(11/11) HOTL Hour 2

Handel on the Law, Marginal Legal Advice.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This is handle on the law marginallegal advice, where I tell you you
have absolutely no case. If youhave been following what's going on around the
world in relation to what's going onin the Middle East, particularly the Israelil
specifically the Israeli Hamas war. Youdon't go to war with Israel. If

(00:25):
you happen to be right next toIsrael and you're in the Gaza strip,
you're gonna lose big time. Imean, you're gonna get nailed, which
I still wonder why is it thatHamas went ahead and committed that horrific attack
on Israel and murdered fourteen hundred peopleand literally massacred them. And if one
of the things was political, bythe way, then they've won. They

(00:47):
Hamas have won this battle because ifit was to get the entire world against
Israel based on the fact that Israelwas going to attack Gaza to the extent
that it did, and they hadto think it was going to happen,
I mean, what do you thinkwas going to happen? And so on
a political front, I think Hamashas won the battle. Of course,

(01:10):
Gaza is decimated and it's and it'sstill being decimated all right. I don't
want to go into that, butI do want to talk about the legal
aspects of that, and that's here, specifically the United States, where demonstrations
are going like crazy and anti Semitismhas exploded, Anti Israel sentiments have exploded.
Thousands upon thousands of people at universities, colleges all over the country are

(01:34):
protesting Israel, calling Israel war crimegenerators and I mean, just the guilty
of virtually everything. And a lotof civilian Palestinians are being killed, oh
a lot of them, and thatis a real problem. Israel says,
Hey, listen, if Hamas isunderneath hospitals, if Hamas is shooting rockets

(01:57):
at us, if Hamas has theleadership under building civilian buildings, we have
a right. That is a wholedifferent issue. But let me tell you
what's happening with the universities and what'sgoing on with the demonstrations is not just
pro Palestinian demonstrations. You see alot of these demonstrators and they're guilty of

(02:22):
anti Semitism and they are kill theJews, destroy Israel. I mean,
that's the stuff you're seeing. Onethat's in contention is Palestine or from the
river to the sea, Palestine willbe free. That means from the Jordan
River to the Mediterranean Sea Palestine.Hey, Israel is right in the middle

(02:46):
of that. And the argument isthat Israel should not exist. And Hamas's
position, of course, is thatIsrael and Zionists and Jews should be destroyed.
And there's the anti Semitism that isbeing So now you have top law
firms that are calling out the antisemitism on college campuses and telling the presidents

(03:08):
and the administration of these universities saying, stop it. You tell your students
to stop that crap. And theirargument is, this is a university,
it's free speech, it's first Amendment. We can't stop it. And they're
right, They're absolutely right. Theuniversity presidents can't stop it because it's free

(03:31):
speech. Now, can they stopthe hate? Probably, but they're not
going to. So what are thetop these top law firms are saying,
do they fight out lawsuits against Andof course not what they're telling And now
we're talking about top high end lawfirms are simply telling the universities law schools
to say, don't bother your studentscoming to our firm. We're not going

(03:53):
to hire them. And the reasonIvy League schools with students high end s
to Udent's top GPA, brilliant studentsgo to law school at those schools is
to get into good jobs at topfirms. And if top firms are saying
not in our firm, now thatgets interesting because let's say I'm a demonstrator

(04:17):
and I know I'm not going toget into the firm because I'm out there
free Palestine placers. Okay, I'mgoing to say no, thank you.
Now now comes the issue of howabout the rest of the people who aren't
because there are thousands of people outthere all right, Well, the university
presidents have to be a little carefulabout their students, and I guess have

(04:39):
to tell them you're never going toget a job. At this point,
it's two two dozen law firms.Kravat, Swain and Moore, one of
the top firms in the United States, devivois On, Plimpton, Kirkland and
Ellis, Paul Weiss, a coupleof Jews there, Wharton and Garrison,

(05:03):
Scat and Arps. I think it'sthe biggest law firm in the United States.
I mean, it goes on andon and that's the argument saying,
hey, we can't stop you,but we sure as hell can say no
thank you to those students and nothank you to the schools that are pushing
against this. Tell me that isn'tan interesting side story with all of this.

