Latest / WCHS Network Podcasts / 06-06-2024 Ask the Lawyer with Tom Peyton

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06-06-2024 Ask the Lawyer with Tom Peyton · WCHS Network Podcasts

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of Mason on your side, the power of Babes and good morning. It
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is eight twenty two and this is five ADWCCHS the voice of Charleston, Jeff
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Jenkins with you and Peyton of the Peyton Law Firm in Nitro. And then
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number to call a three oh four three four five fifty eight fifty eight.
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Three oh four three four five fifty eight fifty eight. Or they can text
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that number. O. Yeah, they can text number. It's you can
1:15
text Cooper will have to send me the text line. All right, I'm
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sorry I don't have that memorized. I should. But how you doing,
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Tom Picot? I'm doing great. How you doing, Joey? I'm doing
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well, doing well? The little rainy day here. Yeah, good traffic
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or no traffic this morning, although I had to come in a bit early
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because I had a a tooth issue and I had to have a tooth extraction
1:33
a few weeks and weeks ago. And uh, actually my if I ever
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need anything that gets to the level oral surgery, I use Byron Black all
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the time, and he used to have an office at least for the I
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would have my wisdom teeth taken out years ago in Ripley. But now he's
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got an office basically across the street from the studio. So it worked out
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quite well. They squeezed me in at seven thirty this morning. Everything's good
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taking care of that. But yeah, if you need they got a great
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staff. Byron. His son's working with him. I haven't met his son.
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Real personable and very easy to work with, and they're good and so
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I highly recommend them if you need to have any You don't look any any
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worse for wear. This is good that's not saying a whole lot probably,
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but no, it had been a really busy, uh kind of week all
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of a sudden in the news, I spent last week traveling. My son
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attends LSU down in Baton Rouge, and he was able to secure a summer
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internship job with Frontier Communications, which actually is headquartered in Dallas, Texas at
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this point. So we had to I won't take credit for it, but
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my wife had to drive him back to Baton Rouge, pack him up,
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get him to Dallas, and I flew down and helped, and then drove
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back from Dallas Saturday. But in the and every time I go out of
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town or I try when I go out of town to wear my flying WV
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gear because you just never, you know, almost universally run into somebody.
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You get to go mountaineers or something like that. Now I got to do
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the go taggers every now on that for REALUSU. But we went out to
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you know, we're in downtown Dallas. We go a stone's throw from his
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apartment Friday afternoon, after we did some unpacking and go to sit down in
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the hostess says, oh, my brother goes to WVU. So really this
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is just like two in the afternoon. Yeah, he plays baseball there.
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Really. Yeah. They say he's probably too short to go to the pros.
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But I was like, what's his name, Derek Derreck Clark. And
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we sat down to eat. I said, can you put the game on?
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She's like, oh, I didn't know that. She didn't even know
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they were playing. Well, that Derek Clark pitched lastday. I would dare
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to say that might have been. That was a really important game because there
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were Dallas Baptists who they were playing, which is think it was a small
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school, but they were highly touted and he pitched a full game. So
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we sat there and watched the game in Dallas, Yeah, while his sister
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was waiting on us, and she'd stop and watch from time to time.
