker 5: come back to you and tell you that they have
- 9:46Speaker 5: completely exhausted all attempts to obtain commercial insurance at an
- 9:51Speaker 5: affordable price, and then perhaps you can work with them.
- 9:53Speaker 5: But somebody's going to underwrite these people, and you've got
- 9:56Speaker 5: to underwrite the risks. So you know what you're insuring
- 9:58Speaker 5: this really this bill, it seems to me, is try
- 10:00Speaker 5: to sort well the horses out of the bar. You know,
- 10:04Speaker 5: the millions of dollars are gone. It's gone because of
- 10:07Speaker 5: a blunder on the part of brim management to ensure
- 10:10Speaker 5: these essentially unensurable entities, and it came back to bite
- 10:15Speaker 5: them to bail that out. But to me, the other
- 10:19Speaker 5: attack would be, well, wait a minute, or have an
- 10:22Speaker 5: open discussion. Look, if we need childcare agencies and you
- 10:25Speaker 5: want to come up and talk about immunity, well if
- 10:28Speaker 5: that's what the public policy is going to be, they
- 10:30Speaker 5: can do it. Actually, you know, the state agencies, the
- 10:34Speaker 5: legislature could I presume said we're just going to abolish
- 10:38Speaker 5: the border risk. West Virginia has sovereign immunity. It can't
- 10:42Speaker 5: sue the state. You can sue the employees if they're negligent,
- 10:46Speaker 5: but the state of West Virginia, and it's various agencies
- 10:51Speaker 5: and subdivisions, they're immune. If you have a contract claim,
- 10:54Speaker 5: for instance, pure contract, no element of negligence against the
- 10:57Speaker 5: state agency, you have to file a claim. If there's
- 11:01Speaker 5: a breach, you file a claim with the used to
- 11:04Speaker 5: be the Court of Claims now there's a successor to that,
- 11:07Speaker 5: and it's handled administratively, so we'll see. I mean, that's
- 11:10Speaker 5: the one bill that I've noticed that it does affect
- 11:14Speaker 5: the rights of folks to bring an action and if
- 11:19Speaker 5: there's an open and honest debate about well, how did
- 11:21Speaker 5: this happen, how do we get in this situation?
- 11:23Speaker 4: Why do we pay this?
- 11:27Speaker 5: The committee process in the legislature has seemed to me
- 11:30Speaker 5: to be the appropriate place to do that.
- 11:33Speaker 4: It seems like so many of the issues that we
- 11:34Speaker 4: have that we need to tackle on this date is
- 11:38Speaker 4: different facets of this childcare thing. I mean, it is
- 11:41Speaker 4: like from every direction, well.
- 11:42Speaker 5: It is, and it's generational, and you know, if you've
- 11:45Speaker 5: got six thousand children, these aren't the same six thousand children.
- 11:51Speaker 5: I mean, this is like a first in, first out.
- 11:55Speaker 5: You know, once a child age is out eighteen or
- 11:58Speaker 5: nineteen years old, they're not in the system anymore. So
- 12:01Speaker 5: if there's this mill that's grinding about six thousand individuals
- 12:05Speaker 5: at a time, that means every year there's a whatever
- 12:10Speaker 5: the degree of turner is, I don't know if anybody
- 12:12Speaker 5: knows that how many children are in long term foster
- 12:15Speaker 5: care and who just age out and well, there you go.
- 12:20Speaker 5: But without oversight and treatment and care, there are a
- 12:29Speaker 5: lot of problems. I don't think any lawyer who deals
- 12:32Speaker 5: with the public, who deals with real life, sea level people,
- 12:38Speaker 5: wouldn't be able to tell.
- 12:39Speaker 4: You that.
- 12:41Speaker 5: Even under the best of circumstances, children who are neglected
- 12:49Speaker 5: and abused and bounced from place to place in their
- 12:53Speaker 5: tenderest of years never recover from that. They never recover
- 12:59Speaker 5: completely from that. There's always something there and it may
- 13:03Speaker 5: come out at any time. And so if you don't
- 13:07Speaker 5: address the issue now, then you're looking at the population
- 13:13Speaker 5: that just continues to grow. That is that people who
- 13:16Speaker 5: have aged out of foster care without any attention, without
- 13:20Speaker 5: any treatment, without any way to address physical or mental disability.
- 13:26Speaker 5: Then that's just a growing population that is unemployable right
- 13:31Speaker 5: and unhousable at times, and it gets to be a
- 13:36Speaker 5: bigger and bigger and bigger problem.
- 13:38Speaker 4: Substance abuse is a greater risk.
- 13:41Speaker 5: Substance abuse, sexually acting out, acting out violently, anger management issues.
