Latest / WCHS Network Podcasts / 01/16/2025 Ask the Lawyer with Harvey Peyton

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01/16/2025 Ask the Lawyer with Harvey Peyton · WCHS Network Podcasts

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Speaker 2: The views and opinions expressed on this program do not
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Speaker 3: We have the court room experience such a need we
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Speaker 3: never give up. You're a good to fight for your
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Speaker 4: What the power of Bason.
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Speaker 7: A very flood of morning to you. You're listening to
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Speaker 7: the power of painting if you've got it on your
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Speaker 7: side this morning in studio with me this morning. It
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Speaker 7: is Perbey Thing from the Baton Law Firm in Nitro,
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Speaker 7: West Virginia, back to with us on a Thursday morning.
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Speaker 8: It's a bit nippy, for sure, we but nothing like
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Speaker 8: what's coming. As I understand that we've got a polar
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Speaker 8: of vortex zeroing in that I may well, well, you know,
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Speaker 8: Monday's inauguration day. In d C. And uh, we were
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Speaker 8: talking about maybe sub zero temperatures and high winds over
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Speaker 8: there for inaugurmous dangerous. Yeah, it would be dangerous standing
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Speaker 8: out there in the open on the mall in front
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Speaker 8: of the Capitol building. I can remember one of my
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Speaker 8: recollections as a youth was we got to watch television
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Speaker 8: and Miss Bragg's uh sixth grade room when President Kennedy
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Speaker 8: was inaugurated, and it's a really cold, windy day, high
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Speaker 8: bright sunshine of Robert Frost had so much difficulty reading
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Speaker 8: his poem that he's writ for the keys that someone
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Speaker 8: had to stand up and shade it. And it was
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Speaker 8: you know, January and DC can be pretty nippy, and
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Speaker 8: I guess with this polar vortex, it's kind of dangerous.
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Speaker 7: If I remember correctly, we had that polar of vortex
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Speaker 7: was around Christmas two years ago.
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Speaker 8: Yeah, I think it was maybe one.
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Speaker 7: Yeah, man, and then it was like a week of
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Speaker 7: zero degree that's terrible. It was super cool.
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Speaker 8: That's that's the kind of weather when you get frozen
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Speaker 8: pipes and broken pipes and things slowed down. I mean,
2:18
Speaker 8: we've had a bit of a slow down at the
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Speaker 8: office since the first year just because appointments are canceled,
2:25
Speaker 8: you try and schedule things, and when you're locked in
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Speaker 8: in snow and ice, it's just started to get her.
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Speaker 8: And we understand that. You know, we work with our
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Speaker 8: clients and work with people that want to come and
2:36
Speaker 8: see us or we have businesses transact, which the courthouses
2:40
Speaker 8: were closed for two or three days last week. Uh,
2:43
Speaker 8: And like the Putnam County Courthouse was closed last Thursday
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Speaker 8: for the National Day of Morning for President Carter. Tom
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Speaker 8: this morning has got a nine thirty hearing in Putnam County.
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Speaker 8: So he's toiling in the vineyards. And I got the
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Speaker 8: not the short straw, but the straw that radio, which
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Speaker 8: I found it quite enjoyable. It's uh, I didn't want
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Speaker 8: to say a word. Well, first of all, an enjoyable
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Speaker 8: experience yesterday. And Danny Jones and I've been friends for
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Speaker 8: a long time since actually the early seventies. When Danny
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Speaker 8: first got back from Vietnam. He was running all number
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Speaker 8: eight Capitol Street down there in the basement of the
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Speaker 8: security building. I don't know why. We just met each other,
3:26
Speaker 8: gotten along quite well. He was in Nitro for a while,
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Speaker 8: but he was Uh. Has had some postings about the
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Speaker 8: reopening of the Choyer Diner over on the corner of
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Speaker 8: Choyer and Dunbar Streets. And so yesterday I had a
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Speaker 8: doctor's appointment in the morning at eleven, a big deal dermatology,
3:43
Speaker 8: and went over to the Capitol Market to get a
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Speaker 8: cup of coffee at the Miaculpa. Well it's lunchtime. I've
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Speaker 8: tried Bogies, a new place in the Capitol Market. Found
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Speaker 8: it quite good. Oh yeah, I've heard that's great. So
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Speaker 8: let me just loop around a couple of blocks and
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Speaker 8: try the Queer Diner. And I did, and you know
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Speaker 8: that they had a nice lunch crowd. Place is really clean, uh,
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Speaker 8: quite efficient. Uh. And the food wasn't.
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Speaker 7: And they actually served dinner food, right, it's actually like real.
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Speaker 7: That's the thing that the restaurants that have been there
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Speaker 7: in there recently. It's called the Courier Dinner. But they
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Speaker 7: would try to you know, like the elevated food or whatever,
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Speaker 7: which is fine, I guess, but frankly, Charleston just needs
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Speaker 7: a donner.
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Speaker 8: They just need a Yeah, they have breakfasted. Yeah, guy,
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Speaker 8: I said, down me. I got the lady recommended BLT
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Speaker 8: so nice. It was actually too big to eat in
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Speaker 8: one setting. I took half of it with me and
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Speaker 8: finished it at the office. But the fella that just
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Speaker 8: down the bar front me there down the counter, you
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Speaker 8: know he's getting I mean, if it had been uh
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Speaker 8: waffle house, that it would have been scattered, smothered, covered, chunk
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Speaker 8: and country. I had a lot of ham and a
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Speaker 8: lot of gravy on there, and some shredded as sprouts.
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Speaker 8: This it's quite nice and it's a good addition to
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Speaker 8: this end of the you know, this end of town.
4:55
Speaker 8: Things have sort of You've been around Charleston a long time,
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Speaker 8: which I grew up in Saint Albans and practice law
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Speaker 8: in and around here for over fifty years, and tremendous change,
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Speaker 8: particularly the Choir stud area, which at one time was
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Speaker 8: quite bustling. He had the you know, the Holly Hotel
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Speaker 8: was sort of a transient, and the Queer Diner and
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Speaker 8: the Blossom Dairy.
