October 2, 2025 • 38 mins
Host Dale Cooper and Harvey or Tom from the Peyton Law Firm discuss legal issues from listeners and matters affecting local politics.
More info: www.PeytonLawFirm.com
(304) 755-5556
2801 1st Ave, Nitro, WV 25143
The Peyton Law Firm was founded more than 30 years ago by Harvey Peyton, who was joined by his son, Tom Peyton. For more than 50 years, the Peyton team has successfully represented clients in courtrooms throughout WV and southeastern Ohio. The firm is known for its active community involvement and straightforward advice.
More info: www.PeytonLawFirm.com
(304) 755-5556
2801 1st Ave, Nitro, WV 25143
The Peyton Law Firm was founded more than 30 years ago by Harvey Peyton, who was joined by his son, Tom Peyton. For more than 50 years, the Peyton team has successfully represented clients in courtrooms throughout WV and southeastern Ohio. The firm is known for its active community involvement and straightforward advice.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:15):
The views and opinions expressed on this program do not
necessarily reflect the views and opinions of five eight wchs
it's employees or WVRC media of Courts. Oh created equal.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
When mass come here in a Kate Ray can.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Robson, you can.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
You don't have to fight the law this morning. You
can put the power of painted on your sides. Three
zero four three four five fifty eight fifty eight three
four five fifty eight fifty eight four ask the lawyer.
Tom Payton is in the studio with us this morning,
taking your phone calls, and you can give us a
call three zero four three four five fIF fifty eight.
You can text three zero four nine three five five
zero zero eighth threes are four nine three five five
zers or eight time?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Good morning? How you doing this morning?
Speaker 5 (01:06):
I'm doing great? How are you doing?
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Not too shabby at all? Well, my Reds got bounced
out of the playoffs, right that all.
Speaker 5 (01:12):
Your something on social media. I know you're a big
Reds fan.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
I mean the Dodgers are are are better than anybody,
you know, I mean, depending their team.
Speaker 5 (01:21):
Yeah, so they got to be happy just to get there,
right because they needed to. What was the very last
day of the season. You think about how many games
they play, Yeah, yeah, and the Mets had to they
had to lose actually because the Reds needed to win.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
Well, if the Reds would have won, they would have
they could have played themselves in. But since they lost,
they needed the Mets to lose, and the Mets lost
like five minutes after the Reds rist.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
So yeah, it was very lucky that they got in.
You know.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
It's it's uh, the Dodgers are very very good. And
but I'm not one of those people that, you know,
complain about payroll discrepancies, not so much as that I
think payroll discrepancies are fair. But all these guys are
wealthy and they could pay They can make whatever team
they want. So well, the Castelini's for the Reds, they
if they wanted to sign guys for for half a billion,
they could do it if they wanted to. You know,
(02:06):
the Pittsburgh Pirates pay their entire payroll off of the gate,
off of gate and emissions and concessions. They don't spend
any of their TV money contracts and stuff like that.
I mean, these guys could pay for better teams if
they wanted to. They don't want to. So the Dodgers
go out and pay for the money. Hey, that's that's
the way you win.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
I guess it's a business model, right if you you know,
are comfortable with what your income stream is and you
don't need to pay extra players and don't have that
extra gumption to win championship.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Right, sorry, tax right offs in there somewhere, losses, you know,
all kinds of good stuff.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
Yeah. I don't watch enough baseball or keep up, but
that's not a more of a football guy. So I
don't even understand what their salary cap is and that
kind of thing. And I assume they've got something baseball.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
No salar crap in really yeah, okay, yeah, the I
think the I think the Dodgers pay rolls three hundred
nineteen million dollars and the Reds is one hundred and
twelve million.
Speaker 5 (02:56):
That's the way it is sports these days, from the
actually starting at the high school level. Now I heard
what there's a Texas high school football coachers are getting
paid well into the sixth form.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Yea, yeah, I mean yeah, it's it's pretty insane when
when you think about it, but that is that's that's sports.
I mean you're gonna have, you know, middle school kids
endorsing car dealership soon, so right, that's that's right.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
So we got n I I don't think I haven't.
I thought I heard something on talk line or it
was on this radio station about there's not really any
evidence that n i L has been put in place
for any high school athlete yet, but it's it's kind
of coming authorized it the w v S s a C.
I think they passed a rule over the summertime authorizing
n i L for high school players, which I think
(03:37):
under the law they probably can't prevent somebody from uh
marketing their name, image and likeness. And they I heard
a representative of the w v S s a C
saying well, you can can't wear your school you know,
uniform and things like that, which they can prohibit. But
then they also said you can't if you're a football
(03:59):
player or a quarterback. You can't hold a football in
the ad, which I thought, I think that's borderline. I'm
not sure that would pass muster from a legal standpoint,
but we haven't heard about it yet, of course, and
he didn't talk about and I think to me, the
real core concern is are you paying players to transfer,
because that is not the point of nil. It's a
(04:23):
business or somebody paying an athlete to use their name,
image and likeness for marketing. So if you pay quadruple
the market value for a starting quarterback for Hurricane High
School to be on a billboard, well that and they
were previously at Saint Albans or South Charleston, then it
(04:45):
doesn't pass the smell test very well because then they
you know, they come there and start playing at the
same time they're getting this nil deal, and you know,
the business is paying way more than market value for
for what you would normally pay somebody like that to
market your business. Because naturally, if you're doing advertise, I
mean it is not necessarily it's hard to show quid
(05:10):
pro quo with a lot of advertising media, and you know,
how much business do you get from it? It's difficult
to tell. But they they certainly, if you're paying well
above average value for somebody with that popularity to be
on the billboard, then it's clearly not just for nil,
(05:32):
it's to persuade that person to maybe move schools. And
hopefully we don't see that. I think they'll, you know, don't.
I don't that that's been That's the same concept in
college sports, at least up until recently, when they're letting
colleges actually pay players. I think the CAP's twenty million
dollars fun they can use to revenue share with players,
(05:53):
But otherwise we saw that same concept happen that I
was just discussing in college sports, and it really wasn't
enforced in any way. NC double A ya getting paying
somebody multimillion dollars to be on a couple of billboards
when it's not going to generate that type of business
for that company, but it will get that player to
transfer from.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
I kind of blame the NC DOUBA for all of this,
because they could have put the model in place that,
you know, if there were going to be modeling off
of this in some way, shape or form, they could
have gone off of a good model. But the NC
double A instead of taking time and consideration and putting
together a good model where like, oh, well, I guess
everybody's just want to print money. Now, let's just print
money everybody. And yeah, that was basically you know.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Just spends.
Speaker 5 (06:33):
So how much credit you give the NC double A
and the and the universities. I mean to me some
time ago with all the money and how much the
coaches get paid the TV revenue, I mean, I just
always thought it was kind of exploitation of the You
could have not have fought it of amateur athletes, and
(06:54):
so I don't based on federal law and other principles,
I don't see how you could believe, as a large
entity like that with lots of lawyers, that this is
going to sustain forever into the future. Of course, my
conspiracy mind is, well, they knew it wasn't going to sustain,
but they just drug it out as far as they
could because they're making billions of dollars. And so now,
(07:14):
because this should have been anticipated, of course, like you said,
and then uh, something done about it more proactively rather
than waiting for lawsuits to get through. And then now
we're in this kind of quagmire of lawsuits here and
there crazy and different things. I think it's gonna and
I like because I'm an old time college football fan,
(07:35):
so of course I like the way it was when
you had players that would they might transfer one time
if there's a problem, but otherwise they you know, you
can watch the players start as a freshman and work
their way up and not have any real concern they're
just gonna.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
I think they should keep the transfers. I think they should.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
They could keep the transfer school rules as exactly as
they are in college football, but bring back the year
you have to sit out, you know, let let people
go wherever they want to, but make them set out
that transfer a year.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
There used to be.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
I could make reasons that they did that to align
things up and then they just flushed all that, but
that would I'm not sure you can do that.
Speaker 5 (08:08):
Because that would inhibit their ability to market their name,
image and likeness. I don't know a boy that particular scenario.