- 13:48Speaker 5: Those are all things that come with children essentially being
- 13:52Speaker 5: tortured by adults. I mean, my son Tom, who's truly
- 13:58Speaker 5: got a heart of goal.
- 14:01Speaker 4: And one child and.
- 14:02Speaker 5: Said, you know, the problem is this child's an animal,
- 14:05Speaker 5: but he didn't make himself that way. Children are born innocent.
- 14:09Speaker 5: And you know the thing that sticks Well, we've talked.
- 14:13Speaker 5: I heard Tom last week here on the air talking
- 14:16Speaker 5: about you know why, why isn't the solution to build
- 14:20Speaker 5: four or five regional foster care facilities to provide housing
- 14:24Speaker 5: short term and long term for these children? But I
- 14:27Speaker 5: thought plus two years ago, Wait a minute, Alterson Rod
- 14:31Speaker 5: has just closed its doors. There is a college campus,
- 14:34Speaker 5: a university campus sitting there in Philippy. It has a dormitories,
- 14:42Speaker 5: it has an auditorium, a gymnasium, athletic fields, classrooms, cafeteria.
- 14:49Speaker 5: Why do we let that be sold to an entrepreneur
- 14:52Speaker 5: from Harrison I think paid a couple of million dollars
- 14:54Speaker 5: for it. Why didn't our governor who had ten million
- 14:58Speaker 5: dollars for a baseball field at Marshall, why didn't he
- 15:01Speaker 5: have twenty two and a half million dollars. Okay, I'm
- 15:04Speaker 5: going to buy aller some broadest and here's what we're
- 15:06Speaker 5: going to do. We're going to make this for at
- 15:08Speaker 5: least for now the BOSTHT Central location we've got for
- 15:11Speaker 5: these children, and hire it and staff it and give
- 15:15Speaker 5: them an equal opportunity with other people because it's not
- 15:18Speaker 5: their fault as well. Their parents need to take care
- 15:20Speaker 5: of well, they won't, right, I mean, that's why they're
- 15:23Speaker 5: in fosters.
- 15:23Speaker 4: It's not their fault that their parents are not good people. Man,
- 15:26Speaker 4: I mean, you got to take care of the kids.
- 15:27Speaker 5: Well, see how that goes. Now in the legal realm,
- 15:31Speaker 5: folks may have seen this week where there was a
- 15:34Speaker 5: long standing federal court lawsuit brought by a public interest
- 15:39Speaker 5: group on behalf of this population of abused and neglected
- 15:45Speaker 5: children run in the district court and assigned to Judge Goodwin,
- 15:48Speaker 5: who's a senior status judge. Mean, Judge Goodwin's been there,
- 15:52Speaker 5: highly experienced, highly competent trial court level federal judge, and
- 16:01Speaker 5: so this week he dismissed the case. The case had
- 16:02Speaker 5: been penning for probably four and a half or five years,
- 16:07Speaker 5: a lot of discovery, a lot of work being done,
- 16:10Speaker 5: and finally the judge said, well, wait a minute. You know,
- 16:14Speaker 5: I'm a federal judge. I cannot take over the federal
- 16:19Speaker 5: courts under the idea of separation of powers and the
- 16:22Speaker 5: Eleventh Amendment, which limits what federal courts can do at
- 16:26Speaker 5: the state level in any event, I can't deal with
- 16:30Speaker 5: an issue that is solely the responsibility from the federal
- 16:34Speaker 5: court standpoint of the governor and legislature. So there it is,
- 16:38Speaker 5: there's that third in your punch bowl. Legislature, you got
- 16:42Speaker 5: to deal with this now. I think Judge Goodwin's right.
- 16:47Speaker 5: Why it took four years to reach that level. There's
- 16:50Speaker 5: a good reason for that because COVID was involved in
- 16:52Speaker 5: there too. But it is a problem for the executive
- 16:57Speaker 5: and legislative branch. Except on the other hand, in the
- 17:01Speaker 5: state court, in the certain court of Kanawh County, Judge Acres,
- 17:06Speaker 5: Mary clarekrehs hapems to be the wife of JB. Acres,
- 17:10Speaker 5: who's the judicial She was an excellent prosecuting attorney. She
- 17:14Speaker 5: worked in the Attorney General's office. From what I've seen,
- 17:19Speaker 5: one of those real treasurers you get as a circuit judge.
- 17:24Speaker 5: But she's has the responsibility as a state court judge,
- 17:29Speaker 5: not like Joe Bob good went over to the federal building.