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Speaker 7: And well, all those bones are still there when you walk,
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Speaker 7: because I walk downtown. But all those bones are still there.
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Speaker 8: And revived and perhaps will be with an upticking population.
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Speaker 8: But however, having practiced law around here for fifty years,
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Speaker 8: I've had some really good experiences. One of which came
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Speaker 8: to mind. I, you know, bad news for the legal community.
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Speaker 8: Tuesday morning it was announced that Justice Tom mceew had passed.
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Speaker 8: I knew that Judge m q had been ill. His son,
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Speaker 8: John has head a General services division at the State House.
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Speaker 8: I just had a case to talk to him one day.
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Speaker 8: Inquired about his dad. Well, you know, he's he's not
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Speaker 8: in a really happy place. He's but it's still time,
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Speaker 8: you know, when you see someone. And I tried a
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Speaker 8: case in front of Judge mcew when he was a
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Speaker 8: circuit judge here in Kanall County, So that had to
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Speaker 8: be before nineteen eighty. He was elected to the Supreme
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Speaker 8: Court in nineteen eighty. It was actually in nineteen seventy six, wow,
6:15
Speaker 8: in the fall of seventy six. It was an automobile
6:18
Speaker 8: acceent case truck on automobile accent where a person was killed.
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Speaker 8: And at that time that was before the complete implementation
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Speaker 8: of the Judicial Reform Amendment. So Connawll County had one
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Speaker 8: circuit judge one and that was Judge McHugh. There was
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Speaker 8: a Court of all jurisdiction, but then there were courts
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Speaker 8: like the Intermediate Court. There were two Intermediate Court judges.
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Speaker 8: They were limited jurisdiction, smaller cases there was those were
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Speaker 8: the common Police Court, Court of Common Please, Intermediate was
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Speaker 8: just nothing but criminal cases. That was Judge Wood. And
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Speaker 8: then there was a domestic relations court and a juvenile court.
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Speaker 8: Who ah, that was the engineer that worked here for all.
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Speaker 8: His dad was the no Yeah, Richard Richard Judge Richardson
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Speaker 8: Herb was the juvenile court judge. And that all changed
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Speaker 8: after seventy six when the Judicial Reform Amendment was fully
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Speaker 8: implemented and all those judges were elevated to circuit court status,
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Speaker 8: and then Judge mcew went on to serve on the
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Speaker 8: Supreme Court. I was listening yesterday to talk Line and
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Speaker 8: they interviewed my dear friend Margaret I still referred to
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Speaker 8: as Peggy Workman my high law school classmates she served.
7:28
Speaker 8: I forget about Peggy. And she was the first woman
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Speaker 8: elected to a statewide office in West Virginia, and she
7:33
Speaker 8: was elected to the Supreme Court statewide twice. It was
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Speaker 8: quite close to Jesse mcee. She was a law clerk
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Speaker 8: for him when he was a Circuit Court judge, and
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Speaker 8: she had some quite nice words to say which were
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Speaker 8: true to when Judge mceue to Justice mceughe's on the court.
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Speaker 8: Tom Miller from Wheeling was also on the court. He
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Speaker 8: was from the really conservative law firm and Winning Trader
7:58
Speaker 8: Miller's Stamp and Wrecked, which is Fred Stamp who's now
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Speaker 8: a federal judge in Wheeling, an art wrecked who passed
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Speaker 8: away a few years ago, was one of the really
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Speaker 8: great circuit courts. Judges of the wrec decision modified public
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Speaker 8: education in West Virginia. And so you had Tom Miller,
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Speaker 8: Tom mque Richard Neely, Justice Workman, and they did, indeed,
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Speaker 8: as she said, sort of dragged the West Virginia legal
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Speaker 8: community into the twentieth century. West Virginia is a small state,
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Speaker 8: and we're prone to be subject to undue influence from
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Speaker 8: vested interests. That's just the way it is. And banking
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Speaker 8: and insurance had held sway for a long time, and
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Speaker 8: we adhere to some legal theories here in West Virginia.
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Speaker 8: They were way, way, way more conservative than what was
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Speaker 8: applying in other states around us. For instance, in the
8:53
Speaker 8: area of products liability, had something called privity. You know,
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Speaker 8: if you weren't in privity, which was an old common
9:00
Speaker 8: law saying if you bought a product that was a
9:03
Speaker 8: contractor you know you you paid and they delivered. But
9:06
Speaker 8: if you were not a party to that contract, you
9:08
Speaker 8: didn't have a claim if that product hurt you. So
9:11
Speaker 8: if if I bought a car and it had a
9:14
Speaker 8: defective air bag, of there were no airbags in but
9:17
Speaker 8: this is just an example. Uh, someone else was driving
9:21
Speaker 8: it and an accident occurred and the air bag didn't deploy,
9:24
Speaker 8: there was an injury. Well, hey, you're not in privity.
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Speaker 8: You didn't the warrant he didn't extend to you, so
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Speaker 8: ta well then, actually it was a unanimous superior decision
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Speaker 8: by the Supreme Court. But Justice Sneely, who was about
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Speaker 8: half nuts sometimes, he was a really great writer, and
9:42
Speaker 8: MCEW really enjoyed serving with him. I was taught to
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Speaker 8: MCEU one day Justice Neely and even after he was
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Speaker 8: off the bench, he had said made some outrageous comment
9:52
Speaker 8: which was not uncommon. Said, what do you think he said?
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Speaker 8: You should try to sit on a bench with him.
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Speaker 8: If you think some of the stuff he says in
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Speaker 8: public is outrageous, you ought to hear him in private.
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Speaker 8: An opinion that now said, look, Westernrton is a tiny state,
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Speaker 8: a small population. We're not paying a dollar less for
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Speaker 8: an automobile here because we adhere to this grossally unfair
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Speaker 8: and outdated legal theory for people who suffer grievous injuries
10:21
Speaker 8: and so except so why should we adhere to that?
10:24
Speaker 8: And they said, so, here's what we're going to do.