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Yeah, so it was he I think it was a one run game with
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the Mountaineers one. I think four to one. Yeah, he's a bulldog,
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Yeah he is. And then he came and closed out one of the
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late games. Yeah, the last game. Yeah, so that was yeah,
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in the it's a small world category. That was nine hundred and fifty
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miles from here, and we get waited on him by the sister of the
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starting pitcher that day for the Mountaineers. That's a good but that's a good
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one for the three guys crew. We'll have to have to pass that on
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to the three guess career and he'll be he's gone. I think he's on
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the mound tomorrow night too for the first game. Yeah. Good, yeah,
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playing un so, of course it almost almost had to split my allegiance
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there tomorrow because I remember lsu Is larely lost him. I see it right,
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the Tigers versus the Mountaineers, and I probably would have rooted for the
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Mountaineers. It's good to know. Hey, three or four, three,
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four, five, fifty eight fifty Any questions about the law Tom Payton with
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us to the Peyton Law firm midnight you. Yeah, one of the things,
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and we're kind of in some community. We ford you the court filing
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from yesterday by the attorneys for Julie Miller, the mother of ca Ndy Miller,
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the young girl who died back in April. And there's a big Justice
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Administration news conference this afternoon to talk about the state's response is not it's not
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the criminal case, but the state's response to her case. And then there's
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what right there there's been some dispute I guess about you know. For first
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of all, we had we had one in Systemville where there was children like
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kind of kept allegedly kept in kind of a barn type atmosophy, and that
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thing's ongoing. Yeah, that's ongoing. But then we have this issue in
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Boone County and a household where I guess and I can't remember the facts about
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how it was ultimately detected somebody called more recently maybe, but a young girl
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named Kennedy. I don't know how hold fourteen fourteen, okay, but just
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found emaciated and she was passed away. Right, So when you get a
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child in that situation and at home, it's why how did it get to
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this point? Because it didn't happen overnight. And so now there's been by
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and forth factual disputes about was where the parents or the adults in the household
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reported to CPS, Did yes do anything? Did the police do anything?
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And then so we have a state trooper I think that says why. I'm
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not sure what he saw, but in twenty twenty three he says he went
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physically to the local Department of Health and Human Resources office, the CPS office
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to report an issue. However, I don't think there's any at least the
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last I read, there's no documentation with CPS that it was logged in as
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an official complaint. And I don't know why going in person seems like going
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in person, if he did, was a perfect substitute for calling the hotline,
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which is what you can do. And then probably when you call the
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hotline, though, it does get into some kind of automated log system that
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a call came in, and it's structured in a way so that the complainant,
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the person calling in generally their identity is not disclosed. If you get
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the case and you they're a witness, they're going to have to come forward
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at some point. But you can call a CPS complaint in and there's pretty
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strong law out there about keeping the caller the one calling in about its identity
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confidential. Now, obviously there are exceptions to every rule and that can happen,
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but we have this. And then, as I understand from media reports,
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somebody anonymously sent in what I saw as some intake type data from CPS.
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So they use these programs on these child abuse and neglect cases. And
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you have to because you're to meet certain elements, et cetera, to take
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a child out the home and things like that. So when somebody has to
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put that data in at the beginning, it looked like that was a print
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off maybe from the first page where something had been reported on this household in
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the past, and I think that may be predated the date when the officer
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says he went they did complain. So you have all this this awful situation
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with the child, and then you have this kind of how could this happen?
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Fall out? And so the it's the mother, miss Miller, I
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believe. So she's charged with I haven't seen the particular charges. I assume
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it's something rises out of child abuse and neglect and causing death like fell on
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there. Okay, she and her parents, And so then she has attorneys
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or an attorney appointed I think to her the cases pending down in Boone County,
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and uh so they filed a motion to address a couple of things.
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One apparently the governor has announced a press conference this afternoon. I think live
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versus yes, let perse humans in other person. Okay, so that's going
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to be some kind of panel that's going to talk about this situation. I
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didn't see the announcement as a situation where they were going to necessarily The issue
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wasn't really the mom who that you know, is being charged criminally, it's
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what happened in the with the government officials about this process and maybe why there
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was problems or there weren't problems, or to clarify the actual disputes. So
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the mother's lawyers or I guess she doesn't want the underlying facts to be presented
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out in the press, arguing that it's prejudicial and that kind of thing.
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So they filed a motion in Boone County Circuit Court asking the judge to basically,
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I think, halt the presser. So that was one thing they requested.
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Then that what I see is a little more interesting is the mother's been
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incarcerated. I think she still is not able to postpond, and so they
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there's an allegation that there's been a human from CPS went to the jail and
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interrogated her, which is asked her questions. And it's a legged in the
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motion that either jail personnel and or the CPS worker represented themselves as the mom's
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attorney when they went in. That may be what the mother is telling her
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lawyer. I don't that maybe a GEL personnel person said your lawyer's here or
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something like that. Now, well that gets I doubt that gets cooborated.