- 17:32Speaker 5: Her responsibility is she's charged with sometimes placing these children,
- 17:38Speaker 5: and so she has a real judicial interest in what's
- 17:43Speaker 5: happening now. So she summoned along with Tom Sweeney up
- 17:47Speaker 5: in the northern part of the state. She summoned some
- 17:49Speaker 5: folks from DHH. Article is look, we need to and
- 17:52Speaker 5: now she is appointed and I'm not sure the person
- 17:56Speaker 5: is a special commissioner or an officer of the court
- 17:58Speaker 5: to instigate and report back to her. Apparently what happened,
- 18:02Speaker 5: and this is unconscionable. A child was placed. They had
- 18:05Speaker 5: no short term place, but they couldn't find a relative
- 18:08Speaker 5: to take the child. So he's put in a hotel room.
- 18:10Speaker 5: Whether he was there with somebody else or by himself.
- 18:13Speaker 5: The child attempted suicide. Now you would think that would
- 18:16Speaker 5: be a red flag in the report on his handling
- 18:21Speaker 5: that goes to the court. Well it wasn't. I apparently
- 18:25Speaker 5: disclosed at some later time to Judge Acres that ate
- 18:28Speaker 5: an attempted suicide had taken place. Now, if you want
- 18:31Speaker 5: to find a way to get in trouble with a judge,
- 18:34Speaker 5: well the first thing is lie to them, Second, tell
- 18:37Speaker 5: a half truth. Third, conceal a material fact this material
- 18:42Speaker 5: to the hand out. Beyond that, you can also get
- 18:47Speaker 5: up and call.
- 18:47Speaker 4: Him a name. But yeah, that's probably not a good idea.
- 18:50Speaker 5: That's none of that's a good idea, But we have
- 18:52Speaker 5: a call.
- 18:52Speaker 4: We do have a call, so when to go to
- 18:53Speaker 4: the phone lines. We have a caller that's called in
- 18:55Speaker 4: this morning with a question for Harvey Payton from the
- 18:56Speaker 4: Payton Law Froom in Nitro, West Virginia. Good morning. Who
- 18:59Speaker 4: am I talking to this morning? My name is Kim
- 19:02Speaker 4: Hey the Kim the morning.
- 19:04Speaker 7: Good morning.
- 19:05Speaker 4: What's your question for Harvey?
- 19:08Speaker 7: Well?
- 19:08Speaker 8: I was listening to Harvey and about his idea about
- 19:11Speaker 8: Autiston Broadest, which would be wonderful, But has he ever
- 19:16Speaker 8: gone to the facility and owner that is exactly like
- 19:21Speaker 8: that and.
- 19:22Speaker 7: They cannot keep staff.
- 19:25Speaker 8: So it is a big problem to fact these facilities,
- 19:30Speaker 8: even though Autist and Products is probably three times larger
- 19:33Speaker 8: than the facility and owner.
- 19:36Speaker 7: These kids come in.
- 19:37Speaker 8: Abused, drug addicted and they cannot keep qualify staff to
- 19:45Speaker 8: oversee them. What would your suggestion be, Harvey.
- 19:49Speaker 5: Well, I would try to find out why. I mean,
- 19:52Speaker 5: is it a I can tell you it is from
- 19:56Speaker 5: my personal experience. The problem with staffing is my daughter
- 20:01Speaker 5: has a master's degree in a degree from Marshall and
- 20:05Speaker 5: Psychology and a master's degree in counseling and guidance, and
- 20:09Speaker 5: she started her career in the area the meal you
- 20:16Speaker 5: of abuse and neglect and had to seek other employment
- 20:23Speaker 5: opportunities because you just can't. You can't put gas in
- 20:25Speaker 5: your car on the pay that was being made. So
- 20:29Speaker 5: I don't know whether it's a problem with training or
- 20:31Speaker 5: it's a problem with compensation that's available for workers, and
- 20:37Speaker 5: they have to be screened very very carefully, you know that.
- 20:40Speaker 5: I mean, you can't have anyone in there that's got
- 20:42Speaker 5: a blemish in their background or a suggestion of sexual
- 20:46Speaker 5: or physical abuse or assault, because you're working with children
- 20:50Speaker 5: who were helpless. But somebody needs to ask. I mean,
- 20:55Speaker 5: if I had the answer, I would, but.
- 20:58Speaker 4: I don't.
- 21:00Speaker 5: I'm not in a position to get the answer because yeah,
- 21:03Speaker 5: I've been an answer question. Yes, I've been to the facility,
- 21:05Speaker 5: and I think that overall, even with their staffing problems,
- 21:11Speaker 5: the young man that I was working with who was there,
- 21:16Speaker 5: and the other young man that I'm aware of who's
- 21:18Speaker 5: been there, did well. It was a good experience. Now
- 21:24Speaker 5: I qualify that good given the circumstances. So I don't know,
- 21:29Speaker 5: but we need to address it collectively as a state.