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Speaker 8: That's from henceforward, when confronted with a product's liability claim,
10:30
Speaker 8: we're going to adopt the most liberal rule that prevails
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Speaker 8: in a majority of the states in the United States period.
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Speaker 8: We're not going to make our people suffer because we'd
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Speaker 8: hear to these ancient limitations on your right to bring
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Speaker 8: a lawsuit simply because we're a small market, easily influenced.
10:51
Speaker 8: You know, the car Dealers Association's got a bag of
10:54
Speaker 8: money in the insurance industry as a bag of money,
10:56
Speaker 8: and we're not going to you know, we're going to
10:58
Speaker 8: acknowledge that they're Yeah, the Consumer Credit Production Act means
11:02
Speaker 8: what it says, and it worked on things like fee shifting.
11:06
Speaker 8: So it was a as Peggy put it, Justice mceew
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Speaker 8: was an active judge. He wasn't an activist judge. He
11:16
Speaker 8: was They don't go to look for cases to file now,
11:18
Speaker 8: war McGraw was on the court and Sow's Daryl for
11:21
Speaker 8: a while, they all got along. Darrel was probably more
11:25
Speaker 8: of an activist because he had an agenda. I mean,
11:28
Speaker 8: there's this new bones about that. He had a bit
11:30
Speaker 8: of an agenda. But we're all better off for having
11:37
Speaker 8: had this. Really smart, really hard working, I mean they
11:41
Speaker 8: were men and women of huge integrity. Tom mceeughe was
11:44
Speaker 8: a devout, devout Catholic. But when he was a circuit
11:50
Speaker 8: judge and an issue came before him because the Supreme
11:52
Speaker 8: Court had attempted or the legislature to attempted to impose
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Speaker 8: some limitations. And this was right after ruv. Wade. Uh,
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Speaker 8: he struck it down. Now he had to do that
12:06
Speaker 8: during the week and then go see Father Sadie the mass, Sue,
12:10
Speaker 8: We have you ever been to a Catholic funeral mass
12:18
Speaker 8: where the Knights of Columbus conduct the ceremony? Beautiful, uniforse
12:24
Speaker 8: it's but I so when Pat Casey passed away, it
12:29
Speaker 8: was one of the circuit judges in Kanawa County. I
12:31
Speaker 8: was walking over to the funeral, ran into Pat Maroney
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Speaker 8: and Judge mcewe walking down the sidewalk. We truck up
12:37
Speaker 8: a conversation. I want to sit with us Orry Okay, said,
12:40
Speaker 8: you know, Maroni and I can be in that Knights
12:43
Speaker 8: of Columbus, but we just don't look good in universe.
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Speaker 8: I said, the sword Maroney is shorter than I am.
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Speaker 8: That sword would drag the ground. He had an extremely
12:53
Speaker 8: dry sense of humor. And we're well. The world was better.
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Speaker 8: West Virginia was way better off for having Tom m
13:02
Speaker 8: and it's a loss to us that he's gone. I mean,
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Speaker 8: they're irreplaceable, and nobody lives forever. The statue of limitation
13:08
Speaker 8: runs out for everyone. But I didn't want to say
13:10
Speaker 8: a few words about that this morning. I actually had
13:13
Speaker 8: occasion to appear several times in front of Judge McHugh.
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Speaker 8: Was it when he was a justice on the Supreme
13:18
Speaker 8: Court of Appeals, the last time being with an election
13:23
Speaker 8: contest from Hurricane and I was representing who's now the mayor. Mayor.
13:28
Speaker 8: Edwards always makes a point when we were at some
13:31
Speaker 8: event together, said I've di been on the job eighteen
13:34
Speaker 8: years hard because of you. And one of the cases
13:37
Speaker 8: that was germane to that case was one that camp
13:40
Speaker 8: arose in Kanawha County and it was factional politics, which
13:45
Speaker 8: is what's going to happen. Factional politics are going to
13:48
Speaker 8: become more important on the Republican side now, just like
13:51
Speaker 8: it did on the Democratic side. I mean Knawac County
13:54
Speaker 8: had that there was the state House crowd and the
13:57
Speaker 8: courthouse crowd, right, so Sam McCorry ran one Fax and
14:01
Speaker 8: they were the white hats, the good guys, the progressives
14:04
Speaker 8: and Tom mchughe was aligned with them. And then they
14:07
Speaker 8: were the black ASTs or the state House crowd, which
14:09
Speaker 8: was more of the rowdies and are going to keep
14:12
Speaker 8: you out. And one of the one of the cases
14:19
Speaker 8: that was Germaine to Irisu in the Edwards case was
14:23
Speaker 8: came out of Panall County over an election for a
14:26
Speaker 8: county commissions seat, which at that time was like the
14:30
Speaker 8: a battleground. You know, county commissioners, that's a pretty big job,
14:34
Speaker 8: particularly you know in the early seventies or in the
14:37
Speaker 8: sixties when that case was litigated, Kannall County had over
14:40
Speaker 8: two hundred thousand people, Charleston had almost eighty thousand people.
14:43
Speaker 8: And it only takes two you know. It's not like
14:45
Speaker 8: being in the legislature. You can win a seat in
14:47
Speaker 8: the House of delegates. You go up there and you're
14:49
Speaker 8: one of one hundred. Now, when they had consolidated districts,
14:53
Speaker 8: Kanall County had thirteen delegates that they elected from one
14:57
Speaker 8: delegate district. So you are part of you has some influence,
15:02
Speaker 8: but no one of one hundred. If you're in the Senate,
15:05
Speaker 8: you're one of thirty four. If you're on a county commission,
15:09
Speaker 8: which the Canela County Commission has a budget that probably
15:14
Speaker 8: exceeds forty or fifty percent of West Virginia County's combined,
15:21
Speaker 8: it's two people. You know, I make a motion and
15:24
Speaker 8: it's seconded, and you don't care what the third person does.