I think what's going to end up happening, like it
or not, is we're going to see some kind of
collective bargaining entity form of of college players, and it's
(08:29):
it's going to all kind of level out or the
big boys the SEC and you know, the ones that
generate the most revenue will kind of just separate and
do something on their own. But we'll see. You know,
it's kind of hard to talk thought about college footbafter
what the mountaineers are doing this.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
Year, but uh or maybe that's the only way we
can talk, which is about that's out here.
Speaker 5 (08:47):
He's actually traveling, of course, he had this trip pre planned,
but he's heading out to uh Provo to watch the
uh well, one of the things he's doing is watching
the mountaineers. It's a beautiful area. I mean, if nothing else,
I've never been there. I've seen the stadium on TV.
It's really nice. It's got the mountains in the background.
And so.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I came to him. You talk for about a month once.
It's really gorgeous.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (09:09):
Well, he's staying for ten days or so, and he's
he's taking a giggle, but he's taking a tour of
the various national parks. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, except there
might not be any restrooms open or visitor centers.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
Actually, he was one of his lodging places was a
I don't know if it was a cabin or a
lodge in a in a national park and they he
called and they've know they can't, so he had to
find alternative lodging like yesterday.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Yeah, that's a great When I traveled, I stayed mostly
at national parks too.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yeah, that would be that would be quite an impediment.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
Yeah, and I'm going down to New River Gorge. Actually,
I got a friend of mine who's his fiftieth birthday,
So we're going down to a little cabin of New
River Gorge and it'll be in the national parks. I'm
curious if they've got some of the like do little
mountain biking and fishing, so I'll see whether the gates
are locked or what you have the ability to do.
I mean, I guess you can go in a national
(10:03):
park if it's technically closed. I don't know how they
can really stop that. But hopefully I don't have to
fight the law in the next couple of days. If
we do, we know how to handle it. So yeah,
maybe we'll get some calls, but just kind of go
over what we do. Consumer oriented law firm and represent
regular people, small businesses. Our bread and butter is really
(10:24):
civil litigation. If you have a conflict with an insurance
company about a claim or you're in an automobile accident
or a fall and you're injured either physically or financially.
Then we do really really good work on those type
cases and they're all handled contingency fee, meaning you know,
(10:45):
you don't pay us anything unless we recover something for you,
and it's some percentage. So i'd say bread and butter.
But being a trying to serve the people here and
being kind of a suburb law firm, we have walk
ins and just try and serve the everyday legal needs
of people. We do deeds, wills toch scurity, disability, some
(11:06):
real estate boundary issues, things like that. So if you
have those type issues, you can give us a call.
Probably kind of hidd on this from time to time.
It might be a good time to do it again.
But you know, the calls we get, almost the questions
we get almost more frequent than anything else is folks
worried that the government's going to take their property if
(11:27):
they have to go into a nursing home and or
they're home, and so it's probably in a nutshell how
this works. If you are older and you need long
term nursing home care, not healthcare, I mean Medicare will
kick in for actual health care, but at a certain
point it turns into kind of maintenance care. You've plateaued,
(11:51):
you've got issues that don't Nobody wants to have a
family member go to a nursing home, but there are
physical or mental issues that can have symptoms that it
makes it impossible for a family member to keep someone
at home unless you're extremely wealthy and you can pay
a nursing staff or something to come in. So when
that happens, and if you don't have long term care insurance,
(12:12):
which you can purchase, but I would wager to say
one percent or less of folks have long term care
insurance which helps pay for nursing home care, then it's
like anything else in America, you just go and you
pay for it yourself. Now, ultimately, Medicaid has a program
(12:34):
that will pay for your long term care. And Medicaid
is a welfare benefit. So if you qualify financially and
you live here in America, whether you worked and paid
taxes or not, you get that Medicaid benefit. But it's
a welfare benefit. So when you go to apply for that,
because you say your Medicare won't pay any longer, then
(12:54):
they do an asset check to make sure that to
check and see if you're eligible. And when they do that,
they have a questionnaire and they look it's called a
look back period. They look back and they have a
pretty good investigative tool to see whether you're telling the
truth or not. And they look back and see if
you've given anything away. And that period is five years
(13:18):
prior to the time you apply for Medicaid. So concept
being wealthy person knows that maybe they've got early onset
dementia or some physical issue and think, oh, it might
be needing some long term care coming up. Then here
I'm going to give Johnny my son, and Susi Q
(13:38):
my daughter basically all my money and all my assets.
Hot now I'm poor enough to get on Medicaid. So
that's what the look back period is for, is to
see if you've given anything away, and if you have,
they'll count that asset as if you still own it
and you get penalized and the government just won't pay
for your nursing home care. They do a calculation kind
(13:59):
of the average monthly cost of care and they say, okay,
you gave away one hundred thousand dollars hunting camp or cash,
so we're not going to pay for your care until
you that amount of time goes by or the average
cost of the nursing home care equals what you gave away.
(14:20):
Now you can create trusts and put all your money
in trust where you have another person as the trustee
that manages it, and then technically it's not your money anymore.
It's owned by trust. A trust is like a fictional
but legal entity, and so you don't own it, and
then the trustee controls it and you just hope they
(14:40):
do what you want, so you still get the benefit
of those assets. But even to put money in a trust,
it still has to beat that look back period, so
you have if you do that, you've got to make
it so many five years it might even be six
for a trust before you apply for the Medicaid benefit.
And we don't do those type trusts. If I have
(15:02):
folks call me and they're really concerned about that, there's
two or three different lawyers in the area that do
that type work. And it's not real simple, and you've
got to be careful the way you do it because
you have to make sure the trust is worded in
a way that when the government analyzes it, they agree
that it's not just a fraud. You know, you're really
(15:23):
controlling the trust. It's got to be set up so
that actually somebody else controls it, so the government will agree, Yeah,
even though you might get some benefit from that trust,
you don't own those assets, so we're not gonna consider
those yours any longer they're owned by trust.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
The Peyton Law Firm had to give them permission in
years past for another law firm to talk about those
types of trusts specifically on an expert ship. We've had
a couple of them that it's been years now, but
we had a couple that came through and did that
and I did those shows and with anything you learn
a little bit as you're doing that is we did
a series of five or six of them. I'm it's
pretty shocking to me the things you have to do
to you know, try to get yourself that point. You know,
(16:01):
you've got to spend.
Speaker 5 (16:02):
Down so so you know, absent you know, having gifted
things away at least five years prior then the government
doesn't take your property. You just have to what they
call spin down and get down below that level wheer
than eligible. So you just pay for your own nursing
home care like you pay for everything else. Then when
(16:24):
you get down to that level, then you can switch
over to Medicaid. There's also some things you can do
to spend your money that benefits you rather than paying
it to a nursing home, and they don't. There's some
limits if you're if you have a really valuable house
or really really valuable car, I mean hundreds of I
(16:44):
don't know what the car limit is, but I think
it's like seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars house. So
when they go and analyze whether you're eligible for Medicaid
or not for long term care, when you apply, they
basically set aside your home place, and they set aside
your vehicle everything inside your home. They don't go and
value your jewelry and your big screen TV and things
(17:05):
like that, so you're those type things. Your house and
one car are excluded from the analysis about whether you're
eligible or not. So they with very few exceptions, they
don't make you sell your home or come take your
home or anything like that. That's we get a lot
of concern about that and now what they can do.
(17:31):
It's if you then end up on Medicaid and get
some Let's say the government pays fifty thousand dollars through
the Medicaid program for you to have long term nursing
home care. Then you pass away, then there is the
ability to do what's called a state recovery, where the
state administered Medicaid program can come in and put a
(17:54):
lean against your home. And then it's kind of think
of it like a mortgage. After you pass away, Oh,
there's no payments, so your heirs would then take that
home subject to that lian. So if they go and
sell it, when it's sold, that fifty thousand dollars lian
is just paid off and comes off the top of
(18:15):
the proceeds from the sale. Now there are some things
you can do with your home. And that's where we
get into these transfer on death deeds that we've talked
about a lot that the legislature authorized in twenty fifteen,
and we've done awful lot of those. If you hear
about life estates and people giving their property to their
(18:36):
kids but reserving a life estate. That's in the last
ten years since transfering death deeds have come into play.