- 21:36Speaker 5: I believe now that involves government, that involves the expenditure
- 21:42Speaker 5: of money. It involves probably the creation of some level
- 21:46Speaker 5: of bureaucracy to oversee the training and program and make
- 21:50Speaker 5: sure the money is spent appropriately and that the results
- 21:54Speaker 5: we want are we're working towards obtaining them.
- 21:56Speaker 2: But I.
- 22:00Speaker 5: Mean, I don't I don't have any I guess to
- 22:02Speaker 5: answer to your questions. I don't have an answer. But
- 22:04Speaker 5: there's got to be something better than what we're doing,
- 22:08Speaker 5: and somebody has the responsibility to look for it. And
- 22:11Speaker 5: I agree with Judge Judge goodwhen it's the governor's The
- 22:14Speaker 5: governor sets the UH, set's the agenda, and the legislature
- 22:19Speaker 5: he sets policy, and the legislature carries it out there
- 22:21Speaker 5: in that laws that the governor did enforces or implements.
- 22:25Speaker 5: And that's what we should do. And I think we
- 22:28Speaker 5: should ask uh. You know, there's one delegate that represents
- 22:33Speaker 5: part of Nitro. I'm probably not on this Christmas card
- 22:36Speaker 5: list because every time he posts, you know, typically self
- 22:39Speaker 5: serving political picture of handing a check to somebody. I
- 22:43Speaker 5: asked a question, well, what did you do today about
- 22:46Speaker 5: the abuse and neglect? And there's never an answer. I
- 22:51Speaker 5: don't expect that there ever will be one. It's not
- 22:53Speaker 5: fun to talk about but I would I would urge
- 22:56Speaker 5: people if you talk to a senator or a delegate,
- 23:00Speaker 5: or if you see the governor. I mean he's more
- 23:03Speaker 5: way more accessible. He stays here in Charleston. Just ask
- 23:08Speaker 5: you know, if they realize that there's some political risk
- 23:11Speaker 5: in not addressing this issue, then it'll get taken care of.
- 23:14Speaker 5: It was just consistent.
- 23:15Speaker 7: I don't disagree with you, but I think it's been
- 23:19Speaker 7: tried to be addressed for years and it keeps getting
- 23:23Speaker 7: swept underneath the carpet. I mean, these kids have genuine problems.
- 23:28Speaker 7: And you said when they age out at eighteen or nineteen,
- 23:31Speaker 7: where did they go? They have no place, So where
- 23:35Speaker 7: do they end up street? Probably in jail jail, yes,
- 23:39Speaker 7: or in the streets. It's a big, big problem, right.
- 23:43Speaker 5: And it's the thing is, it's not just like a
- 23:45Speaker 5: social issue. It's like, well, it's a do gooder issue.
- 23:48Speaker 5: That's not. It's an economic issue. It's a development issue
- 23:51Speaker 5: because you cannot have a state that's going to be
- 23:54Speaker 5: attractive to the type of industry and growth that we
- 23:57Speaker 5: say we want, that has a work force participation rate
- 24:02Speaker 5: that's barely over fifty percent because we're sustaining we're trying
- 24:06Speaker 5: to sustain or deal with a significant subpopulation of the disabled,
- 24:11Speaker 5: or they just flat out unemployable, unemployable. I see people
- 24:16Speaker 5: a lot so frequently now because you know, I have
- 24:19Speaker 5: a different role at the law firm than I had
- 24:21Speaker 5: for decades who I've represented who are literally unemployable, They're unedgugable,
- 24:26Speaker 5: and a lot of it has to do with their
- 24:29Speaker 5: early childhood development period. And I mean that you're reducing
- 24:36Speaker 5: income taxes is not going to solve that problem. I mean,
- 24:39Speaker 5: I guess my bottom line is if you're going to
- 24:41Speaker 5: address the problem, set your priorities and see what's this
- 24:47Speaker 5: This is our number one priority or a number two priority.
- 24:49Speaker 5: What's it going to cost? Where can we get the money?
- 24:52Speaker 5: Is this something we want to do, But at least
- 24:54Speaker 5: talk about it. The idea that you can disorder is
- 24:57Speaker 5: going to go cut fifteen percent another workforce, that'll make
- 25:01Speaker 5: more money available to pay the people who are left. Well,
- 25:04Speaker 5: it just overworks and understaffs your agency. So yeah, we mean,
- 25:09Speaker 5: we can talk about this all day long. If you
- 25:11Speaker 5: don't have a politician here talking, maybe maybe this would
- 25:13Speaker 5: be a good question to call next Ire and ask
- 25:15Speaker 5: Dave Allen if he's got a politician on there. Uh
- 25:18Speaker 5: he he cycles him in and out and does a
- 25:21Speaker 5: pretty good job. I think of being objective when he
- 25:23Speaker 5: talks to these politicians. Just call and ask what did
- 25:26Speaker 5: you do today?