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But as I read it, she went in to give a statement, and
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just after a couple of questions, the mother said, well, I want
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a lawyer, and I think the questioning stopped. And there was some other
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interview with her as well. But I didn't see anything about timing, And
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certainly if this came up, CPS should be in there right off the bat
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doing interviews. And that was you know, so I don't think there's necessary
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anything improper about that. But they have issue with the CPS worker contacting their
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client directly and then taking a statement, and so they want I guess that's
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halted as well. And so you know, we actually have a little bit
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of present now, more recently and more thoroughly because of the all the gag
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orders were you know that came and went and are still in place regarding the
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Trump litigation. What he can say and what third parties can say. And
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it's a fine line. I mean, you have the first amendments. So
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first this, I guess they had a hearing on the motion. I think
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it was just file but they already had a hearing like yesterday towards the evening,
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I guess or late afternoon, and they found that the you can't stop
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the governor from having a press conference. The standard for stopping third parties from
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especially the press, but any third party meaning they're not a defendant or a
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planiff in the case, they're not a witness in the case, they're not
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a court personnel, they're not a juror. To stop the press or third
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parties like the governoress case from talking or having pressers about something of public concern
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like this is. It's such a high standard. I didn't think it had
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any chance, and it didn't in the judge. The presser can go on
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at least that's what I think. That's what brad rode. Now, she
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did you know whether a statement is taken? And you think about this in
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the realm of Miranda rights. I get a lot of calls, you know,
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for a potential criminal defense case and well, they didn't remember rights.
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It's like, OK, it doesn't mean your case is dismissed. That just
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means if you're in custody and they don't read your rights and you give a
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statement and it's incriminating, it can be excluded from the trial. And I
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don't see any reason why this reported statement given to CPS, depending on the
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circumstances, can't be handled in that same manner if this case ever gets to
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trial. It's called the exclusionary rule, and that's a lot of people don't
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understand that, and it's really harsh because it doesn't Normally, it doesn't matter
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what the defendant is charged with. If there is evidence gathered in violation of
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that defendant's constitutional rights, it gets excluded from trial. So you could have
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a case where a person gives a convincing confessional while in custody, but for
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example, if they were not read their miranda rights and waive them, that
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entire confession can be inadmissible and the jury would never even know it existed.
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And so it's a powerful tool. I mean, it certainly is a tool.
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That is it's meant to prevent violation of toorny clent privilege, for example,
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the sixth amount right to council. And that's what you have here because
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if if and I say that emphatically, that that somebody represented themselves as this
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inmates attorney that's problematic, and the judge would probably take action in that regard
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by not allowing them to use any information that gathered from that interview. But
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that can be resolved in that way. So but in the criminal case,
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it's premature for that. You don't have those arguments usually until you get rather
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close to trial and you're determining what's admissible to go before the jury. But
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the judge in Boone County said, you know, any further contact needs to
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go through her lawyer. And she also did say and maybe this relates back
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to the press conference as well, depending on what who's in attendance today,
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but not to release the statement or statements taken from the mother at the jail
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as well. And I don't know about any statements taken you if they went
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to the house or while she was not in custody and took a statement,
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I don't know about that because I don't know the details of the judges ruling
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yet from yesterday. But she did they did get some relief there, I
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mean the judge, I mean the governor basically, I think is prohibited from
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just releasing this whatever you know, for example, a transcript or recording of
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any statement taken while she was represented by council and incarcerated, and the probably
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because of this at least allegation right now that there was some misrepresentation to her
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that someone was her attorney when she went to talk to them. So is
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due in Tom Payton's with this Peyton Law for a night to any questions about
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the law, lines are open three or four three four five fifty fifty.