(05:27):
All right, let's go ahead andtake some phone calls and oh,
Warren, let's start with you.Warren welcome. Hey Bill, I've got
a simple estate. I've got threepieces of real estate, one in which
I live in, I have abrokerage account, and I've got five beneficiaries,
the main one being my one andonly daughter. Do I need to

(05:50):
see an attorney? Is this somethingI could do online? Yeah? You
can probably do it online. Yeah, it's fairly easy to do. How
much is all of this worth,Warren million? Yeah? Well, let
me ask something. Why would youtake three million dollars with the property and
not spend a couple of thousand dollarsto make sure that everything goes exactly the

(06:12):
way you plan it? Well?You, yeah, I would. Let
me put it this way, Butfor three million dollars, here's my advice.
For three million bucks worth of property, I absolutely would go to a
trust and a state lawyer because here'sone of the big, big problems.
Are you not leaving your property toa family member for three million dollars?

(06:33):
If I'm a nephew of yours,I'm going to try to contest it.
I'm going to go in and say, hey, he really meant to leave
it to me. And now thetrustee of the state says no, And
you I gotta tell you you wantit air tight. By the way,
that doesn't even stop those people fromdoing that, but an air tight trust

(06:59):
helps it. So yeah, youdefinitely want to go to a trust and
a state lawyer for that much money. I mean, if it was one
hundred thousand dollars to three hundred thousanddollars worth of property, or you literally
only had one beneficiary, that reallyisn't a problem. Also, who's going
to sell the property? What's thetrustee's position in terms of what the trustee

(07:23):
is supposed to do? Well,my daughter can do with them whatever she
wants. You can sell them orshe can keep printing them. Okay,
But here's the problem. She decidesthat and one of the other beneficiaries says,
hey, we want you to sellthe property, and you're screwing us
out of money. By not selling, I mean, you've got some complicated

(07:44):
issues. It's not especially with thatmany beneficiaries and three different properties. So
yeah, absolutely one percent. Yougo to a lawyer on that one.
I would, because I could sithere and think of fifteen reasons why,
especially the beneficiaries could come in andattack not so much the trust itself,

(08:07):
but attacked the trustee. I wantthe money. You're not selling it.
You're not getting market share, You'respending too much money on repairs to get
market share. Because I'm a beneficiary, I mean, I can think of
dozens of things that could get inthe way of that. Linda, Hello,
Linda, Hi, Okay. Iwas born in nineteen forty four and
my mother remarried in forty seven.You're right, I have a stepfather.

(08:30):
Yeah, okay, come on,guys. Anyway, I remarried and I
have two brothers. Well now they'reall deceased and I only they have my
nephew's disease. Also, unless wehave four grandchildren and only know two of
them. Long story short, theydid have a living trust. Living trust
was lost. I have a copyof the worksheet, so I went to
see approbate attorney. I'm now theadministrator of the estate got the house sold.

(08:58):
I put in a little over fivethousand, which I'm going to get
back. Okay, Hang on aminute, Hold on quick question. Okay,
h A state is different than thetrust. Is the property in a
trust? It is a trust.Okay. So now, but there's no
copy of the trust correct correct?Okay? So how did you get to

(09:20):
become the trustee? I have ablank cop of you know, a worksheet
that they did, but it wasnot notarized. Okay. That means there
is no trust. Okay. Okay, So again, how did you become
How did you become? Hang ona minute. I want to get through
this because I want to set thisup correctly. How did you become the
trustee? Linda? I took itto the probate attorney. He made me

(09:46):
the trustee. Oh so you musthave gone into court. Okay, So
he went into court because of yourrelationship with the trust. All right.
The judge had to choose someone.So the probate attorney asked for you,
and the judgement it okay, thetrust big yeah. But the big thing
is because I was never adopted,I get no proceeds from the selling of

(10:09):
the house. Yes, those correctgrandchildren. Yes, it is correct.
Yes, of course it is becauseyou're because you're not. You have no
legal relationship with anybody. Now youdo as to support, you do as
to alimony. But in terms asto inheritance, Nope, because unfortunately,
uh, you're the trust door died, your dad died in Testine. No,

(10:35):
wel, no trust. I don'teven know how. I don't even
know how. Oh I understand theproperty was held in a trust, so
therefore the trust is there, butthere's no copy of the trust. So
all they have is the trust ownseverything. Yeah, yeah, you're yeah,
I would Still what did the probateattorneys say that you have no point?
Do you have no case? Ihave no point, no case.
Okay, the house has been sold, but I get no proceeds. I'll

(10:58):
get my now you will, andprobably you can charge a reasonable fee for
your work as trustee. But otherthan that, no case. So here
is the takeaway. If you wantyour non adopted children to inherit, and

(11:20):
it doesn't matter how long, Imean, you can have a child in
your home for from the age ofsix months and you die at the age
of eighty child unless is specifically abeneficiary under the trust named as a beneficiary,
not I leave everything to my children, because that's you're not the child.