I mean, I may have drafted a few deeds involving
life estates and usually doesn't have anything to do with
the medic issue. There's just some unique factual situation with
the parties. We used to do a lot of them,
but life estate deeds like I would deed my property
(19:03):
to my two kids, for example, but I reserve a
life estate. Well it's vested in them even though they
don't have any control over it until I pass away,
because I own it for my life. But if I
want to borrow against it or if I want to
sell it, the kids have to sign off on everything
because they have an ownership interest in it. And there's
been a lot of occasions over the years. I've had
(19:25):
a call in the last month, well, now my daughter
won't sign off on it, or she won't give it
back to me. And when once you do that life
estate deed, you can't unilially just take it back because
you want to. Now take that example and the transferring deaths,
that is a deed that's signed by you recorded it
(19:46):
basically says who your death beneficiaries of your home or
you could do other property, but for the medicaid issue,
it's your home and you record it, but nothing changes.
You still own it. One hundred percent. You can sell it.
You can bargainst to whoever you named as your beneficiaries.
Let's say your two kids. They don't have any say
in what you do with that property. And if you
(20:08):
change your mind, let's say one of your kids does
something that upsets you or whatever practical reason, you don't
want them to have a half interest in your home.
When you pass away, we can draft a new deed
and record it. You don't need anybody's permission, and nobody
even needs to know about it. And so you could
change your transfer and death deed just by having a
new deed drafted, or you can revoke it on your
(20:30):
own by filing a document and then it would pass
by your will. But the transfer on death deed if
you get on medicaid at least right now, and it
could change because it's a little bit of a cat
and mouse game between the government and the state is
charged with trying to collect that medicaid money back. But
right now, if you have a transfer on death deed
(20:52):
in place, which you can do within that five year
period because it's not a gift, you're not giving your
home away because it transfers essentially instantly when you pass
away because the deed has already been recorded. The government
isn't able to place a lean on that property because
it's owned by someone else the moment you pass away,
as opposed to if it's in your own name, then
(21:15):
it goes through the probate process, and maybe my will says, well,
my home's going to go to my two kids. Okay,
that's fine. The government pays fifty thousand dollars in nursing
home care for me through the Medicaid program. Then through
the probate process there's an opportunity for creditors to file claims,
including Medicaid program, so they could file a claim, put
(21:38):
a lean on it, and then that's when my yes,
my kids inherit it. But it's subject to that lean
or claim from the government to get that fifty thousand
dollars back, which right now they're not doing if you
had transferred that property to your kids via transferring death deed.
I mean, you can do a whole seminar on this,
but we just get we get an awful lot of
calls and they really the first thing folks usually say,
(22:00):
as well, it's the government going to take my I
don't want them to take my property or take my home,
and then I go through this explanation and then they
have a little better understanding and they're usually a little
more at ease because even if you don't do the
transferm death deed and you go to nursing home, you
basically you or somebody on your behalf, fills out a
form saying that you know, if you ever get better,
(22:21):
you intend to go back home. Then the government can't
force you to sell your home or take your home,
and they don't take any of your assets, but you
may be required to spend that money down, which could
include paying the nursing home that's taking care of you. Now,
you can spend it down other ways, as long as
you don't give it away. You can pay down a
mortgage on your home, maybe do some home improvements, hvac roof,
(22:45):
that kind of thing, And there's some other things you
can spend it on that indirectly benefits you by increasing
the value your property and ultimately your errors in the end.
So there's some ways you can spend it down without
having to spend it on nursing home.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Care massively complicated sometimes, that is for sure. If you
have any questions this morning, you can put the power
Payton on your side this morning. If you have anything
that you need some advice. When it gives to call
three zero four three four five fifty to fifty eight.
Tom Payton can help you out there. More information online
Peyton Law from dot com that's Pey to you and
Peyton Law from dot com give you the rest of
the contact information a little bit later on. Have some
more questions for Tom when we come back. Plus you
can can steer the conversation as well at three zero
(23:21):
four three four five fifty to fifty. We'll take a
break and be back right after this. You're asked, you're
listening to ask the law You're on five ad WCHS
the Boys of Charleston.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Why do people trust Peyton Law Firm for personal injury
claims in West Virginia? Simple, Tom and Harvey are from here.
They live here and they're proud of it. If you've
been hurt and you want no nonsense representation that gets results,
you want the Peyton Law Firm. Don't let insurance companies
take advantage of you. Call three zero four seven five
(23:51):
five fifty five fifty six today for a free consultation.
Discover more at Peytonlawfirm dot com.
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Speaker 2 (24:40):
Put the power paton on your side today.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Give us a call thre zer of four three four
five fifty eight fifty eight to talk to Tom Payton from
the patent law firm.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Threes are four three four five fifty eight fifty eight.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
Tom had a question for you. I was wondering I've
worked for, I've had to deal with I've been in
management companies for a long time, and so you have
to deal with sometimes the UH the information ansfer between
folks that are fouling, like paperwork workers colm different things
along those lines for management, things like that. One thing
that I've noticed, I've worked for some really good companies
that I that in observation, I've never had a worker's
(25:11):
comp claim myself, but in observation, I've worked for some
companies that really handled things very well what I considered
in a very upfront way with the UH with the employee.
Took care of things I thought even went beyond you know,
what they needed to do to accommodate and things like that.
But I know there's also people that the moment that
they get hurt, I've seen this too, with the moment
they get hurt, they're ready for some sort of action.
(25:33):
And I don't blame somebody from want to protect themselves
because you hear about this all the time. What is
the what is the proper place there if you have
like a workplace injury or something where you there that's
taking We don't do a lot of workers companymore. I
really don't take workers comp cases any longer. I did
do a lot of them, but I do well. I
take them if somebody comes to us, has been an
(25:54):
automobile accident, gotcha, and maybe they were driving for work,
so it also happens to be a worker's Comp claim.
Speaker 5 (25:59):
Then I'll help them because I just think it's kind
of a tendant to the auto insurance claim that we're
helping them with. But yet it's a good point. So
you know, workers Comp was run by the state until
sometime in the two thousands, and then it was privatized
sort of, but it was a monopoly with Brick Street
just one provider. And of course now it's just like insurance.
(26:22):
You buy from regular agents and there's multiple different carriers
that offered in West Virginia, or you can be self
insured for workers Comp, but they always have a third
party administrator, which most people will just see like the
insurance company, even though the insurance company isn't paying the claim.
The company's paying, the employer's paying the claim, but they
have third party adjusters basically they handle those claims. But
(26:45):
if you get hurt at work, and you know it's
when the scope of your work and arises from work,
you know, Worker's Comp is not a fault based program,
so it doesn't matter whether I mean, there's a few
exceptions if you're intentially hurt yourself. But otherwise, if you
just happen to get hurt at work, whether it's your
(27:05):
employer's fault, your fault, or just something that happens, you're
covered into the worker's compensation system. But you have to
fill out an application and it's it's just a one
page form that normally the employee signs a physician, signs
a treating physician and will just sign off on. It's
(27:27):
just a couple of boxes they check and then the
employer signs off on a portion of it with their
kind of version, very brief. Then that goes to the
workers compensation insurance company and that kick starts the claim. Now,
folks that you know a lot of employers don't have
those forms sitting around, and I've had cases where they
(27:49):
can't get the injured worker, can't get the employer to
provide the document. And in that case, you really have
to push your employer and ask who the workers comp
ensure is or who the third party administrator is, and
you've got to get that form and get it filled out.
And the employer should cooperate, the insurer should cooperate if
(28:10):
there's an inability to get that form. Because they're not
communicating and they're not cooperating, then the best thing to
do in that stario is conduct the Western Insurance Commissioner's office.