- 25:27Speaker 7: The idea with ont of some broaders is a wonderful idea.
- 25:31Speaker 7: I've been to that canvas and it is a wonderful place.
- 25:35Speaker 5: Hey, listen, we're gonna have to run here because we
- 25:37Speaker 5: get a signal. I got to take a hard break.
- 25:38Speaker 5: Thank you very much, Kim for giving us a call.
- 25:41Speaker 4: Thanks for calling, and we really appreciate that, and a
- 25:43Speaker 4: very insightful call. We really appreciate that. If you want
- 25:45Speaker 4: to talk to Harvey this morning, just like Kim Dang,
- 25:46Speaker 4: you give us a call. The lines open down three
- 25:47Speaker 4: zero four, three four two eight one three one. Threes
- 25:49Speaker 4: are four three or four two eight one three one.
- 25:50Speaker 4: If you don't have timey, you need to text it in.
- 25:52Speaker 4: You can do that as well. Three zero four nine
- 25:53Speaker 4: three five five zers you're eight three zero four nine
- 25:55Speaker 4: three five five zeros you were eight. Well take a
- 25:57Speaker 4: break to be back right after this. You're listening to
- 25:58Speaker 4: ask the lawyer with Harvey Payton from the Peyton Law
- 26:00Speaker 4: Firm in Nitro, West Virginia when fave edchs the Boys
- 26:03Speaker 4: of Charleston.
- 26:04Speaker 9: At Peyton Law Firm, we fight for every bit of
- 26:07Speaker 9: compensation you deserve. You need a law firm that will
- 26:11Speaker 9: fight for you. Tom and Harvey Peyton have more than
- 26:14Speaker 9: fifty years of combined experience helping West Virginians win millions
- 26:18Speaker 9: from greedy insurance companies. Let us spread that success to
- 26:22Speaker 9: you handling injury and wrongful death claims of all types.
- 26:26Speaker 9: If your injury is serious to you, it's serious to us.
- 26:30Speaker 9: Visit Peytonlawfirm dot com and let our family fight for yours.
- 26:34Speaker 10: It's nice to know there's still a quiet place to
- 26:37Speaker 10: shop for furniture. It's Dunbar Furniture, local, family owned, no
- 26:42Speaker 10: salesperson will hound you. Take your time and check both
- 26:45Speaker 10: huge floors. Dunbar Furniture is home to the largest selection
- 26:49Speaker 10: of flex steal sofas, chairs and recliners and the lowest
- 26:53Speaker 10: flex steel prices. Anywhere need a mattress, recliner, mirror, bedroom
- 26:58Speaker 10: or dining room furnace. Dunbar Furniture and Flexteal, two great
- 27:03Speaker 10: names in quality furniture, put the power of.
- 27:08Speaker 3: Payting on the side. We have the court room experience
- 27:13Speaker 3: on such a need. We never give up. We're prepared
- 27:18Speaker 3: to fight for your rights. When you need action, count
- 27:23Speaker 3: on us. Put the power of Paytron on your side,
- 27:30Speaker 3: the power of b.
- 27:33Speaker 4: You are listening to. Where you can put the power
- 27:35Speaker 4: of Payton on your side this morning, attlequick fade there.
- 27:37Speaker 4: You can put the power of payton on on your
- 27:39Speaker 4: side this morning. Give us a call. Three zero four,
- 27:40Speaker 4: three four two eight one three one three zero four,
- 27:42Speaker 4: three four two eight one three one. You can talk
- 27:44Speaker 4: to Harvey Painton this morning. You can text over questions
- 27:45Speaker 4: if you like. Three zero four, nine, three five, five
- 27:47Speaker 4: zeros or eight. We had a nice call from Kim
- 27:49Speaker 4: right before the break. You can get in. We have
- 27:50Speaker 4: ten minutes or so left in the program this morning,
- 27:52Speaker 4: so you can get in and talk to Harvey.
- 27:53Speaker 5: One of the things to look forward to, dear listeners,
- 27:56Speaker 5: is I understand how you can correct me if I'm wrong, Coop.
- 27:59Speaker 5: But there's a lot of work being done here at
- 28:02Speaker 5: the Western Radio Corporation at eleven eleven Virginia Street East.
- 28:06Speaker 5: And one of the things that we may have is video.