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Is it common for CPS attorneys to go to I mean, he's not common
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for CPS attorney is absolutely not okay, And I don't think they're the investigators
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or yeah, so what you have, you know, the actually the CPS
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attorneys if you get a abuse in the clip and neglect case filed which is
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regarding printal rights, not the criminal side, but then the prosecutors represent it's
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not like they do in a regular criminal case. They're actually by statute representing
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CPS and that preceding versus whoever the parents are or whoever their respondents are in
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relation to custody, printal rights, things like that. But CPS workers,
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the investigators, that's who I think went to the jail. And then it
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could be anything that I mean, it could be an innocent maybe the jail
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guard thought he or she was the inmates attorney or something like that. But
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no, they have a mean, if there's good cause, the CPS workers
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have a duty to investigate. I don't think there's If she had a lawyer
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appointed on the criminal side of the case and there hasn't been a civil abuse
15:48
neglected case filed yet by CPS. Just gently a CPS worker calling the mother
15:54
and trying to ask the questions, I don't really see anything improper about that
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because the mother can just say, well, no, I'm going to talk
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to my lawyer first. There's nothing voluntary about it. There's nothing coercive about
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it. Don't see any issue. Now you start getting into the realm of
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that worker misrepresenting to the mother that she's her attorney, then you got all
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kinds of other issues. I mean it could be I mean, it be
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a fraud. I mean it be a fraud. And and so I think
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that when you start looking at behavior that would be something like that, maybe
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it even gets into the realm where the statement wasn't voluntary, and for it
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to be used later it needs to be voluntary, because it was if she
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was tricked and you know it depends on what was said and that kind of
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thing. But there's no context to that interview where the CPS that I've seen,
16:45
where the CPS worker is insinuating she's her lawyer. I haven't seen ithing
16:49
like that. What I read was a jail guard came. You know,
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when you go to visit somebody at the jail, and it is it probably
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is enticing for family members that want to see or not necessarily a CPS work,
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or anybody wants to have access to an inmate to say you're an attorney,
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because attorneys are allowed to go basically any hour of the day if they
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have to to prep their client or talk to their client. I have to
17:14
show your bar ID card to prove it. But and there's been there's a
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couple of cases reported in West Virginia where lawyers who were not on the side
17:22
of the inmate go in and represent to jail personnel, for example, on
17:26
that person's lawyer when they really aren't. And of course we hear about them
17:29
now because it leads to a complaint with the lawyer dispinary a board for that
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kind of behavior. So yeah, it's interesting, seems seems like a prudent
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decision by the judge, right right, I think that's a you know,
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trying this type oppressors just way out of bounds. That's that was. That
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would be a ruling that would be appealed and reversed summarily, I would think.
17:51
But yeah, to keep that statement out of public realm because of the
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alledged circumstances until you can figure out what the facts are. It's definitely the
18:00
same a safe move. And I don't think not anybody's objecting to that from
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now, I'm not sure. I don't think the governor was a criminal case
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too, which is a bit unusual. I mean, none of these third
18:10
parties were joined or given I don't know if they were given an opportunity to
18:14
respond. The motion I saw was just fouled yesterday, and then they had
18:18
a hearing yesterday. So yeah, at the emergency hearing. Sure, Okay,
18:21
So we're going to take a break. Tom Payton's with this Painton Law
18:23
Firm in night show number to call three oh four three four five fifty eight
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Good morning, here's your traffic update in Mercer County of vehicle crash on West
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Put the power of Peyton on the side. We have the court room
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experience on such you need. We never give up. We're prepared to fight
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for your rides. When you need action, count on us. What the
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power up? Peyton on your side, the power upon in eight they get
20:44
my mic on you call me to take out all right, just have a
20:48
little technical issues here we go. I don't know the the the on button
20:53
would not come on. Maybe that's a sign. I don't know. I
20:56
don't know one thing. I haven't been here. If I did make my
21:00
bold prediction last time I was here that Trump would be not guilty. Now
21:04
I didn't hear the end that was before the closing arguments, and he put
21:08
his star witness on the stand, and you know, you never know if
21:14
it would have made any difference. But you know, when I obviously watching
21:18
from a bird's eye view here and just getting what's in the press and trying
21:22
to read the best I can, I mean, I got the feeling that
21:26
a lot of what his Trump's attorney was doing was just absolutely what Trump told
21:32
him to do. Which so there's a fine line there to a certain extent,
21:34
especially in a criminal case. You know, a client wants you to
21:38
say a B and C or put forth a B and C defenses. But
21:41
at a certain point there is discretion with the lawyer, I mean strategy,
21:48
how particular legal maneuvers. I mean, you can't every detail of all those
21:55
cannot be reviewed with your client. You just let your client decide. And
21:59
when you clients with strong personalities, sometimes it can be more complicated to deal
22:04
with because they aren't used to somebody giving them objective advice, for example,
22:08
or saying maybe we shouldn't do that. And I get a feeling that some
22:15
of that came out through Trump's defense team in the case because they called what
22:19
Robert Costello I think, or they had called one witness that was some kind
22:23
of acquaintance of Trump, and then he got in hot water with the judge
22:27
right in front of the jury by I think he was sneering or something.