They actually have an online complaint for workers comp only
and you can fill it out online, submit it. And
they're pretty good at the Western Western Insurance Commissioner's Office
(28:30):
about they're really good actually about getting communication kickstarted rather
quickly because it gets the attention of the insurer. When
that complaint is filed with the insurance Commissioner's office, you're
not going to get damages and things like that ordinarily
from the Western Insurance Commissioner's Office with a worker's comp complaint,
(28:51):
but you'll you'll get over that little hurdle at the
beginning where they just won't get to the form that
you need.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
And let me recask my question focusing on things like
if you are in an automobile accident and you're going
through the process of you know, hopefully having the other
person's insurance helpy out whatever it might be. And I'm
assuming there's probably cases where things go okay where the person,
you know, the insurance makes them hole, had the experience
(29:19):
was okay or whatever it might be, but I'm sure
that there's some red flags that they might need to
be aware of that maybe they're dragging their feet too much,
or they're trying to run out the clock on this,
or maybe not getting the best good faith dealings with that.
Speaker 5 (29:31):
You could have the same lack of communication. I mean,
you can file a regular insurance commissioner complaint. Well, I
mean conventional insurance versus workers comp. If you're getting a
lack of communication, of course, that's the kind of thing
that we can help you with. Now. The other thing
I find it intuitively, if somebody rear ends you in
a vehicle and you're driving, so you're delivering something for work, well,
(29:53):
even though it's that other person's fault, I say, well,
I don't want my employer to have to pay for
this or a worker's comp. But you really need to.
There's a whole system set up not only with workers
comp insures, but health insurance, every health insurance company I've
ever dealt with, and workers comp. It's set forth in
Westernia code. They have whole departments that are geared to
(30:19):
getting their money back from the person that caused the accident.
And so you shouldn't hesitate to go ahead and submit
your medical bills to your health insurance or to the
worker's comp carrier, even though the accident was somebody else's fault,
because when it's somebody else's fault, those claims can linger
(30:40):
for a long time. They might not ever get resolved.
So you don't want to let those bills sit out
there hanging because generally the hospitals or the health care
providers will continue to try and collect and if you
haven't given them your health insurance information or filed your
workers' comp claim so that they can submit their bills
to a worker's comp then and uh, you might get
(31:01):
sent to collections. You might you might not ever resolve
your claim against the person that that hit you, because
you nothing's one hundred percent guaranteed. Now, when we get
involved in automobile accident claims, of course we tell folks
that right off the bat, and a lot of times
they go to the merchingy room and their intuition is, well,
I'm not turning that over on my insurance or my
employer's insurance, which is that's right, they shouldn't have to
(31:25):
pay for it. But you need to get that process
going so you can get your your bills paid. But
when we handle an injury case for someone, Just have
one settled yesterday and the fellaw had health insurance and
he was worried about, well, I got to pay them back.
I've been getting these letters like no, no, no. When we
handle a case for you, we handle all that back
end work for you. So when when we settle your case,
(31:45):
let's say you settle a case for this easy number,
one hundred thousand dollars and workers Comp has paid fifty
thousand dollars for your time off work and for your
for your medical bills. Then out out of your settlement,
we've got to pay back workers Comp. Now we negotiate
that down so that our clients get more money in
(32:06):
their pocket, but we take care of all that. Then
we send the check from our trust account to make
sure your health insurre or your workers compensation carrier the
employers is paid back. So I don't know if that
answers your question, but that's a instinctly you think, well,
why should anything I pay for my employer pays for
have to pay for this when it was somebody else's fault.
(32:27):
But you really want to get those processes started, and
in the end you shouldn't be too concerned about those
entities because they're going to get paid back in almost
all cases out of your settlement. Idea being you're recovering
that same money for all your medical bills from the
person that hit you, So then you end up having
(32:48):
to pay some of it back to your worker's comp
carrier or your health insured. So that's how it works.
You a common miss number. Then a lot of people
also when you're talking about medical bills right off the bat,
arise from an automibax now, and this is no fault
insurance as well. So if you just happen to hydroplane
off the road, a single vehicle accidents, just weather's fault,
(33:08):
nobody's fault, and you have to go to the doctor
because you got an injury. A lot of people have
medical payments coverage on their automobile policy and they don't
know they even have it because the premiums are very
very low, and I think sometimes agents just kind of
put it on there. You don't have a lot of
coverage there normally two thousand, five thousand. I've seen folks
(33:30):
with ten thousand people that work for insurance salespeople often
have a lot more because they know it's a good coverage.
If you need it, it'll pay one hundred percent of
your medical bills up to that limit, and that kicks
in before your health insurance, so you've also got that option.
Whether it's somebody else's fault, you still have you can
(33:50):
still use it, and it's the same deal. You're an
automobile ensure ultimately will get paid back what they pay
for you, but it gets those health care providers and
potential debt collectors off your back because you've had those
bills paid up front. When you settle a claim against
somebody that causes the accident, somebody else, while you'll probably
(34:13):
get a good result if you represent us, they pay
them one lump some payment eventually, and then you sign
a document saying you can't get any more money from
So it could be even though we have a successful claim,
depending on the nature of your injury, it could be
a year and a half, two years or even longer
after your accident before you can ultimately resolve that claim
(34:33):
favorably and get paid. So those health care providers aren't
going to just normally just sit back and wait. They're
going to try and collect their bills during that timeframe,
So that's another reason. Normally another person's insurance will not
pay your bills as you go like your health insurance does,
so you just got to watch for that. And of
course if you come to us, we help coordinating those benefits,
(34:55):
walking you through the process, making sure you understand it,
submitting your bills to the proper insurance that you get
the best financial benefit. That's what we do, and you
don't think about that because that's think, well, here's my
settlement as X. But there's there's a lot of behind
the scenes numbers that you know. Ultimately, our goal is
(35:16):
to get our clients satisfied. And then in the end,
if our client settles for X amount gross, then we
work pretty hard on the back end to make sure
that out of that gross settlement our client nets the
maximum amount possible. So we go and negotiate those items
that we have to pay back and then you know,
(35:38):
the client doesn't have to deal with it. Mostly things
that people don't understand anyway when they when they resolve acclaim.
But we make it real easy so that you just
come in and sign a little accounting statement at the
end and we show you know we're taking we're paying
Medicare has the same the same deal. So if you
have Medicare, it will pay for treatment you get from
(36:01):
an injury caused by another person. But there's a whole
set of federal regulations that require you to pay them back,
and that can create some confusion because even if you
don't hire a lawyer, the other person's insurance is going
to report it to Medicare if they know your own Medicare.
Then you start getting all these complicated letters in the
(36:21):
mail from Medicare, and most people don't understand what they mean,
and Medicare will even though we represent a person, they'll
copy those letters to our clients and send them to us.
And of course when you have us, we say, well
just don't worry about those, We're getting them as well,
and then we take care of all that. So there's
you know, if you have a very minor claim, not
(36:42):
much treatment, nothing wrong with settling the claim on you're
in behalf. But if you get any type of injury
that has some long term treatment or a chronic problem,
of course we want you to hire us. We do
a really good job, but you know, it's more complicated
than you think.
Speaker 4 (36:57):
Sometimes you know, one thing that a little piece of
esoteric knowledge information for you. In a previous job that
I had years and years ago, I worked for Enterprise
Rental Car and one of the things that they evaluate
you on is you have to sell your your damage
waiver product, you know, the thing where which honestly it
really is what it is. I mean, if you get
into an accent, you have that thing. They basically just
(37:17):
let you walk away from it as long as you
were legally operating the car. But there's something that they
offer called the PAI, which is a personal accident insurance.
It's like two million dollars of personal insurance. You cank
a gain and it's only two dollars, or at least
when I was there, it was two dollars a day.
And I always thought that was often the best deal
if you were going to get one of those products
because it did protect when things like because most people
just had the minimums when they're insurance and different things
(37:38):
like that, you get that additional two million dollars worth
of coverage for medical bills or anything like that that
might happen.
Speaker 5 (37:42):
Yeah, you have to kind of get into the details.