- 28:09Speaker 5: Right's right when the studio is finished. Not only will
- 28:12Speaker 5: you be able to listen to the dulcent tones of
- 28:15Speaker 5: Tom and I just spends wisdom beyond belief from this
- 28:19Speaker 5: small studio, but you will be able to put a
- 28:22Speaker 5: face with the voice.
- 28:23Speaker 4: We're expanding a lot of different areas and it really
- 28:25Speaker 4: should be very soon. Our engineering staff finally got over
- 28:29Speaker 4: anytime that you're doing a major, major project on an
- 28:31Speaker 4: old building like this is it's not necessarily the material
- 28:34Speaker 4: work that takes a long time. It's the stuff you
- 28:36Speaker 4: run into that you have to get addressed, and it
- 28:38Speaker 4: takes a while, you know, I mean, and it's a
- 28:40Speaker 4: while without any real work being done. So we've had
- 28:42Speaker 4: several of those situations that's come up that slowed things
- 28:45Speaker 4: down a little bit. But doing it by the book,
- 28:47Speaker 4: doing it right, and man, it is getting it's getting
- 28:49Speaker 4: pretty have you seen it recently?
- 28:50Speaker 5: You see last time? Yeah, it's quite nice. It's a
- 28:53Speaker 5: wonderful studio. And actually it was quite a help because
- 28:55Speaker 5: I you know, if I'm at my desk and I
- 28:57Speaker 5: want to watch, well, it was hoppy before the turnover
- 29:00Speaker 5: and now it's Dave and TJ. They have video feeds,
- 29:05Speaker 5: so you could, you know, you could to give you
- 29:06Speaker 5: a little more rapport if you're on a computer screen
- 29:08Speaker 5: and you're streaming the show, you can you see who
- 29:11Speaker 5: you're talking. It's not just something some folks might have
- 29:14Speaker 5: been surprised when he saw Hoppy because he's like this
- 29:17Speaker 5: larger than life figure. He's a little guy.
- 29:20Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, right.
- 29:21Speaker 5: He's not a great, big, brawny sort of person. He's
- 29:26Speaker 5: blessed with a great voice. That's one thing. He's all
- 29:30Speaker 5: these guys take Rush Limbaugh, who I just despised, but
- 29:35Speaker 5: he was really talented and he had a really good voice.
- 29:37Speaker 5: I mean almost like a preacher. You know. He had
- 29:41Speaker 5: that way of just bringing people around to sort of
- 29:44Speaker 5: agree with him, even if they were completely opposed. That
- 29:48Speaker 5: was one of the things. I might have mentioned this
- 29:50Speaker 5: on the air that my friend Pete Brown one of
- 29:52Speaker 5: the great prosecutors. He would Jimmy Swaggert and Ernest Angeley
- 29:58Speaker 5: and Billy Graham.
- 29:58Speaker 4: He said, listen to.
- 29:59Speaker 6: This, said, oh no, I listen to him every Sunday
- 30:02Speaker 6: I've turned it on and sit down and disclose my
- 30:04Speaker 6: I said, you know, they get people that don't want
- 30:07Speaker 6: to walk it up, get up, walk up front, and said,
- 30:09Speaker 6: that's what's the business side it.
- 30:10Speaker 5: It's getting people to do what I want to suggest
- 30:13Speaker 5: they do. So it's they have a great technique. And
- 30:15Speaker 5: he's right about that. I mean, really talented lawyers. There's
- 30:19Speaker 5: a lot of talent. In addition to smarts and being
- 30:23Speaker 5: a good trial lawyer, you've got to have pretty good instincts.
- 30:26Speaker 5: You've got to really know your facts. You've got to
- 30:29Speaker 5: dig in and know everything you can about the case,
- 30:32Speaker 5: and don't leave anything unturned. Don't take any chances. If
- 30:35Speaker 5: you see if possible little string there, you better investigate that.
- 30:38Speaker 5: You may never use it. I mean I used to
- 30:40Speaker 5: go to trial and Tom does the same thing that
- 30:43Speaker 5: I did now with a huge file because I've got
- 30:47Speaker 5: paper on everything here. Well, and you come back and
- 30:50Speaker 5: you've used twenty percent of it and maybe you've won,
- 30:53Speaker 5: maybe you've lost. You don't win every case, but you
- 30:56Speaker 5: do the best. You do your very best. But preparation's
- 30:59Speaker 5: the key. And then you know you've got to be
- 31:01Speaker 5: able to relate to people, got up in front of
- 31:04Speaker 5: a jury, develop a rapport. Shine your shoes right, uh,
- 31:10Speaker 5: don't have if you can help it, catch up on
- 31:13Speaker 5: your shirt. That's always a no no. Or spinach in
- 31:16Speaker 5: your teeth and tell a story. I mean that's what's
- 31:20Speaker 5: all about. It was once we had a really great
- 31:22Speaker 5: lawyer from Louisville that to do some business up here.