15:26
Speaker 8: You simply pass it, and you can make it set
15:28
Speaker 8: some pretty significant policy. You can set policies about housing,
15:32
Speaker 8: you can set policies about planning. You can set policy
15:36
Speaker 8: about how estates are handled. You can actually set policy
15:39
Speaker 8: about whether the county, such as Kanaal County, should have
15:44
Speaker 8: all of its property records online and easily available to
15:47
Speaker 8: the public and the lawyers. I brought that issue up
15:51
Speaker 8: with now Commission President Selango. I think we actually might
15:55
Speaker 8: have been standing out in the lobby here and first
15:59
Speaker 8: when he was asked about it, on the air on
16:01
Speaker 8: Dave Allen shows. Well, we don't know how much it
16:03
Speaker 8: would cost to have all this stuff computerized. Well, I'm
16:08
Speaker 8: overlooking the fact that it's all already computerized now. I
16:11
Speaker 8: mean it's on it is in a database, but you
16:13
Speaker 8: simply have to appear physically at the courthouse to look
16:16
Speaker 8: at it. The last time I asked, when are we
16:20
Speaker 8: going to get these records online? Well, I don't know
16:24
Speaker 8: what Beer is going to do about that. So now
16:27
Speaker 8: it's Beer McCormick's issue about the county commissions issue well
16:33
Speaker 8: as the budgetary entity for the whole county, including the
16:36
Speaker 8: county clerk's budget. I mean, I think you could say
16:42
Speaker 8: do it, do it, or we're going to cut the
16:45
Speaker 8: budget for a personnel in the record room and we're
16:47
Speaker 8: going to cut your budget over here and you're going
16:49
Speaker 8: to loose And that's whatever you liketed official at the
16:51
Speaker 8: county levels scared poopless of is I mean, I have
16:55
Speaker 8: to give up an employee because that's how I mean,
16:58
Speaker 8: that's how they cover you know, Well, I got to
17:00
Speaker 8: get I've got to have some political influence in Marmette
17:03
Speaker 8: if somebody I need that lady there, her husband is
17:07
Speaker 8: a volunteer fireman of Marmeette. She just happens to be
17:10
Speaker 8: the absolute most qualified to hold a position in my office.
17:14
Speaker 8: I wait a minute, Well, she is the equal of
17:17
Speaker 8: the lady from Saint Albans or the man from Saint
17:20
Speaker 8: Albans whose wife is a really popular school teacher down there.
17:23
Speaker 8: So we have to work them out. I mean, that's
17:25
Speaker 8: just the way it works. I don't know why it
17:28
Speaker 8: doesn't work to put these records online. If anybody sees
17:31
Speaker 8: President commissioned President Selango, he was a really good guy,
17:36
Speaker 8: a friend of him.
17:37
Speaker 3: Sure.
17:37
Speaker 7: But it is a little odd though, because this is
17:40
Speaker 7: pretty regular. I mean I remember in the mid nineties,
17:44
Speaker 7: late nineties being in Ingham County, Michigan, where they were
17:46
Speaker 7: going through their big initiative to put everything accessible one line,
17:50
Speaker 7: and you know, it was a huge issue. But I
17:52
Speaker 7: mean we're talking about that. I mean that was thirty
17:53
Speaker 7: years ago.
17:54
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, I mean I spoke about this on the
17:57
Speaker 8: air probably six months ago. And Jake Goldman, who Jay
18:03
Speaker 8: and Todd gold and Coldland Associates. I mean, he's been
18:07
Speaker 8: a he's a lawyer, he doesn't practice law. He's been
18:10
Speaker 8: actively involved in commercial and residential real estate for half
18:13
Speaker 8: a century. He called me and said, you know, Harvey,
18:17
Speaker 8: I heard what you said on there said there are
18:18
Speaker 8: fifty three counties or fifty two counties in West Virginia
18:21
Speaker 8: that are all online because his company does business in
18:25
Speaker 8: every county. I mean, they're involved in high stakes commercial
18:29
Speaker 8: real estate transactions. And two of the other three who
18:34
Speaker 8: are outliers are coming online. And the only one who
18:37
Speaker 8: says no, we have no idea what it's going to happen.
18:40
Speaker 8: It's Gonall County, which is the biggest and at least
18:43
Speaker 8: now it's the biggest count of populist, mostly populous county
18:46
Speaker 8: in this day. It's not going to be for long.
18:47
Speaker 8: Berkeley County NEP In their next budget, I hope they
18:51
Speaker 8: put something into water over in Berkeley County to modify things.
18:55
Speaker 8: There's something that happens once you've crossed that divide. There's
18:59
Speaker 8: a mountain and Morgan County that separates like Berkeley springs
19:02
Speaker 8: from the pop off side, and you go from there
19:05
Speaker 8: east through Hedgesville and Martinsburg to Charlestown the summit point
19:11
Speaker 8: to Shepherdstown and think cookiness just seems to be we
19:16
Speaker 8: have a call now we do Oh heck, yes.
19:18
Speaker 7: We'll get back to kookingessn't Just as second, we have
19:19
Speaker 7: a caller that's called in to talk to Harvey this morning.
19:21
Speaker 7: Go ahead, call you're on the air. What's your first name?
19:24
Speaker 9: First name's Jay. Harvey just mentioned it. Hey Jay, I'm fine, Harvey.
19:28
Speaker 9: I've had a little map, and there are five county
19:32
Speaker 9: or six counties. There's pleasants Jackson, Canalla, Clay Braxton, and
19:36
Speaker 9: Webster which do not have online service. And every other
19:41
Speaker 9: county in the state of West Virginia has online service.
19:44
Speaker 9: And there's no excuse for Kanawa County not being online.
19:49
Speaker 9: They've given every excuse there is about social Security numbers
19:53
Speaker 9: and everything else. But if you go down and get
19:56
Speaker 9: on the portal in the clerk's office, you can see
19:58
Speaker 9: the social security.
20:01
Speaker 8: Sure, I mean the rect and they could be purged
20:06
Speaker 8: easily because it's done in every other county that I
20:10
Speaker 8: have looked to.