There's a lot of exceptions to those, so I'm not
real big on them. But yeah, yeah, if you damage,
if you have a single vehicle accident, that's kind of
your fault, or you know, and you damage the rental car,
I think that damage waiver will help you there now
in West Virginia, at least, if you have insurance here,
it's going to follow you for liability purposes, no matter
(38:04):
what car you're driving. So if I'm driving Dale's car, well,
I'd say I've got a million dollar liability policy and
I'm looking at my phone and rearing somebody and hurt
them really bad, even though I'm driving your car my
liability insurance. Even though that your car is not on
my policy, it covers me personally. And that same deal
happens with rental too, So it's not something you really
have to have. I would say, if you're going to
(38:26):
consider it doesn't cost much. Just read what it is,
get an explanation, and if it's a couple of bucks,
no harm, no foul, but you will be covered for
liability because you're a personal insurance will follow you.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Tayton Loaf from dot com have a great day, everyone fight.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Medwhsam ninety six point five stick one oh four point
five cross lane A WVRC Media Station.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
We're proud to live here too.
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Speaker 2 (00:15):
The views and opinions expressed on this program do not
necessarily reflect the views and opinions of five eight wchs
it's employees or WVRC media of Courts. Oh created equal.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
When mass come here in a Kate Ray can.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Robson, you can.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
You don't have to fight the law this morning. You
can put the power of painted on your sides. Three
zero four three four five fifty eight fifty eight three
four five fifty eight fifty eight four ask the lawyer.
Tom Payton is in the studio with us this morning,
taking your phone calls, and you can give us a
call three zero four three four five fIF fifty eight.
You can text three zero four nine three five five
zero zero eighth threes are four nine three five five
zers or eight time?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Good morning? How you doing this morning?
Speaker 5 (01:06):
I'm doing great? How are you doing?
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Not too shabby at all? Well, my Reds got bounced
out of the playoffs, right that all.
Speaker 5 (01:12):
Your something on social media. I know you're a big
Reds fan.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
I mean the Dodgers are are are better than anybody,
you know, I mean, depending their team.
Speaker 5 (01:21):
Yeah, so they got to be happy just to get there,
right because they needed to. What was the very last
day of the season. You think about how many games
they play, Yeah, yeah, and the Mets had to they
had to lose actually because the Reds needed to win.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
Well, if the Reds would have won, they would have
they could have played themselves in. But since they lost,
they needed the Mets to lose, and the Mets lost
like five minutes after the Reds rist.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
So yeah, it was very lucky that they got in.
You know.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
It's it's uh, the Dodgers are very very good. And
but I'm not one of those people that, you know,
complain about payroll discrepancies, not so much as that I
think payroll discrepancies are fair. But all these guys are
wealthy and they could pay They can make whatever team
they want. So well, the Castelini's for the Reds, they
if they wanted to sign guys for for half a billion,
they could do it if they wanted to. You know,
(02:06):
the Pittsburgh Pirates pay their entire payroll off of the gate,
off of gate and emissions and concessions. They don't spend
any of their TV money contracts and stuff like that.
I mean, these guys could pay for better teams if
they wanted to. They don't want to. So the Dodgers
go out and pay for the money. Hey, that's that's
the way you win.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
I guess it's a business model, right if you you know,
are comfortable with what your income stream is and you
don't need to pay extra players and don't have that
extra gumption to win championship.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Right, sorry, tax right offs in there somewhere, losses, you know,
all kinds of good stuff.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
Yeah. I don't watch enough baseball or keep up, but
that's not a more of a football guy. So I
don't even understand what their salary cap is and that
kind of thing. And I assume they've got something baseball.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
No salar crap in really yeah, okay, yeah, the I
think the I think the Dodgers pay rolls three hundred
nineteen million dollars and the Reds is one hundred and
twelve million.
Speaker 5 (02:56):
That's the way it is sports these days, from the
actually starting at the high school level. Now I heard
what there's a Texas high school football coachers are getting
paid well into the sixth form.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Yea, yeah, I mean yeah, it's it's pretty insane when
when you think about it, but that is that's that's sports.
I mean you're gonna have, you know, middle school kids
endorsing car dealership soon, so right, that's that's right.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
So we got n I I don't think I haven't.
I thought I heard something on talk line or it
was on this radio station about there's not really any
evidence that n i L has been put in place
for any high school athlete yet, but it's it's kind
of coming authorized it the w v S s a C.
I think they passed a rule over the summertime authorizing
n i L for high school players, which I think
(03:37):
under the law they probably can't prevent somebody from uh
marketing their name, image and likeness. And they I heard
a representative of the w v S s a C
saying well, you can can't wear your school you know,
uniform and things like that, which they can prohibit. But
then they also said you can't if you're a football
(03:59):
player or a quarterback. You can't hold a football in
the ad, which I thought, I think that's borderline. I'm
not sure that would pass muster from a legal standpoint,
but we haven't heard about it yet, of course, and
he didn't talk about and I think to me, the
real core concern is are you paying players to transfer,
because that is not the point of nil. It's a
(04:23):
business or somebody paying an athlete to use their name,
image and likeness for marketing. So if you pay quadruple
the market value for a starting quarterback for Hurricane High
School to be on a billboard, well that and they
were previously at Saint Albans or South Charleston, then it
(04:45):
doesn't pass the smell test very well because then they
you know, they come there and start playing at the
same time they're getting this nil deal, and you know,
the business is paying way more than market value for
for what you would normally pay somebody like that to
market your business. Because naturally, if you're doing advertise, I
mean it is not necessarily it's hard to show quid
(05:10):
pro quo with a lot of advertising media, and you know,
how much business do you get from it? It's difficult
to tell. But they they certainly, if you're paying well
above average value for somebody with that popularity to be
on the billboard, then it's clearly not just for nil,
(05:32):
it's to persuade that person to maybe move schools. And
hopefully we don't see that. I think they'll, you know, don't.
I don't that that's been That's the same concept in
college sports, at least up until recently, when they're letting
colleges actually pay players. I think the CAP's twenty million
dollars fun they can use to revenue share with players,
(05:53):
But otherwise we saw that same concept happen that I
was just discussing in college sports, and it really wasn't
enforced in any way. NC double A ya getting paying
somebody multimillion dollars to be on a couple of billboards
when it's not going to generate that type of business
for that company, but it will get that player to
transfer from.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
I kind of blame the NC DOUBA for all of this,
because they could have put the model in place that,
you know, if there were going to be modeling off
of this in some way, shape or form, they could
have gone off of a good model. But the NC
double A instead of taking time and consideration and putting
together a good model where like, oh, well, I guess
everybody's just want to print money. Now, let's just print
money everybody. And yeah, that was basically you know.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Just spends.
Speaker 5 (06:33):
So how much credit you give the NC double A
and the and the universities. I mean to me some
time ago with all the money and how much the
coaches get paid the TV revenue, I mean, I just
always thought it was kind of exploitation of the You
could have not have fought it of amateur athletes, and
(06:54):
so I don't based on federal law and other principles,
I don't see how you could believe, as a large
entity like that with lots of lawyers, that this is
going to sustain forever into the future. Of course, my
conspiracy mind is, well, they knew it wasn't going to sustain,
but they just drug it out as far as they
could because they're making billions of dollars. And so now,
(07:14):
because this should have been anticipated, of course, like you said,
and then uh, something done about it more proactively rather
than waiting for lawsuits to get through. And then now
we're in this kind of quagmire of lawsuits here and
there crazy and different things. I think it's gonna and
I like because I'm an old time college football fan,
(07:35):
so of course I like the way it was when
you had players that would they might transfer one time
if there's a problem, but otherwise they you know, you
can watch the players start as a freshman and work
their way up and not have any real concern they're
just gonna.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
I think they should keep the transfers. I think they should.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
They could keep the transfer school rules as exactly as
they are in college football, but bring back the year
you have to sit out, you know, let let people
go wherever they want to, but make them set out
that transfer a year.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
There used to be.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
I could make reasons that they did that to align
things up and then they just flushed all that, but
that would I'm not sure you can do that.
Speaker 5 (08:08):
Because that would inhibit their ability to market their name,
image and likeness. I don't know a boy that particular scenario.
I think what's going to end up happening, like it
or not, is we're going to see some kind of
collective bargaining entity form of of college players, and it's
(08:29):
it's going to all kind of level out or the
big boys the SEC and you know, the ones that
generate the most revenue will kind of just separate and
do something on their own. But we'll see. You know,
it's kind of hard to talk thought about college footbafter
what the mountaineers are doing this.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
Year, but uh or maybe that's the only way we
can talk, which is about that's out here.