(11:43):
But that's why, that's why youreally want a lawyer to you especially
look at this U Jorgey, Hello, Jorgey Bill. I met an investment
in a binery in twenty eleven,and sure after that they went into chapter

(12:07):
eleven. I have a a promissorynote to pay us by June of twenty
twenty, but nothing happened. Everytime I called, there's always an they
are they still or hey, arethey still in business? No, they

(12:28):
have the property, but the propertyis a subcontract rental to another company.
Okay, so interesting. We're sowhen they went eleven, when they went
chapter eleven, were you named asa creditor? I believe so. Yeah,
you're you're basically out to lunch.There wasn't enough money to pay off

(12:50):
the creditors, and you being anon secured creditors way down the list.
And because at first as taxes andthen come secured creditors, you and you're
just a promisory note. It's notsecured by anything. Yeah, you're basically
out to lunch. Yeah, howmuch how much did you invest? Orgy

(13:11):
Okay. Then the original investment waseleven thousand and the promise to pay was
twenty two thousand. Okay, soeleven thousand dollars. You basically just imagine
this. Just think of what youcould have done with eleven thousand dollars.
Okay, yeah, I know.Oh, by the way, Jorgey,

(13:33):
I love this because whenever this iswhat my screener does is put people's name
on it. And whenever there issome question, especially a name, a
foreign name, a name that isethnic, like Abdullah, it's ab do
la and so it's spelled out phonetically, Jorgey, your name is spelled whore

(14:03):
hyphen hey, h e or hey. You know what that does work in
sort of a interesting way. Uh? Is that Misty who is screaming Misty,
well done, congratulations And Misty justdid it for my benefit. I

(14:24):
know that. I want to tellyou about living in pain. Living in
chronic pain is well, it's apain, a lot of it, and
not for those just who live inand with chronic pain, but for their
loved ones too. Now, painfor me is getting a paper cut and
I'm in urgent care. But forothers, pain is serious. It's chronic
it's stabilitating. And if you livein chronic pain or know someone who does,

(14:48):
especially a loved one, I'm gonnasuggest you listen to The Pain Game
Podcast. It's a show about livingin with chronic pain and trauma. It's
funny, it's sad, it teaches, it inspired sometimes have to prave.
The show's host, Lindsay Soprdo,shares her stories of living in and with
chronic pain and trauma, and shehas lots of it twenty four to seven.

(15:09):
She suffers with it. Her guestshave either lived with or dealt with
paind trauma, and the show isit's real, it's raw. Every episode
ends with a message of hope,and you'll understand that what the show is
about is giving pain a purpose.Now I know Lindsay, I've known her
for years, and I know howvaluable this podcast is. So listen on

(15:31):
the iHeartRadio radio app or wherever youlisten to podcasts The Pain Game Podcast.
That's The Pain Game Podcast. HelloRito, Welcome, Hello Bill. The
property owner next door has allowed apack of coyotes to move in and around

(15:52):
his vacant house that's there, itis not occupied, and they come over
and they are destroying my back.Y'all are doing all kinds of damage.
They're not intimidated by me or mydog. Is the property owner libel for
the damages? I'm experienced? Well, okay, let's go back all right.

(16:14):
First of all, what would youlike the property owner to do to
somehow protect your property from coyotes?Give me an example of what you think
he could do. Fire someone totrap them and take them up to the
hills and let me Yeah, yeah, you here's the problem. Coyotes are
protected and theoretically you could trap them. By the way, do you know
I have any idea how much itcosts to trap a coyote? Because coyotes

(16:38):
are a lot smarter than the ownerof your property next door and trappers.
Coyotes are brilliant. And here's aquestion, how do you know that he
has allowed the coyotes? Because theymove around. It's not like they camp
out. They're constantly moving. Soare they camped? Uh at the next

(17:03):
door to him? Is he campThey have campfires? And you know they
do s'mores? I mean, whatdo they do? What's uh? How
do you know their next door?Because they're always there? I see them
all times of the day or nighton his property. And they yeah,
I you know what I you know, I understand, uh, but coyotes.

(17:26):
You know, I have coyotes upon my house and you have no
idea what I've have to done tokeep them out of there. And they
come from my neighbor by the way, they come for my neighbor who considers
themselves a coyote whisper, and Iand it's still he's not liable. So
I put up these ridiculous fences aroundmy property, uh, with rollers on
top and everything. They can jumpover it. Now they can literally jump

(17:49):
over it. It's almost like,uh they're escaping from prison. And put
those ladders up against the wall andthen they have cutters that cut through the
uh at the barble ie. Uh. Yeah, it's it's a problem.
You can you know what, youcan call animal control to see if they'll
do anything. Uh. And asfar as the damage, as far as
the damage your neighbor, that's gonnago no place, I'll tell you right

(18:11):
now. And what do the coyotesdo when they say you damage your property?
And from what I know, theyjust eat little dogs. Well,
they do a lot of damage.What planters and planters wait, wait,
wait, wait, I've never heardof a coyote going through a planter.
They do here. They eat mysucculent, the al they eat your succulents.