20:10
Speaker 9: You know, you take a for example, last week when
20:14
Speaker 9: you had the courthouse closed one or two days because
20:17
Speaker 9: of bad weather. Uh, you could sit in your office
20:20
Speaker 9: in Nitro, or I could sit in my office go
20:23
Speaker 9: online and get the data if it was available.
20:27
Speaker 8: And I can tell you That's one reason this is
20:30
Speaker 8: fresh in my mind today, Jay, is because it affected,
20:33
Speaker 8: adversely affected a client of mine that I've done work
20:37
Speaker 8: for for years. He keeps a pretty bird dog's real estate, right,
20:45
Speaker 8: and so he's looking at Wait, wait a minute, here's
20:47
Speaker 8: a foreclosure that's going to happen, or a sale after
20:51
Speaker 8: a foreclosure. It's going to be auctioned off private auction
20:56
Speaker 8: class Wednesday. Well what do you, I said, Well, I
21:01
Speaker 8: think it's good assuming that the foreclosure was done correctly,
21:04
Speaker 8: which is not always a safe assumption nowadays with all
21:07
Speaker 8: these title companies that do the work and non lawyers.
21:10
Speaker 8: But I can't get to the courthouse. So you know,
21:14
Speaker 8: if it was if your property was down here on
21:17
Speaker 8: fortieth Street, on the other end of fortieth streets in
21:19
Speaker 8: Putnam County, I can look at it right now. I
21:22
Speaker 8: can't get there Monday. I can't get there Tuesday. Now.
21:25
Speaker 8: I haven't spoken with him since what he did about
21:27
Speaker 8: the property, but that clearly had an adverse effect on
21:31
Speaker 8: a businessman here in Kanawa County. And I agree with
21:35
Speaker 8: you there. I don't think there is any excuse for it.
21:37
Speaker 8: I mean, the.
21:39
Speaker 9: Other thing that I have asked is that they introduced
21:41
Speaker 9: legislation this session for the sales Transfer form which you
21:46
Speaker 9: have to fill out to record with the deed, that
21:48
Speaker 9: those will be recorded with the deed. And the reason
21:51
Speaker 9: is he gives back references to tax maps, parcels, deeds
21:56
Speaker 9: and things like that. And it will help lawyer surveyors,
21:59
Speaker 9: real state people. And it's not going to have any
22:02
Speaker 9: financial impact on any of the counties.
22:05
Speaker 8: No, you already. I mean you take the form down
22:07
Speaker 8: there with you now when you recorded eat and they said,
22:09
Speaker 8: well do you want to keep your copy? I still
22:11
Speaker 8: use the car bouts. I mean they've got some people
22:15
Speaker 8: just make a copy of the form, one copy, and
22:17
Speaker 8: the clerk will make you an extra copy if you need.
22:19
Speaker 8: I use the snapout form, so sure, once you fill
22:22
Speaker 8: it out, all they have to do is snap my
22:24
Speaker 8: copy out. They've you I learned from Jim Holiday decades ago.
22:28
Speaker 8: I'll always keep that recording receipt. Stay put it inside
22:30
Speaker 8: your file because every now and then the county clerk
22:33
Speaker 8: will lose a record or they'll miss that miss index it.
22:36
Speaker 9: Sure, any several of the counties record these now, Rawleigh
22:40
Speaker 9: County does, Monroe County. I can think of several. And
22:44
Speaker 9: it's a good thing to have, and it's going to
22:46
Speaker 9: help everybody as far as getting back references, yeah, you know,
22:50
Speaker 9: very quickly.
22:51
Speaker 8: And it can avoid Tom's my son, Tom now is
22:55
Speaker 8: involved in a piece of litigation. It's it's big money litigation.
23:00
Speaker 8: I mean, it's a big money piece of property that
23:03
Speaker 8: was purchased and there was an error on the sales
23:08
Speaker 8: listing form, right, so the assessor didn't pick up the
23:12
Speaker 8: transfer on a parcel that was clearly a part of
23:15
Speaker 8: the legal description. Now nobody can where's the form now?
23:19
Speaker 8: I mean the form's just not there, but that's what
23:22
Speaker 8: the assessor says. Well, somebody else then buys it after
23:26
Speaker 8: it's already owned by our client, and and now it's
23:29
Speaker 8: in the soup. Right, You've got like three and a
23:32
Speaker 8: half million dollars worth of real estate tied up because
23:34
Speaker 8: of a form that no longer exists and it's not
23:36
Speaker 8: on record. Being god, I mean, I agree with your
23:39
Speaker 8: hor and you know, I mean our paths have crossed
23:46
Speaker 8: pretty frequently because I do most of what I do
23:48
Speaker 8: with regard to real estate involves some element of litigation.
23:51
Speaker 8: And you and Todd have always been really good to
23:53
Speaker 8: help with appraise months and things access. I refer to
23:56
Speaker 8: you a client here. I don't know if you ever
23:58
Speaker 8: got in touch with the boy. He and his dad
24:01
Speaker 8: invested years ago on some property in Mason County, and
24:04
Speaker 8: his father, who's now to see he said, well, just
24:07
Speaker 8: wait twenty years son, and he was right. But you know,
24:14
Speaker 8: it's really important stuff, and it's so helpful, you know,
24:20
Speaker 8: I can. I had a client who had a brother
24:24
Speaker 8: who lived down in Kentucky and passed away, and they
24:27
Speaker 8: had some real estate of camp over Monroe County, probably
24:30
Speaker 8: worth some money. Well, I can just go online and
24:33
Speaker 8: look down there and see what the status of it
24:36
Speaker 8: is and do the ancillary administration from my desk instead
24:42
Speaker 8: of drive getting in a car and driving down to Union.