Speaker 5 (08:47):
He's actually traveling, of course, he had this trip pre planned,
but he's heading out to uh Provo to watch the
uh well, one of the things he's doing is watching
the mountaineers. It's a beautiful area. I mean, if nothing else,
I've never been there. I've seen the stadium on TV.
It's really nice. It's got the mountains in the background.
And so.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I came to him. You talk for about a month once.
It's really gorgeous.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (09:09):
Well, he's staying for ten days or so, and he's
he's taking a giggle, but he's taking a tour of
the various national parks. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, except there
might not be any restrooms open or visitor centers.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
Actually, he was one of his lodging places was a
I don't know if it was a cabin or a
lodge in a in a national park and they he
called and they've know they can't, so he had to
find alternative lodging like yesterday.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Yeah, that's a great When I traveled, I stayed mostly
at national parks too.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yeah, that would be that would be quite an impediment.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
Yeah, and I'm going down to New River Gorge. Actually,
I got a friend of mine who's his fiftieth birthday,
So we're going down to a little cabin of New
River Gorge and it'll be in the national parks. I'm
curious if they've got some of the like do little
mountain biking and fishing, so I'll see whether the gates
are locked or what you have the ability to do.
I mean, I guess you can go in a national
(10:03):
park if it's technically closed. I don't know how they
can really stop that. But hopefully I don't have to
fight the law in the next couple of days. If
we do, we know how to handle it. So yeah,
maybe we'll get some calls, but just kind of go
over what we do. Consumer oriented law firm and represent
regular people, small businesses. Our bread and butter is really
(10:24):
civil litigation. If you have a conflict with an insurance
company about a claim or you're in an automobile accident
or a fall and you're injured either physically or financially.
Then we do really really good work on those type
cases and they're all handled contingency fee, meaning you know,
(10:45):
you don't pay us anything unless we recover something for you,
and it's some percentage. So i'd say bread and butter.
But being a trying to serve the people here and
being kind of a suburb law firm, we have walk
ins and just try and serve the everyday legal needs
of people. We do deeds, wills toch scurity, disability, some
(11:06):
real estate boundary issues, things like that. So if you
have those type issues, you can give us a call.
Probably kind of hidd on this from time to time.
It might be a good time to do it again.
But you know, the calls we get, almost the questions
we get almost more frequent than anything else is folks
worried that the government's going to take their property if
(11:27):
they have to go into a nursing home and or
they're home, and so it's probably in a nutshell how
this works. If you are older and you need long
term nursing home care, not healthcare, I mean Medicare will
kick in for actual health care, but at a certain
point it turns into kind of maintenance care. You've plateaued,
(11:51):
you've got issues that don't Nobody wants to have a
family member go to a nursing home, but there are
physical or mental issues that can have symptoms that it
makes it impossible for a family member to keep someone
at home unless you're extremely wealthy and you can pay
a nursing staff or something to come in. So when
that happens, and if you don't have long term care insurance,
(12:12):
which you can purchase, but I would wager to say
one percent or less of folks have long term care
insurance which helps pay for nursing home care, then it's
like anything else in America, you just go and you
pay for it yourself. Now, ultimately, Medicaid has a program
(12:34):
that will pay for your long term care. And Medicaid
is a welfare benefit. So if you qualify financially and
you live here in America, whether you worked and paid
taxes or not, you get that Medicaid benefit. But it's
a welfare benefit. So when you go to apply for that,
because you say your Medicare won't pay any longer, then
(12:54):
they do an asset check to make sure that to
check and see if you're eligible. And when they do that,
they have a questionnaire and they look it's called a
look back period. They look back and they have a
pretty good investigative tool to see whether you're telling the
truth or not. And they look back and see if
you've given anything away. And that period is five years
(13:18):
prior to the time you apply for Medicaid. So concept
being wealthy person knows that maybe they've got early onset
dementia or some physical issue and think, oh, it might
be needing some long term care coming up. Then here
I'm going to give Johnny my son, and Susi Q
(13:38):
my daughter basically all my money and all my assets.
Hot now I'm poor enough to get on Medicaid. So
that's what the look back period is for, is to
see if you've given anything away, and if you have,
they'll count that asset as if you still own it
and you get penalized and the government just won't pay
for your nursing home care. They do a calculation kind
(13:59):
of the average monthly cost of care and they say, okay,
you gave away one hundred thousand dollars hunting camp or cash,
so we're not going to pay for your care until
you that amount of time goes by or the average
cost of the nursing home care equals what you gave away.
(14:20):
Now you can create trusts and put all your money
in trust where you have another person as the trustee
that manages it, and then technically it's not your money anymore.
It's owned by trust. A trust is like a fictional
but legal entity, and so you don't own it, and
then the trustee controls it and you just hope they
(14:40):
do what you want, so you still get the benefit
of those assets. But even to put money in a trust,
it still has to beat that look back period, so
you have if you do that, you've got to make
it so many five years it might even be six
for a trust before you apply for the Medicaid benefit.
And we don't do those type trusts. If I have
(15:02):
folks call me and they're really concerned about that, there's
two or three different lawyers in the area that do
that type work. And it's not real simple, and you've
got to be careful the way you do it because
you have to make sure the trust is worded in
a way that when the government analyzes it, they agree
that it's not just a fraud. You know, you're really
(15:23):
controlling the trust. It's got to be set up so
that actually somebody else controls it, so the government will agree, Yeah,
even though you might get some benefit from that trust,
you don't own those assets, so we're not gonna consider
those yours any longer they're owned by trust.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
The Peyton Law Firm had to give them permission in
years past for another law firm to talk about those
types of trusts specifically on an expert ship. We've had
a couple of them that it's been years now, but
we had a couple that came through and did that
and I did those shows and with anything you learn
a little bit as you're doing that is we did
a series of five or six of them. I'm it's
pretty shocking to me the things you have to do
to you know, try to get yourself that point. You know,
(16:01):
you've got to spend.
Speaker 5 (16:02):
Down so so you know, absent you know, having gifted
things away at least five years prior then the government
doesn't take your property. You just have to what they
call spin down and get down below that level wheer
than eligible. So you just pay for your own nursing
home care like you pay for everything else. Then when
(16:24):
you get down to that level, then you can switch
over to Medicaid. There's also some things you can do
to spend your money that benefits you rather than paying
it to a nursing home, and they don't. There's some
limits if you're if you have a really valuable house
or really really valuable car, I mean hundreds of I
(16:44):
don't know what the car limit is, but I think
it's like seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars house. So
when they go and analyze whether you're eligible for Medicaid
or not for long term care, when you apply, they
basically set aside your home place, and they set aside
your vehicle everything inside your home. They don't go and
value your jewelry and your big screen TV and things
(17:05):
like that, so you're those type things. Your house and
one car are excluded from the analysis about whether you're
eligible or not. So they with very few exceptions, they
don't make you sell your home or come take your
home or anything like that. That's we get a lot
of concern about that and now what they can do.
(17:31):
It's if you then end up on Medicaid and get
some Let's say the government pays fifty thousand dollars through
the Medicaid program for you to have long term nursing
home care. Then you pass away, then there is the
ability to do what's called a state recovery, where the
state administered Medicaid program can come in and put a
(17:54):
lean against your home. And then it's kind of think
of it like a mortgage. After you pass away, Oh,
there's no payments, so your heirs would then take that
home subject to that lian. So if they go and
sell it, when it's sold, that fifty thousand dollars lian
is just paid off and comes off the top of
(18:15):
the proceeds from the sale. Now there are some things
you can do with your home. And that's where we
get into these transfer on death deeds that we've talked
about a lot that the legislature authorized in twenty fifteen,
and we've done awful lot of those. If you hear
about life estates and people giving their property to their
(18:36):
kids but reserving a life estate. That's in the last
ten years since transfering death deeds have come into play.