(18:37):
Actually, I always thought that coyoteswere carnivores and they didn't eat plants.
Maybe I'm wrong on that, maybe, but uh, there's that call
animal control. That's all you cando. But you can't. You can't
shoot them. And what they say, Yeah, they said, we can't
do anything unless they're foaming its mouth. Yeah, that's because they have rabies

(19:02):
or they've just brushed their teeth andhave the kind of foaming the toothpaste that
I have. Uh yeah, yeah, that's that's how it goes. You're
out of luck. Yeah, theold foaming at the mouth coyote. Yeah,
that's a little problematic, that one, I'll give you. Yeah.
I don't even know if you canshoot them. Then, I don't know

(19:25):
if you can shoot one that's foamingat the mouth. I mean, that's
how protected these puppies are. Oh, peg, hello, peg Hey.
I had a hip replacement in May, and now the operated leg is an
inch and a half longer than myleg. And I've talked to a few

(19:51):
attorneys they're not interested in taking it. My first problem is I'm having a
hard time documenting the difference. Theoperating doctor room gives me that he sent
me first standing X ray. Theystood me on a block so that you
could see the short leg. Theyput a ruler there, but the only
images I was able to get backwere with from the ankle down. There's

(20:17):
no imaging, okay, which isn'tthe problem? Yeah, no, I
get it. So I'm wondering ifan attorney should be able to help me
get that impression, and if Ihave any kind of a case, and
wondering if my age and the factthat I'm retired. No, no,
that that that has very little todo with it, very little to do

(20:38):
it. Okay, Okay, Well, first of all, let me start
with if you had had part ofyour leg amputation amputated, your name would
be perfect. You know that,peg Yes, yes, okay, I
just want to start with that.Not that has any legal meaning at all.
The point is, and what you'regoing to have to do is get

(20:59):
an attorney. Once an attorney iswilling to take the case, then all
the medical records are definitely gonna beturned over because that's just a given the
problem is finding an attorney, andyou say you've gone to a few,
You've gone to a few attorneys,yes, And they say no, how
many have you gone to? Yeah, pig, how many have you gone
to? And there tell all youcan ask why, and they're gonna say,

(21:26):
we don't think. Yeah, wedon't think there's a case there.
We don't think there's a case there. And one of the things that you
may have in this and I don'tknow anything about the operation, but it
could be that one of the oneof the outcomes of that the risks that
you take side effect if you will, that surgery is leig could be longer

(21:49):
than the other. Now I havenot seen your consent form. If it
says that on the consent form,and you've signed it as a risk saying
yeah, I accept that risk,and you come back and you argue malpractice,
but uh, it's not malpractice.It's just one of the things that
says it's just one of the thingsthat could happen without malpractice. It's just

(22:11):
a X number of people. Uh, then there's nothing there, not that
I think there's anything there anyway,but you look at the concern it's a
risk from what I've read and beentold, you know what, then buy
a lift. Then buy a lift, and maybe you can sue the doctors
for the lift you have custom made. I know you have to have the

(22:33):
customer ade. I know, andyou have to have really affects the rest
of my life everything I can do, and a risk of a leg length
discrepancy, but not this big.I don't know. You say an inch
and a half. Yes, Idon't know much about uh, you know,
the differences in legs, but yeah, yeah, I've read, I

(22:55):
thought about it, and that's definitelyhuge. And even a a doctor I
went to for a console has atext message that it's extreme and complex,
but won't give me a measurement.Why was the doctor? If you're willing
to pay a doctor, why wouldhe not give you a measurement. That
doesn't make any sense. If I'min the business of lifts, why would

(23:18):
I not give you a measurement.He gave me a prescription to go get
my shoes built up and said thatthey would do the measuring, et cetera.
I think maybe because he knows I'mlooking for documentations that he thinks I'm,
you know, trying to go afterthe first doctor and doesn't want to
get involved. Could that be,Yeah, it could be, could be.