22:32
Every time the judge would make a ruling, you know, not letting him
22:34
say, answer a question or something like that, he would show some kind
22:38
of smirk or move or staring down at the judge or something odd like that.
22:44
And I guess eventually the judge had to have the jurors leave and then
22:47
admonish him and then have him come back in and tell him not to you
22:49
know. But you know, us on the outside, we're reading all this
22:55
rhetoric and political pundence commenting, and then with the jurors not seeing that.
23:00
I mean, they're seeing only the evidence has been admitted as in trial,
23:06
and they're seeing the judge, no matter what's put out by Trump or the
23:08
press, as a neutral kind of referee type person. And so when you
23:14
get a witness on the stand that might be biased in favor of the defense
23:21
and has been reading all this stuff in the press and things like that,
23:22
and has these preconceived notions of the judge and that kind of thing, jurors
23:27
aren't seeing all that. They're just seeing a guy being rude to a judge
23:32
up there. So I don't think that helps. I mean, as opposed
23:34
to looking like the judge or the prosecutors beating up on the witness, it's
23:40
the opposite, and that's not what I would want if I called one witness
23:45
to the stand, that is not And of course Trump, as I did
23:48
predict, he didn't testify, despite saying in the media that he would testify.
23:52
He better had prevailed there. I think, although when I've had cases
23:57
with clients that don't testify and then they get convicted, and of course they
24:00
think, well, I should have testified. But you know, so now,
24:03
maybe he had nothing to lose if he would have just taken the stand,
24:04
but that would have been a mess probably. So anyway, I was
24:10
wrong because they convicted him rather quickly for that length of a trial. But
24:15
I just think when i'm reading it. His lawyers got sucked into some of
24:19
these little arguments that I don't think matter, Like tried to argue that,
24:26
you know, these payments to Michael Cohne weren't they were for legal services and
24:30
not to pay off Stormy Daniels when you can track it and the paperwork for
24:34
it is done in a way that's different than most other legal bills, and
24:38
it seems to be done in a way to conceal what the payments to Michael
24:41
Cohen were for. And then you go and argue to six people in a
24:44
jury that are twelve people that that wasn't cover up money that was for true
24:48
legal work, and then you do have all these non credible witnesses and unbelievable
24:56
witnesses for the prosecution. But at the same time you can't he can only
25:00
distance himself from them so much because he was involved with them. So you
25:04
know, it's kind of you know, lay down with dogs, get up
25:08
with fleas type issue there too, And so I think it just I would
25:12
have thought that would be don't argue about little things like that because you're going
25:18
to lose that argument. You don't want the jury thinking if I lose that
25:21
argument as a defense lawyer, then you got to convict him. I thought
25:23
it was more like, just keep it more broad, and how is this
25:27
a crime? People influence elections all the time, and you can't. I
25:33
mean, there's too many dots to connect here to get back to election interference
25:37
to say beyond reasonable doubt he's guilty of any crime and just kind of leave
25:41
it at that. But the lawyer had like a three hour closing statement,
25:45
probably arguing all these little points that you know, I felt like mister Trump
25:49
wanted him to argue versus maybe what should have been argued in order to have
25:56
his best chance at getting an acquittal. And then that's just speculation, but
26:00
that's the way I saw it happen. Three hour closed that's you know,
26:04
it was a it was a not a short trial, but in the grand
26:08
scheme of things, it wasn't really that lengthy of a trial because they took
26:11
a break every Wednesday. It with no core and they had breaks here or
26:15
there. So yes, you've I mean remember the blanken ship trial that we
26:18
monitored. I mean that went on for weeks and weeks and I don't think
26:22
there was anything. I don't think there was a three hour closing in that
26:26
one. Now they're extremely complicated. I think they were given ninety minutes maybe,
26:30
And you don't as a lawyer, especially in this day and age where
26:34
people's tension spans have gotten shorter because of you know, all the media out
26:41
there. You know, you talk for three hours, that's it's hard to
26:45
hold people's attention and hardening to figure out what's really important because it can't all