I mean, I may have drafted a few deeds involving
life estates and usually doesn't have anything to do with
the medic issue. There's just some unique factual situation with
the parties. We used to do a lot of them,
but life estate deeds like I would deed my property
(19:03):
to my two kids, for example, but I reserve a
life estate. Well it's vested in them even though they
don't have any control over it until I pass away,
because I own it for my life. But if I
want to borrow against it or if I want to
sell it, the kids have to sign off on everything
because they have an ownership interest in it. And there's
been a lot of occasions over the years. I've had
(19:25):
a call in the last month, well, now my daughter
won't sign off on it, or she won't give it
back to me. And when once you do that life
estate deed, you can't unilially just take it back because
you want to. Now take that example and the transferring deaths,
that is a deed that's signed by you recorded it
(19:46):
basically says who your death beneficiaries of your home or
you could do other property, but for the medicaid issue,
it's your home and you record it, but nothing changes.
You still own it. One hundred percent. You can sell it.
You can bargainst to whoever you named as your beneficiaries.
Let's say your two kids. They don't have any say
in what you do with that property. And if you
(20:08):
change your mind, let's say one of your kids does
something that upsets you or whatever practical reason, you don't
want them to have a half interest in your home.
When you pass away, we can draft a new deed
and record it. You don't need anybody's permission, and nobody
even needs to know about it. And so you could
change your transfer and death deed just by having a
new deed drafted, or you can revoke it on your
(20:30):
own by filing a document and then it would pass
by your will. But the transfer on death deed if
you get on medicaid at least right now, and it
could change because it's a little bit of a cat
and mouse game between the government and the state is
charged with trying to collect that medicaid money back. But
right now, if you have a transfer on death deed
(20:52):
in place, which you can do within that five year
period because it's not a gift, you're not giving your
home away because it transfers essentially instantly when you pass
away because the deed has already been recorded. The government
isn't able to place a lean on that property because
it's owned by someone else the moment you pass away,
as opposed to if it's in your own name, then
(21:15):
it goes through the probate process, and maybe my will says, well,
my home's going to go to my two kids. Okay,
that's fine. The government pays fifty thousand dollars in nursing
home care for me through the Medicaid program. Then through
the probate process there's an opportunity for creditors to file claims,
including Medicaid program, so they could file a claim, put
(21:38):
a lean on it, and then that's when my yes,
my kids inherit it. But it's subject to that lean
or claim from the government to get that fifty thousand
dollars back, which right now they're not doing if you
had transferred that property to your kids via transferring death deed.
I mean, you can do a whole seminar on this,
but we just get we get an awful lot of
calls and they really the first thing folks usually say,
(22:00):
as well, it's the government going to take my I
don't want them to take my property or take my home,
and then I go through this explanation and then they
have a little better understanding and they're usually a little
more at ease because even if you don't do the
transferm death deed and you go to nursing home, you
basically you or somebody on your behalf, fills out a
form saying that you know, if you ever get better,
(22:21):
you intend to go back home. Then the government can't
force you to sell your home or take your home,
and they don't take any of your assets, but you
may be required to spend that money down, which could
include paying the nursing home that's taking care of you. Now,
you can spend it down other ways, as long as
you don't give it away. You can pay down a
mortgage on your home, maybe do some home improvements, hvac roof,
(22:45):
that kind of thing, And there's some other things you
can spend it on that indirectly benefits you by increasing
the value your property and ultimately your errors in the end.
So there's some ways you can spend it down without
having to spend it on nursing home.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Care massively complicated sometimes, that is for sure. If you
have any questions this morning, you can put the power
Payton on your side this morning. If you have anything
that you need some advice. When it gives to call
three zero four three four five fifty to fifty eight.
Tom Payton can help you out there. More information online
Peyton Law from dot com that's Pey to you and
Peyton Law from dot com give you the rest of
the contact information a little bit later on. Have some
more questions for Tom when we come back. Plus you
can can steer the conversation as well at three zero
(23:21):
four three four five fifty to fifty. We'll take a
break and be back right after this. You're asked, you're
listening to ask the law You're on five ad WCHS
the Boys of Charleston.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Why do people trust Peyton Law Firm for personal injury
claims in West Virginia? Simple, Tom and Harvey are from here.
They live here and they're proud of it. If you've
been hurt and you want no nonsense representation that gets results,
you want the Peyton Law Firm. Don't let insurance companies
take advantage of you. Call three zero four seven five
(23:51):
five fifty five fifty six today for a free consultation.
Discover more at Peytonlawfirm dot com.
Speaker 6 (23:59):
I'm at Evan CEO of Consumer Cellular. Every wonder why
Big Wireless wants you on unlimited plan. They probably want
you to cover the cost of those twenty somethings using
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(24:20):
because if you're not using all that data, you're probably
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com slash facts plans include by dollar credit for autopaint
emailing ce site for additional facts.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Put the power paton on your side today.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Give us a call thre zer of four three four
five fifty eight fifty eight to talk to Tom Payton from
the patent law firm.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Threes are four three four five fifty eight fifty eight.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
Tom had a question for you. I was wondering I've
worked for, I've had to deal with I've been in
management companies for a long time, and so you have
to deal with sometimes the UH the information ansfer between
folks that are fouling, like paperwork workers colm different things
along those lines for management, things like that. One thing
that I've noticed, I've worked for some really good companies
that I that in observation, I've never had a worker's
(25:11):
comp claim myself, but in observation, I've worked for some
companies that really handled things very well what I considered
in a very upfront way with the UH with the employee.
Took care of things I thought even went beyond you know,
what they needed to do to accommodate and things like that.
But I know there's also people that the moment that
they get hurt, I've seen this too, with the moment
they get hurt, they're ready for some sort of action.
(25:33):
And I don't blame somebody from want to protect themselves
because you hear about this all the time. What is
the what is the proper place there if you have
like a workplace injury or something where you there that's
taking We don't do a lot of workers companymore. I
really don't take workers comp cases any longer. I did
do a lot of them, but I do well. I
take them if somebody comes to us, has been an
(25:54):
automobile accident, gotcha, and maybe they were driving for work,
so it also happens to be a worker's Comp claim.
Speaker 5 (25:59):
Then I'll help them because I just think it's kind
of a tendant to the auto insurance claim that we're
helping them with. But yet it's a good point. So
you know, workers Comp was run by the state until
sometime in the two thousands, and then it was privatized
sort of, but it was a monopoly with Brick Street
just one provider. And of course now it's just like insurance.
(26:22):
You buy from regular agents and there's multiple different carriers
that offered in West Virginia, or you can be self
insured for workers Comp, but they always have a third
party administrator, which most people will just see like the
insurance company, even though the insurance company isn't paying the claim.
The company's paying, the employer's paying the claim, but they
have third party adjusters basically they handle those claims. But
(26:45):
if you get hurt at work, and you know it's
when the scope of your work and arises from work,
you know, Worker's Comp is not a fault based program,
so it doesn't matter whether I mean, there's a few
exceptions if you're intentially hurt yourself. But otherwise, if you
just happen to get hurt at work, whether it's your
(27:05):
employer's fault, your fault, or just something that happens, you're
covered into the worker's compensation system. But you have to
fill out an application and it's it's just a one
page form that normally the employee signs a physician, signs
a treating physician and will just sign off on. It's
(27:27):
just a couple of boxes they check and then the
employer signs off on a portion of it with their
kind of version, very brief. Then that goes to the
workers compensation insurance company and that kick starts the claim. Now,
folks that you know a lot of employers don't have
those forms sitting around, and I've had cases where they
(27:49):
can't get the injured worker, can't get the employer to
provide the document. And in that case, you really have
to push your employer and ask who the workers comp
ensure is or who the third party administrator is, and
you've got to get that form and get it filled out.
And the employer should cooperate, the insurer should cooperate if
(28:10):
there's an inability to get that form. Because they're not
communicating and they're not cooperating, then the best thing to
do in that stario is conduct the Western Insurance Commissioner's office.