24:47
Speaker 8: Although there's nothing wrong with Union. It's a pleasant little town,
24:49
Speaker 8: but it's not the easiest place in the world. I
24:52
Speaker 8: saw that. I saw that. Well, I hope it didn't
24:56
Speaker 8: get the record room. That's what happened in Lincoln County
24:58
Speaker 8: by one about nineteen fifty one fifty two, the courthouse
25:01
Speaker 8: burned down there and threw all the oil and gas
25:03
Speaker 8: records into disarray. But yeah, I mean, I don't know
25:07
Speaker 8: what I mean. I understand the county Commission has a
25:11
Speaker 8: lot of things on their plate, and you know, Canac
25:14
Speaker 8: County shrinking population, closing schools, tax base may be in
25:21
Speaker 8: danger to a degree, But it just seemed to me
25:23
Speaker 8: that that's not a big money thing. You know, the
25:26
Speaker 8: users pay for it. I mean, Putnam has a little
25:28
Speaker 8: bit different system than the id X that most of
25:31
Speaker 8: these other counties use it, right, and if you want
25:33
Speaker 8: to but it's a good system. It's well index and
25:37
Speaker 8: if you want to copy, you just pay for it.
25:40
Speaker 8: You open an account and we pay a fee every
25:43
Speaker 8: six months for access to it. Now, and most of
25:46
Speaker 8: the other counties you don't pay any access for You
25:48
Speaker 8: just get online and access it. But you still pay
25:51
Speaker 8: for any documents you access and copy.
25:54
Speaker 9: So I'm working in six or seven counties right now.
25:58
Speaker 9: It's so easy to sit here and wanted degree weather
26:01
Speaker 9: and get the information.
26:02
Speaker 8: That's right, that's exactly right, that's that's that's true, Jay,
26:05
Speaker 8: And I appreciate you calling inside behind that.
26:09
Speaker 9: Well, thank you for being a vocal person for this.
26:12
Speaker 8: Well, I am. I just think it's it's you know,
26:15
Speaker 8: there's just no adequate explanation for it that I can see.
26:20
Speaker 8: And he said, well, it's because the title lawyers don't
26:22
Speaker 8: want it. Well, that's not so well.
26:24
Speaker 9: You don't say title lawyers down there anymore. No, No,
26:27
Speaker 9: those days are gone.
26:28
Speaker 8: They're gone. I mean the days of seeing Tom Riggs
26:31
Speaker 8: shuffling down to the courthouse, you know, or Richard mccallar
26:35
Speaker 8: or one of those guys. Uh. I see where Ray
26:38
Speaker 8: Dodson passed away? Here comes yeah it all miss Ray.
26:41
Speaker 8: Ray was always in a record room. And you always
26:43
Speaker 8: knew that when when Walton Shepherd walked in, keep your
26:46
Speaker 8: head down because you've got it. Because he stood across
26:49
Speaker 8: the he stood across the counterfront of you. You were going
26:51
Speaker 8: to get a sermon pretty soon if you made icon.
26:54
Speaker 9: That's right, you find out how you were.
26:56
Speaker 8: That's exactly right. He had that Billy Graham sort of
27:00
Speaker 8: voice about it. Brother, do you know the Lord? I said, well, actually,
27:06
Speaker 8: mister Shepherd, I'm trying to do this title work here
27:09
Speaker 8: right now. He could bore into you. I miss those days,
27:13
Speaker 8: and I said.
27:14
Speaker 9: They were a lot of fun.
27:15
Speaker 8: They were a lot of fun. Did you go to
27:16
Speaker 8: the courthouse when I was thinking about I tried the
27:19
Speaker 8: tease out in front of Tom McHugh and there was
27:21
Speaker 8: an old gentleman named Sam Chilton that used to loaf around.
27:26
Speaker 8: He didn't look like he was sort of a legacy.
27:28
Speaker 8: He had some money, I think from one of the families,
27:31
Speaker 8: and he would go up and file for secretary of
27:33
Speaker 8: state and said, well, mister child, why would you do that?
27:37
Speaker 8: You waste money so well, because I'm the most qualified
27:39
Speaker 8: man in the in the race, he said, the secretary
27:42
Speaker 8: of state does nothing. He said, I've done nothing all
27:44
Speaker 8: my life. I'm quite good at it, he said, I
27:47
Speaker 8: think I could do that. Child. You just don't make
27:50
Speaker 8: them like that anymore.
27:52
Speaker 9: Well, again, thank you for being an advocate.
27:54
Speaker 8: All right, Jay, thanks for calling.
27:55
Speaker 7: I appreciate the phone call. That's Jay. Call him this morning.
27:58
Speaker 7: You can't call him too. We have a few minutes
27:59
Speaker 7: after we come by from break three zero four three
28:01
Speaker 7: four two eight one three one three zero four three
28:02
Speaker 7: four two eight one three one. Just very briefly an antidote.
28:05
Speaker 7: I was talking about it in Michigan. I was living
28:06
Speaker 7: there when they were modernizing these things. And a great
28:09
Speaker 7: example of what you and Jay were just talking about.
28:10
Speaker 7: He was talking about doing the work from his house.
28:12
Speaker 7: The worst car accident that I ever got into was
28:15
Speaker 7: or the only one really whether it was similar to
28:18
Speaker 7: what we had last week here in West Virginia. Of course,
28:20
Speaker 7: in the late nineties in Michigan that was just winter.
28:23
Speaker 7: It happened a lot. And I worked in the mortgage
28:26
Speaker 7: industry back then, in the mortgage industry, we were right
28:28
Speaker 7: on the cusp where Ingham County was modernizing to get
28:31
Speaker 7: all of their records on line, but they weren't there yet.
28:33
Speaker 7: We self generated all of our leads back in those days.
28:35
Speaker 7: We drove to the county courthouse. We would pull up
28:37
Speaker 7: all of the information, deeds, titles, everything else to get
28:40
Speaker 7: all the information on people that we wanted to try
28:42
Speaker 7: to solicit for loans. I mean, that's we did the
28:44
Speaker 7: hard work back then. Got into a bad car accident
28:46
Speaker 7: because we had a drive to the courthouse and get
28:48
Speaker 7: all of our information.
28:49
Speaker 8: On the way back, a guy slid through a light.
28:51
Speaker 7: And crashed into me in one of my friends, and
28:52
Speaker 7: I mean it was he got hurt, the car was
28:54
Speaker 7: pretty messed up and everything else. But the only reason
28:56
Speaker 7: we were there is because the records weren't on line yet.