26:48
be in three hours on a trial that that was that short. Now you
26:52
have a complicated contract case involving patents or you know, extremely technical information where
26:57
you basically have to teach yours the industry, you could see where a three
27:02
hour you know, closing might be necessary, but there was nothing in this
27:07
case. After hearing all the testimony, it was so complicated or complex that
27:12
a defense lawyer should take three hours in my opinion, and that's Monday morning
27:15
quarterbacking and that'll know. But so I guess the question is is that so
27:21
there's going to be an appeal in the sentencing. So we're talking months down
27:23
the road on the sentencing is in July, and so you'll have sentencing there
27:29
where the judge will have a whole monopoly of options. I mean, you
27:32
can give him a fine, only a thing. I don't know any of
27:34
these carry any mandatory minimum jail sentences. I don't think they do, because
27:40
that has not been reported in the meeting. Most of the pundits again think
27:42
that that it he will not go to jail on probably. I mean,
27:47
if you look at I know, your record's not very good on predicting that.
27:52
Well, you know, here's what I was depending. You know,
27:55
all of this rhetoric and all this bad mouthing court staff and witnesses and whatever
28:02
was said in social media and in the press as this process. You know
28:06
that one of the factors when you get to sentencing is acceptance of responsibility and
28:11
remorse for conduct. It's always hard when you have a trial in your client
28:18
did not take the stand because you can't have him. How can you be
28:22
remorseful and accept responsibility when you're going to appeal and you maintain your innocence,
28:26
So you always kind of lose that factor under this situation. But all this
28:33
extraneous stuff criticizing everyone, not everyone, but a lot of the court officials,
28:40
family of the judge, witnesses, etc. During the trial, violating
28:45
the gag order, I don't know if it was that case or a different
28:48
one where he actually got fined some as far as sanctions, But now all
28:52
that is can be relevant for sentencing hearing. So I could see a judge
29:00
putting him in jail for a taste, is what I would say, Like
29:03
here, you go to jail for You're gonna be able on weekends and report
29:07
for two months or something like that. I don't know if that's an option
29:10
under the New York law. It generally is in West Virginia and I've seen
29:12
it done. Or go spend thirty days, you know you're report in two
29:15
weeks. And then now whether he'll do that. And this is so complicated
29:21
because the judge it is supposed to be punishment, and so the judge is
29:26
not blind to the political environment we're in, and so I think the judge
29:30
needs to be will be careful about what can I do that will truly be
29:34
punishment and not end up enhancing mister Trump in some way. For example,
29:40
if he was put in jail for a week or something, I mean is
29:45
the political machine, will you know spend that and churn it? I think
29:49
in a way that probably garners him maybe more support certainly in relation to a
29:56
certain factor or demographic it will. So I think the judge's got to be
30:00
it will be interesting to see what he does in sending probably a heavy fine,
30:03
probably probation. I mean, I think that's probably the most likely result
30:07
of the sentencing. But then that can be even stayed or stopped sometimes while
30:11
these appeals are pending. And this is a state court case, so I'm
30:17
not I think there's a one appeal level and then maybe you go to the
30:19
highest court in New York. But these are state charges. So for example,
30:23
this if he gets elected and in pardoning and things like that, that
30:29
the presidential pardon wouldn't apply to these charges because they're state charges. They would
30:33
have to come from I guess the governor or whatever the process is in New
30:37
York. If he's going to be pardoned on these charges, becoming president will
30:40
not allow him to pardon himself. But also think none of these convictions bar
30:45
him from running or being president. I don't believe three or four three four,
30:52
five fifty fifty. Tom Paytent's with is we've been talking about current events,
30:55
but they are current events in your lives, you know, rex accidents,
31:00
I mean those current things that happened to you. That's what you and
31:06
your father. That's right, Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we kind
31:07
of talked about things on a more global level this morning. But yes,
31:10
we do an awful lot of civil litigation and we're really good at it.