- 31:25Speaker 5: His name was Pete Pearlman, and Pete got a lot
- 31:30Speaker 5: of good verdicts. He got a lot of guilty verdicts
- 31:33Speaker 5: and high profile criminal cases. And he said, what's the
- 31:37Speaker 5: key to an opening statement? He said, Well, of all
- 31:41Speaker 5: his years of practicing law, if he talked to a
- 31:43Speaker 5: jury once, he said, it happened to him two dozen
- 31:47Speaker 5: times after the case. So I said, I'm really not
- 31:49Speaker 5: sure what was that case all about? I mean, that's
- 31:51Speaker 5: what we were wondering. Said, So what you do is
- 31:54Speaker 5: go back to the days of a telegram. When you
- 31:57Speaker 5: write a telegram, it's not lengthy, you know, because every
- 32:02Speaker 5: word you pay.
- 32:03Speaker 4: For, Yeah, it's gonna be succinct to the point.
- 32:04Speaker 5: So you said, what is my case about? And you
- 32:08Speaker 5: write yourself a telegram and you write it again and
- 32:10Speaker 5: again until it's the best you can do and the
- 32:12Speaker 5: fewest words. And then that's the first thing you tell
- 32:16Speaker 5: the jury, you know, what's this case about? And boom,
- 32:19Speaker 5: and then go from there and build it up now
- 32:23Speaker 5: and we're good. I guess the point is that we're
- 32:25Speaker 5: really good at that, the Payton Law Firm. We've gotten
- 32:27Speaker 5: really really good results and trying cases to juries and
- 32:33Speaker 5: any number of jurisdictions all over Southern.
- 32:35Speaker 4: It's understanding people a little bit. I mean, you have
- 32:37Speaker 4: to understand like people, both your clients and the people
- 32:40Speaker 4: that you're negotiating with in one way or another in
- 32:42Speaker 4: the court room or whatever. I mean. You guys have
- 32:45Speaker 4: no people you know, you know, you've experienced a lot,
- 32:47Speaker 4: You've met a lot of different circumstances and things like that.
- 32:49Speaker 5: And you talk about selecting a jury. Now here's give
- 32:53Speaker 5: it away one of my secrets from the vast Who
- 32:58Speaker 5: is the absolute best jury you'r or you.
- 33:00Speaker 4: Could get.
- 33:02Speaker 5: If you're trying an injury case down in Putnam County
- 33:05Speaker 5: where you had a man who was injured and suffered
- 33:08Speaker 5: any degree of disability off work for a period of time,
- 33:14Speaker 5: hospitalized mat or boy, you want to find a good
- 33:21Speaker 5: woman that you know of lives out on the hill
- 33:25Speaker 5: out in the not Downte's Valley, but out on the
- 33:28Speaker 5: hill there in the Red House, Grand View, Sioux Lug area,
- 33:34Speaker 5: who maybe has worked outside the home some Maybe he's
- 33:37Speaker 5: a school aid, maybe he's a part time cook for
- 33:39Speaker 5: the Board of Education, who has a husband or and
- 33:43Speaker 5: or kids who follow the construction trades or have worked
- 33:48Speaker 5: straight shift work at one of the plants, because they
- 33:51Speaker 5: have seen in their life experience people suffer and get hurt.
- 33:55Speaker 5: Now and they understand what you're talking about, and they're
- 34:01Speaker 5: receptive to it because they know it's just not a
- 34:02Speaker 5: bunch of made up hook them from some outfit out
- 34:05Speaker 5: of Florida who's just trying to flim flam me into
- 34:08Speaker 5: giving them some money. I mean, they those are just
- 34:11Speaker 5: perfect Juror wars and I think, and they really work hard.
- 34:16Speaker 5: The other you know, stay away from engineers because they
- 34:20Speaker 5: tend to be too analytic and honestly, postal workers aren't
- 34:25Speaker 5: real popular as juror wars. And I don't know why
- 34:28Speaker 5: My dad worked the post office, and I would have.
- 34:30Speaker 5: I mean, I think he would have been a wonderful jew.
- 34:32Speaker 5: Orbit for some reason he said, well he's a male men.
- 34:37Speaker 5: Well there's I don't know. I don't just that's what's
- 34:41Speaker 5: one of those old saws. I don't want that guy
- 34:43Speaker 5: works to post.