28:59
Speaker 7: If they were online, we went had to do it. Well,
29:02
Speaker 7: let's take our brain, we'll take a we'll talk more
29:04
Speaker 7: when we get back. You're welcome to call in if
29:06
Speaker 7: you have any questions about anything that we're talking about
29:08
Speaker 7: this morning, or if you have a question for the law,
29:09
Speaker 7: because that's where the Payton Law Firm can help you out.
29:11
Speaker 7: You can put the power of Paton on your side
29:12
Speaker 7: this morning. Give us a call three zero four three
29:14
Speaker 7: four two eight one three one three four two eight
29:16
Speaker 7: one three one. You can find out more information online
29:18
Speaker 7: when the Paton Law Firm it's Payton Lawfirm dot com.
29:20
Speaker 7: That's Pey t in Payton Lawfirm dot com, located at
29:23
Speaker 7: twenty eight oh one First Avenue in Nitro, West Virginia,
29:26
Speaker 7: and we'll give you more of their contact information when
29:28
Speaker 7: we come back. You're listening to Ask the Lawyer this
29:30
Speaker 7: morning with Harvey Payton from the Payton Law Firm on
29:32
Speaker 7: five ADWCHS the Voice of Charleston.
29:34
Speaker 10: At Peyton Law Firm, we fight for every bit of
29:38
Speaker 10: compensation you deserve. You need a law firm that will
29:41
Speaker 10: fight for you. Tom and Harvey Peyton have more than
29:44
Speaker 10: fifty years of combined experience helping West Virginians win millions
29:49
Speaker 10: from greedy insurance companies. Let us spread that success to
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Speaker 10: you handling injury and wrongful death claims of all types.
29:56
Speaker 10: If your injury is serious to you, it's serious to us.
30:00
Speaker 10: Visit Peytonlawfirm dot com and let our family fight for yours.
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30:20
Speaker 4: Thank you to our Hurricane High School broadcast boosters, harm
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30:45
Speaker 5: Good morning, here's your traffic update in Putnam County. There's
30:48
Speaker 5: a vehicle crash on US thirty five North at mile
30:51
Speaker 5: marker five, congestion and delays on I sixty four East
30:54
Speaker 5: at mile marker fifty, A debt Virginia Street bridge deck
30:57
Speaker 5: repairs on US sixty west east part of Old sixty
31:02
Speaker 5: and bridge inspection work on I seventy nine South and
31:05
Speaker 5: north at mile marker fifteen, right before Clint Dennon. Drive safely.
31:09
Speaker 5: I'm Chapel in the WCCHS Network Traffic studio.
31:15
Speaker 8: Put the power.
31:16
Speaker 3: Of Peyton on the side.
31:19
Speaker 2: We have the court.
31:20
Speaker 3: Room experience on such a need. We never give up.
31:25
Speaker 3: We're prepared to fight for your rights. When you need action,
31:31
Speaker 3: count on us. Put the power of Peyton on your side,
31:38
Speaker 3: the power of Bay.
31:46
Speaker 7: You can put the power of Paytent on your side
31:47
Speaker 7: this morning. Threes are A four three four two eight
31:49
Speaker 7: one three one three four two eight one three one.
31:51
Speaker 7: Would love to hear from you this morning if you
31:53
Speaker 7: want to have any questions for Harvey and the Payton
31:56
Speaker 7: Law from either commenting on stuff we talked about this morning,
31:58
Speaker 7: or if you have a question of the law. That's
31:59
Speaker 7: where the Peyton Law can help you out. Threes are
32:01
Speaker 7: four three four two eight one three one.
32:02
Speaker 8: Well, it was a pleasure. It was a pleasant conversation
32:04
Speaker 8: with Jay Goldman there. As I say, Jay is a
32:08
Speaker 8: law school graduate. He's a licensed attorney. He got his
32:10
Speaker 8: fifty year little certificate a couple of years before I did,
32:15
Speaker 8: which sort of segues in for me to talk a
32:18
Speaker 8: bit about the Peyton Law Firm. I mean, we are
32:21
Speaker 8: here to help the people who live here and who
32:24
Speaker 8: interact with us, and we have been doing it for
32:28
Speaker 8: fifty years. And it's here an AD now that says
32:33
Speaker 8: your case will be handled by an attorney license to
32:36
Speaker 8: practice in West Virginia. The attorney in this ad is
32:39
Speaker 8: not license. Well, okay, so I am tom Is. We've
32:45
Speaker 8: got near eighty years of combined experience, and there's a
32:50
Speaker 8: lot of value to having been around the courthouses, to
32:53
Speaker 8: having been around the staff in courthouses, to having been
32:57
Speaker 8: around law enforcement, and having been around and practiced in
33:01
Speaker 8: front of all the judges here, so they know and
33:04
Speaker 8: trust you, and you've got a reputation for integrity that
33:08
Speaker 8: we do that's I think unchallenged, and that that's why
33:15
Speaker 8: we can help you if nobody can tell. I can't
33:18
Speaker 8: tell anyone who to hire as a lawyer. But if
33:20
Speaker 8: you've got an issue, say you've been injured in an
33:22
Speaker 8: auto accident, or someone who's heaven forbid lost a life,
33:28
Speaker 8: or maybe someone's died and you've got trouble collecting life insurance,
33:33
Speaker 8: or you've got to claim on a homeowner's policy or
33:36
Speaker 8: a car property damage policy, and you can't get that
33:39
Speaker 8: result because you're dealing with some national adjuster who may
33:43
Speaker 8: have an office in California, you can't get in touch
33:45
Speaker 8: with them during the day because of the time change.
33:49
Speaker 8: Or you've had a bank committed an active negligence. For instance,
33:56
Speaker 8: you cash an IRA at one bank a CD to
34:02
Speaker 8: transfer it to another tax deferred account, and a clerk
34:06
Speaker 8: just gets his cashiers check and puts it in an
34:08
Speaker 8: envelope with that unregistered and mails it and it doesn't turn up.