31:14
So that usually involves folks that have been injured in some way physically, not
31:18
always, but disputes with auto insurance, homeowners insurance, life insurance claims.
31:26
And then of course if you've been injured in an automobile accident anyway, or
31:30
if you've been severely injured anyway, you have a fall something like that,
31:33
those are the type cases that are kind of our red and butter and we
31:37
do really well at At the same time, you know, our office is
31:40
in kind of the suburbs of Nitro, and we do try and help people.
31:44
And so if you need some deed work done or some estate planning,
31:47
a will, you got can't question, can't go to work, got an
31:49
issue, you need to figure out whether you need to apply for SoC security
31:52
disability or not. We do some criminal defense still, so just general practice.
32:00
If you have some questions about that, give us a call, or
32:02
you can go through our website, send an email in and we're pretty good
32:06
about responding to those. It goes directly to the lawyer, my computer and
32:08
dad's computer, not some canned quote twenty four hour service or something like that.
32:14
We we get our emails, we get our voicemails. They actually come
32:16
through our smartphones twenty four hours a day. But we're not a call center,
32:22
so it might be a little bit before we get back with you.
32:23
But we are essentially open twenty four hours a day as well. But when
32:27
you talk to us, you'll be talking to the actual lawyers, not an
32:30
intake person, you know, which is what a lot of the twenty four
32:32
hour answering services are. So and we've had we've had just you know,
32:37
just have talked to some people, and we've had a lot of storm damage
32:40
here, femas in here, and sometimes the you know, the insurance response
32:46
to the to their customer for years, you know, they bring in out
32:51
of state people, you know, and some of that hasn't gone real smooth,
32:53
just some of the things that I've heard. That's right. Yeah,
32:55
So you get you have disputes. I mean, trees down is a huge
32:59
thing because you know a lot of trees. I'll start on one person's property.
33:01
By the time the storm's done, half the trees on another person's property.
33:05
Whose responsibility is it? What will your homeowner's insurance do to help clean
33:09
it up or repair damage? And so, you know, we've had a
33:14
lot of calls like that, and usually we haven't. You know, we
33:15
were able to give some advice and then they move on take care. But
33:19
that's a perfect example. You know, I've had cases over the last few
33:22
years, actually a few on you know, homeowner's insurance career, for example,
33:25
failing to pay to have a roof repaired, or they only want to
33:29
replace a gutter and not the roof. And so those cases are are are
33:32
viable because if you do have to file a claim or file a lawsuit against
33:37
your own insurance company, we're able to take those almost exclusively on contingency fee
33:43
basis, even though you're just trying to get your roof repaired. Because under
33:45
that circumstance, if if we think it's a case that we can really help
33:50
you on, normally we can get an award of you know, get some
33:52
enough money to cover attorney fees for example, or some damages for aggravation if
33:59
you're fighting with you your own insurance company. It's different if somebody else was
34:01
driving a car and hits you when you're dealing with their insurance company. The
34:05
legislature eliminated our ability to file lawsuits against those insurances, so that's where you
34:09
get an awful lot of complaints just in proper damage claims and things like that,
34:15
because it's very difficult to hire lawyers to handle those proper damage only claims
34:19
against third parties because you don't normally get your lawyer's fees back. But any
34:23
questions on those kind of practical issues doesn't hurt to call us soon after a
34:29
wreck. There's nothing wrong with calling a lawyer just to ask some questions soon
34:32
after a wreck. Believe me, your insurance company has probably tells you five
34:37
different times in their policy you must let them know immediately if you're in a
34:40
wreck, and so you know, if you think there's going to be any
34:45
issue at all, it doesn't hurt to reach out to us. It may
34:46
not be that we represent you, but we can give you the lay of
34:51
the land a little bit so you feel a little more comfortable going through the
34:52
claim process. Basically, Yeah, and sometimes it's just you taking on a
34:59
case. You're writing a letter, you getting the attention of the insurance company.