(23:41):
Don't know the answer to that,but I think you've got an uphill
battle, and it's not easy togo uphill battles, especially with one leg
longer than the other. You tendto tilt a lot. Okay, that's
enough. I've milked that for asmuch as I possibly can. I mean,
if you start with someone who hasa leg operation and her name is

(24:03):
peg, I mean, you've gotto go off on that. You just
have to. Hey, Jack,you're up. Welcome to the show.
Hi. Yes, So I havea roof I did back in like July
or March, and so you hadall the fireworks, you know, in
their city and it's like kind ofeverywhere, and they had because I usually
go on my roof to clean itup after all the iworks go off during

(24:26):
the day, and I noticed therewas like a burn in on the roof,
and so you know, it's hardto figure out who damaged it because
it's coming from everywhere. I didtalk to a lawyer and they kind of
said just to sue the city everytime it happens. I don't know if
that's good advice about it. Idon't know suit a city for what.
I don't know. They were juststaying. Let me tell you whoever.

(24:49):
I gotta tell you whoever gave youthat legal advice. And this is and
I want you to put this down. Okay, you can calendar this one.
Actually gave you worst legal advice andI give you And let me tell
you how far you have to goon that one. How do you sue
the city when someone just you know, sets off fireworks and you don't know

(25:10):
who it is and it's in thecity. It's illegal for them to do
that, and you've got hundreds,if not thousands of people doing that.
And also, I got to tellyou if you're suing me, I'll tell
you the defense. Your roof gotin my way? Why the hell didn't
you move your roof? Yeah,you've got no No, you're not going
to sue the city. That isnot going to happen. Oh here's a

(25:33):
roof question. Another one, Hi, Denise, you've been there for a
while. What can I do foryou? Yes, yes, thank you.
I recently had a reroof done andthe roofer had the permit process in
place, but apparently the inspector missedthem. For the inspection. So he
left and the roof proceeded to dothe reroof. Meanwhile, I get a

(25:57):
letter from the cities saying I don'thave a permit him. Wait, I
got a question, Hold on,hold on real quickly. So the roofer
applied for the permit, correct,Yeah, okay, but he never got
the permit. Never, It wasnever signed off, right, And so
it's up in the air. Okay, No, it's not up in the

(26:21):
Denis is not up in the air. You don't have a permit. You
don't have a permit for that roof. Okay. So I says that he's
gonna get this sold eventually, butwho is technically legally he is, Denise.
Yeah, it's his duty to pullthe permit. And if he installs

(26:42):
a roof without a permit, whichis what he did, because when the
inspector comes out, they sign offon it. I mean, there's the
signature of the inspector, and ifthere isn't one, the roofer or any
contractor does not proceed if a permithas to be obtained, which clearly in

(27:02):
a roof it has to. Sothe bottom line is, and I'll tell
you why he said that he's goingto take care of it eventually, is
he because he probably met code?And what he'll do, Yeah, if
he met code, he'll go intobuilding in safety and he'll argue that he

(27:23):
met code. They'll come out andhe may have to tear up portions of
it so the inspect can see andthen he has to put it back in.
But if it met code, he'llbe able to figure it out.
Well, Okay, in the longrun, it's the roofers responsible. They
can't how about this? How aboutthis in the short run, in the
medium run, in the long run, it is the roofer's responsibility. Very

(27:48):
good. Yeah, what did thecity say in their letter to you?
Oh, they just said that theycan find me let me see. Yeah,
yeah, I know they always dothat. But even when you go
in, if they do, thiswill all be tied up and they'll turn
it over to the roof for yeyou're gonna be fine if it met code
at all. Okay, Before Ifinish the hour, I want to tell

(28:10):
you about Zelman's Zelman's minty Mouth.It's well, it's a breath mint,
but it's not a breath mint.It's actually a breath freshener that you swallow
and man, it protects against thingslike garlic and onions. You put two
or three in your mouth, yousuck this minty coating and you swallow the
capsule and it is fresh, cleanbreath that lasts four hours. I mean,

(28:34):
it is that good. And I'veknown these people for thirty years.
You'll have the confidence of long lasting, fresh breath. I mean people will
still hate you, don't misunderstand,but at least you'll have clean breath,
and you get your money back guaranteed, not that you're ever gonna ask for
your money back. I mean itis that good. Free shipping. If
you order three packs or more,you could literally eat off the back of

(28:57):
a garbage truck and Zell would stillgive you the freshest breath you've never had.
And as I said, I've knownthem for thirty years and this is
absolutely the real deal. As amatter of fact, I'm using these packs
for stocking stuffers. It's uh.I mean they're that good, and even
for people I like, which isvery strange. So you go to Zelmans

(29:18):
dot com z E l m nm i n s zell Men's z E
l M I n s dot comand put the code handle fifteen for fifteen
percent off. That's handle fifteen forfifteen percent off Zelman's Z E L M
I n S dot com. Thisis handle on the law