- 34:44Speaker 4: Office, you know. Over this reminds me so much about
- 34:46Speaker 4: twenty over twenty years ago now, a company I worked
- 34:49Speaker 4: for a sentence to Saint Louis and we took a
- 34:51Speaker 4: class with the Saint Louis School of Business that had
- 34:53Speaker 4: to do with like corporate management, executive style management, different
- 34:56Speaker 4: things like that, and what the presentations that we got
- 34:59Speaker 4: was a guy, you miss, Rush Limball. That's what made
- 35:00Speaker 4: me think about He used Rush as a part of
- 35:02Speaker 4: what he was doing, but also it was Rush. It
- 35:04Speaker 4: was some mentalists, psychics and different things like that. Not
- 35:07Speaker 4: that he wanted you to believe in any of them, frankly,
- 35:09Speaker 4: but it was their style that he was interested in
- 35:12Speaker 4: trying to surface a little bit, and he related all
- 35:14Speaker 4: of them together that basically all of them, and I
- 35:16Speaker 4: think there was a preacher in there too, maybe one
- 35:18Speaker 4: of the TV preachers, I can't remember. But basically what
- 35:20Speaker 4: all of them did was a form of warm reading,
- 35:22Speaker 4: you know, like the old mentalist trick of warm reading
- 35:25Speaker 4: to make guesses of things. It's all a form of that,
- 35:27Speaker 4: in some way, shape or form of getting to understand
- 35:30Speaker 4: the human nature and how they might react to certain
- 35:32Speaker 4: questions and certain prompts and different things along those lines.
- 35:34Speaker 4: It was fascinating, It was really fascinating way that he
- 35:38Speaker 4: Rush was really fascinating is on the way that he
- 35:41Speaker 4: in his opinion anyway, and it was a compelling argument
- 35:44Speaker 4: on how Rush would couch his language in such a
- 35:46Speaker 4: way that he was never wrong, never wrong. He would say, well,
- 35:49Speaker 4: they're either going to do this or that, and then
- 35:51Speaker 4: the next day they did either this or that, and
- 35:53Speaker 4: there was only a binary choice to begin with, and
- 35:55Speaker 4: he would be like, I told you they would only
- 35:56Speaker 4: do this or that. Now let me tell you what
- 35:58Speaker 4: this means, because that's what they did. Rush was right, Well,
- 36:01Speaker 4: there's only two ways it could go right, you know,
- 36:03Speaker 4: and that's.
- 36:03Speaker 5: You know, that's a lot of the practice of law
- 36:06Speaker 5: from the at least from the Peyton Law firm. You know,
- 36:09Speaker 5: the fact that we go to court a good bit
- 36:13Speaker 5: and we represent people who have cases that may end
- 36:15Speaker 5: up being tried in front of a jury, whether civil
- 36:17Speaker 5: or criminal. We've fairly well refined that talent never perfect.
- 36:24Speaker 5: You can always learn more. But just the fact that
- 36:31Speaker 5: you've been a part of the community is such a
- 36:33Speaker 5: huge help, I think in assisting people who have suffered
- 36:37Speaker 5: a loss, because you know the lay of the land,
- 36:42Speaker 5: you know the courthouse, you're comfortable there, you know how
- 36:45Speaker 5: to talk to people thirty seconds oh thirty seconds Well
- 36:49Speaker 5: Pete Law Firm twenty eight oh one, First Avenue in Mico,
- 36:53Speaker 5: just across the budnom County line, about a mile off
- 36:56Speaker 5: the interstate, about twenty minutes from downtown Charleston, twenty minutes
- 37:00Speaker 5: Day's Valley ten from Saint Albans. We're there to help.
- 37:04Speaker 5: Stop by the office. If either Tom or I are there,
- 37:07Speaker 5: we'll be able to see you if you can. If not,
- 37:10Speaker 5: we'll make you appointment. Or you can go online the
- 37:12Speaker 5: Peyton Law Firm dot com and send us an email.
- 37:15Speaker 5: Which is a really good thing to do if you
- 37:17Speaker 5: have access to the internet is we can take that
- 37:20Speaker 5: email and read it and respond any hour of the
- 37:23Speaker 5: day or night. A lot of homes a sleep pattern
- 37:27Speaker 5: would be get up at four o'clock in the morning
- 37:28Speaker 5: and return calls.
- 37:31Speaker 4: So it's great stuff with Harvey Payton from the Payton
- 37:33Speaker 4: Law Firm pathon Lawfirm dot com at or West Virginia
- 37:35Speaker 4: see next week. Harvey, You're time one of us. Have
- 37:37Speaker 4: a great to everyone on five ad W c HS.
- 37:42Speaker 2: Five ADWHS at E six point five. That's on Charleston
- 37:46Speaker 2: at one O four point five Cross Lanes, L uv
- 37:48Speaker 2: RC Media Station. We are proud to live here too,