35:02
Right, that's right, and you can you know we do have So
35:06
you cannot sue another person's insurance company, but you can file a complaint with
35:09
the Insurance Commissioner's office. Now they have an opportunity to pass some rules or
35:15
regulations or make those insurers operate under some well established rules or regulations. I
35:20
don't think they've enforced that real well. But you will get some help from
35:25
the Western Insurance Commissioner's office, and I wouldn't hesitate to file a complaint.
35:29
You can actually submit them online, So you go to a consumer complaint on
35:32
Western Insurance Commission's Office, fill out the issues. Now, simply denying a
35:37
claim in good faith isn't usually a valid complaint with the insurance commissioner. But
35:43
if you can't get an adjuster to communicate with you, for example, I
35:45
hear a lot of that where you think you have a rather obvious coverage issue.
35:50
You know your cars totaled, but they won't give you a rental until
35:53
they pay for your total loss. Will file a complaint with the insurance commissioner,
35:57
and they're pretty good about I mean insurance COMMISSI we'll write a letter to
36:00
the insurance career and sometimes that pops it to a little higher level and then
36:02
you can get something accomplished. So we have to direct some folks there quite
36:07
a bit and usually they get them resolved, all right. And so the
36:12
best way and you the best way to get in contact with you guys with
36:15
you, Yeah, best way, probably the easiest way is just give us
36:17
a call three zero four seven five five five five five six. And our
36:22
website is paying Law Firm dot com. You can go in there and that's
36:25
where you can submit a question. Also, we have relatively active Facebook page,
36:30
so we try and I post on there and kind of keep legal news
36:35
on there and what's going on locally and what we're doing. So you can
36:37
go through our Facebook page and send a message if you are comfortable using Facebook
36:42
program, Yeah, you can do that, or or mention stop buy and
36:45
you know, again, it's just doesn't hurt to give a call, that's
36:50
right, no charge for calls, and you don't want to go in blind
36:54
in a legal situation. If you just have a little bit of information,
36:57
sometimes that really helps people deal with their every day living. So we're also
37:01
do one of things we don't. We haven't talked about all. We do
37:04
some eminent domain cases condemnations. So I got a couple right now in Cross
37:07
Lanes where they're expanding that road, and of course that needs to be done
37:10
obviously, and so we're just arguing about how much the state has to pay
37:14
my clients for the taking half of their property right there. And if you
37:19
having those cases, we do do a good bit of those over the years.
37:22
You know, when they expanded I guess moved Route thirty five to a
37:25
new location in Putnam, we had had a few there. I remember back
37:29
to the expansion of Tays Valley Road wero out thirty four, having some cases
37:32
in that area. We've got some interesting ones and done in Buffalo right now,
37:36
we're actually my clients are challenging the Department Highways Right to even take their
37:40
property, and we have a hearing on that this afternoon, so we'll kind
37:44
of marchor that one. That's interesting because I've handled quite a few of these
37:47
cases over the years and we haven't had occasion to in good faith challenge the
37:52
Department Highways Right to take but in this case we are because of some unusual
37:58
circumstances. So we can get into that in some post mortem next week.
38:00
Yeah, that's right. We'll see how it guys. We got a hearing
38:02
this afternoon. I don't know how substant of it will be, but we
38:06
can certainly fall up next week and I'll give you a little more details on
38:08
that case because it's it's interesting. It is interesting, all right, Stay
38:12
tuned. News is at the top of the hour time Peyton with the Peyton
38:14
Law Firm in Nitro. Give him a call. Seventy five five fifty five
38:17
fifty six. This is five eighty w CCHS the voice to Charleston