34:11
Speaker 8: I mean, if that's the essent, or as I was
34:14
Speaker 8: talking about with Jay, you've got a multi million dollar
34:16
Speaker 8: piece of property's there's an air been made along the line,
34:20
Speaker 8: so you're into it. I mean, those are litigation matters.
34:23
Speaker 8: If you think that you have an issue that you know,
34:25
Speaker 8: I think I need to talk to a lawyer. I mean,
34:27
Speaker 8: we don't charge, and never have charge anybody to see
34:31
Speaker 8: if they have a case. Now that's a big deal.
34:34
Speaker 8: You know. You hear these people advertise you don't pay
34:36
Speaker 8: us unless we went Well, that's the way all contingent
34:38
Speaker 8: fee cases are handled. And good lawyers, smart lawyers who
34:42
Speaker 8: realize you know we can, we can. We're here to
34:44
Speaker 8: help people and if you need a lawyer, we can
34:47
Speaker 8: help you and do a really good job. And we
34:49
Speaker 8: can also tell you, look, you don't need a lawyer
34:50
Speaker 8: on this right. Appreciate you coming by. I'm not trying
34:54
Speaker 8: to run off the business. But here you go the
34:58
Speaker 8: paytent lawfer. This paytent lawfer. You can send us an
35:01
Speaker 8: email then only Tom or I see, or you can
35:04
Speaker 8: stop by our office which is and has been for
35:09
Speaker 8: near fifty years. And like Trey Putnam, Oh, we have
35:13
Speaker 8: another call.
35:13
Speaker 7: We can try to squeeze it in real quick now, caller,
35:15
Speaker 7: we have maybe ninety seconds here for you to get
35:17
Speaker 7: in and for Harvey to try to respond for about
35:19
Speaker 7: a minute. To go ahead, caller, you're on the here.
35:20
Speaker 7: What's your first name?
35:22
Speaker 6: First name's Jim, Go Jim. I've used Harvey a while.
35:27
Speaker 6: I'm wondering about the online stuff in the county. Is
35:34
Speaker 6: there one person that can decide or does there have
35:36
Speaker 6: to be a lot of people.
35:38
Speaker 8: How's it working to make the decision whether to go
35:42
Speaker 8: online or on? Yeah, well, I think that's right. It's
35:46
Speaker 8: a it's a biparty thing. And you've got a county
35:49
Speaker 8: clerk who's an elected official in the county clerk by
35:51
Speaker 8: laws in charge of the books and records. And you
35:53
Speaker 8: also have a County Commission, which is the governing body
35:55
Speaker 8: of the county, and they control the budgets for all
35:58
Speaker 8: the elected officials, so they have input. I worked in
36:01
Speaker 8: Putnam County. Brian Wood was the county clerk, and actually
36:05
Speaker 8: our law firm represented the County Commission and it's spewed
36:08
Speaker 8: with an insurance company overclaim they wouldn't pay. We were
36:11
Speaker 8: able to get a couple hundred thousand dollars and Brian
36:14
Speaker 8: then went to the County Commission and said, look, this
36:16
Speaker 8: is not a windfall, but here it is, and let's
36:20
Speaker 8: use this to get started putting these records online. The
36:22
Speaker 8: county said, fine, Brian, you run with it. And now
36:25
Speaker 8: we've been up and running since gosh, like two thousand
36:28
Speaker 8: and twelve, over over a decade. So it's a collaborative
36:33
Speaker 8: effort of money.
36:34
Speaker 6: Big pardon it's a matter of money.
36:37
Speaker 8: Well, I think it's a matter of policy more than money.
36:42
Speaker 8: It really doesn't. It's not a big expense like them.
36:45
Speaker 8: I mean in Kanawha County, all of the records are
36:48
Speaker 8: already digitized. They are you can go to a computer
36:51
Speaker 8: terminal sitting on a desk down in the record room
36:54
Speaker 8: and go back to the beginning of time.
36:56
Speaker 7: So it's kiosk access, just not one line.
36:59
Speaker 8: Access, online access, and you know those things are paid
37:03
Speaker 8: for by people who use the service period.
37:06
Speaker 6: Right to me, it's a no brainer. Then. Well, with
37:10
Speaker 6: all the people on the on the County commission are
37:13
Speaker 6: kind of young, they should want that to happen.
37:15
Speaker 8: Well, I tend to agree with that. I'm not I
37:19
Speaker 8: can't speak for Ennsolango, I can't speak for Natalie Tennant.
37:24
Speaker 8: And the other young man I think is mister Wheeler.
37:27
Speaker 8: He's going to head off to the state Senate to
37:29
Speaker 8: fill a vacant seat, and so there'll be someone else.
37:32
Speaker 8: But listen, I appreciate the call. Just call onto your
37:35
Speaker 8: county commissioners, but we've got to wrap up for today.
37:38
Speaker 8: Hopefully we'll be back next week and it's not too
37:40
Speaker 8: cold a peak law firm. When you go to one
37:42
Speaker 8: first Avenue in Nitro, we're here to help Pete. Do
37:46
Speaker 8: you think you need a lawyer. You don't have to
37:49
Speaker 8: hire us, think about us, give us a call, send
37:52
Speaker 8: us an email, or just dropped by the office. And
37:54
Speaker 8: if either time or out of there. We'll take time
37:56
Speaker 8: to see you if we're cat up, set an appointment
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Speaker 8: and come back another time. We've been doing this here
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Speaker 8: in West Virginia for a long time. Highly successful.
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Speaker 7: You see Fall seven five to five fifty five stys
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Speaker 7: to six three zer A four seven five five fifty
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Speaker 7: five sties to six Fayton Law Firm dot Com. Tune
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Speaker 7: in next Thursday for another episode. Have a great to
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Speaker 7: everyone on five AD w.
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Speaker 2: C HS, w C H S A L W two
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Speaker 2: four three d r F M Charlestown, W two A
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Speaker 2: three a Q Cross Lanes, a w VRC media station.
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Speaker 2: We're proud to live here too,