They actually have an online complaint for workers comp only
and you can fill it out online, submit it. And
they're pretty good at the Western Western Insurance Commissioner's Office
(28:30):
about they're really good actually about getting communication kickstarted rather
quickly because it gets the attention of the insurer. When
that complaint is filed with the insurance Commissioner's office, you're
not going to get damages and things like that ordinarily
from the Western Insurance Commissioner's Office with a worker's comp complaint,
(28:51):
but you'll you'll get over that little hurdle at the
beginning where they just won't get to the form that
you need.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
And let me recask my question focusing on things like
if you are in an automobile accident and you're going
through the process of you know, hopefully having the other
person's insurance helpy out whatever it might be. And I'm
assuming there's probably cases where things go okay where the person,
you know, the insurance makes them hole, had the experience
(29:19):
was okay or whatever it might be, but I'm sure
that there's some red flags that they might need to
be aware of that maybe they're dragging their feet too much,
or they're trying to run out the clock on this,
or maybe not getting the best good faith dealings with that.
Speaker 5 (29:31):
You could have the same lack of communication. I mean,
you can file a regular insurance commissioner complaint. Well, I
mean conventional insurance versus workers comp. If you're getting a
lack of communication, of course, that's the kind of thing
that we can help you with. Now. The other thing
I find it intuitively, if somebody rear ends you in
a vehicle and you're driving, so you're delivering something for work, well,
(29:53):
even though it's that other person's fault, I say, well,
I don't want my employer to have to pay for
this or a worker's comp. But you really need to.
There's a whole system set up not only with workers
comp insures, but health insurance, every health insurance company I've
ever dealt with, and workers comp. It's set forth in
Westernia code. They have whole departments that are geared to
(30:19):
getting their money back from the person that caused the accident.
And so you shouldn't hesitate to go ahead and submit
your medical bills to your health insurance or to the
worker's comp carrier, even though the accident was somebody else's fault,
because when it's somebody else's fault, those claims can linger
(30:40):
for a long time. They might not ever get resolved.
So you don't want to let those bills sit out
there hanging because generally the hospitals or the health care
providers will continue to try and collect and if you
haven't given them your health insurance information or filed your
workers' comp claim so that they can submit their bills
to a worker's comp then and uh, you might get
(31:01):
sent to collections. You might you might not ever resolve
your claim against the person that that hit you, because
you nothing's one hundred percent guaranteed. Now, when we get
involved in automobile accident claims, of course we tell folks
that right off the bat, and a lot of times
they go to the merchingy room and their intuition is, well,
I'm not turning that over on my insurance or my
employer's insurance, which is that's right, they shouldn't have to
(31:25):
pay for it. But you need to get that process
going so you can get your your bills paid. But
when we handle an injury case for someone, Just have
one settled yesterday and the fellaw had health insurance and
he was worried about, well, I got to pay them back.
I've been getting these letters like no, no, no. When we
handle a case for you, we handle all that back
end work for you. So when when we settle your case,
(31:45):
let's say you settle a case for this easy number,
one hundred thousand dollars and workers Comp has paid fifty
thousand dollars for your time off work and for your
for your medical bills. Then out out of your settlement,
we've got to pay back workers Comp. Now we negotiate
that down so that our clients get more money in
(32:06):
their pocket, but we take care of all that. Then
we send the check from our trust account to make
sure your health insurre or your workers compensation carrier the
employers is paid back. So I don't know if that
answers your question, but that's a instinctly you think, well,
why should anything I pay for my employer pays for
have to pay for this when it was somebody else's fault.
(32:27):
But you really want to get those processes started, and
in the end you shouldn't be too concerned about those
entities because they're going to get paid back in almost
all cases out of your settlement. Idea being you're recovering
that same money for all your medical bills from the
person that hit you, So then you end up having
(32:48):
to pay some of it back to your worker's comp
carrier or your health insured. So that's how it works.
You a common miss number. Then a lot of people
also when you're talking about medical bills right off the bat,
arise from an automibax now, and this is no fault
insurance as well. So if you just happen to hydroplane
off the road, a single vehicle accidents, just weather's fault,
(33:08):
nobody's fault, and you have to go to the doctor
because you got an injury. A lot of people have
medical payments coverage on their automobile policy and they don't
know they even have it because the premiums are very
very low, and I think sometimes agents just kind of
put it on there. You don't have a lot of
coverage there normally two thousand, five thousand. I've seen folks
(33:30):
with ten thousand people that work for insurance salespeople often
have a lot more because they know it's a good coverage.
If you need it, it'll pay one hundred percent of
your medical bills up to that limit, and that kicks
in before your health insurance, so you've also got that option.
Whether it's somebody else's fault, you still have you can
(33:50):
still use it, and it's the same deal. You're an
automobile ensure ultimately will get paid back what they pay
for you, but it gets those health care providers and
potential debt collectors off your back because you've had those
bills paid up front. When you settle a claim against
somebody that causes the accident, somebody else, while you'll probably
(34:13):
get a good result if you represent us, they pay
them one lump some payment eventually, and then you sign
a document saying you can't get any more money from
So it could be even though we have a successful claim,
depending on the nature of your injury, it could be
a year and a half, two years or even longer
after your accident before you can ultimately resolve that claim
(34:33):
favorably and get paid. So those health care providers aren't
going to just normally just sit back and wait. They're
going to try and collect their bills during that timeframe,
So that's another reason. Normally another person's insurance will not
pay your bills as you go like your health insurance does,
so you just got to watch for that. And of
course if you come to us, we help coordinating those benefits,
(34:55):
walking you through the process, making sure you understand it,
submitting your bills to the proper insurance that you get
the best financial benefit. That's what we do, and you
don't think about that because that's think, well, here's my
settlement as X. But there's there's a lot of behind
the scenes numbers that you know. Ultimately, our goal is
(35:16):
to get our clients satisfied. And then in the end,
if our client settles for X amount gross, then we
work pretty hard on the back end to make sure
that out of that gross settlement our client nets the
maximum amount possible. So we go and negotiate those items
that we have to pay back and then you know,
(35:38):
the client doesn't have to deal with it. Mostly things
that people don't understand anyway when they when they resolve acclaim.
But we make it real easy so that you just
come in and sign a little accounting statement at the
end and we show you know we're taking we're paying
Medicare has the same the same deal. So if you
have Medicare, it will pay for treatment you get from
(36:01):
an injury caused by another person. But there's a whole
set of federal regulations that require you to pay them back,
and that can create some confusion because even if you
don't hire a lawyer, the other person's insurance is going
to report it to Medicare if they know your own Medicare.
Then you start getting all these complicated letters in the
(36:21):
mail from Medicare, and most people don't understand what they mean,
and Medicare will even though we represent a person, they'll
copy those letters to our clients and send them to us.
And of course when you have us, we say, well
just don't worry about those, We're getting them as well,
and then we take care of all that. So there's
you know, if you have a very minor claim, not
(36:42):
much treatment, nothing wrong with settling the claim on you're
in behalf. But if you get any type of injury
that has some long term treatment or a chronic problem,
of course we want you to hire us. We do
a really good job, but you know, it's more complicated
than you think.
Speaker 4 (36:57):
Sometimes you know, one thing that a little piece of
esoteric knowledge information for you. In a previous job that
I had years and years ago, I worked for Enterprise
Rental Car and one of the things that they evaluate
you on is you have to sell your your damage
waiver product, you know, the thing where which honestly it
really is what it is. I mean, if you get
into an accent, you have that thing. They basically just
(37:17):
let you walk away from it as long as you
were legally operating the car. But there's something that they
offer called the PAI, which is a personal accident insurance.
It's like two million dollars of personal insurance. You cank
a gain and it's only two dollars, or at least
when I was there, it was two dollars a day.
And I always thought that was often the best deal
if you were going to get one of those products
because it did protect when things like because most people
just had the minimums when they're insurance and different things
(37:38):
like that, you get that additional two million dollars worth
of coverage for medical bills or anything like that that
might happen.
Speaker 5 (37:42):
Yeah, you have to kind of get into the details.
There's a lot of exceptions to those, so I'm not
real big on them. But yeah, yeah, if you damage,
if you have a single vehicle accident, that's kind of
your fault, or you know, and you damage the rental car,
I think that damage waiver will help you there now
in West Virginia, at least, if you have insurance here,
it's going to follow you for liability purposes, no matter
(38:04):
what car you're driving. So if I'm driving Dale's car, well,
I'd say I've got a million dollar liability policy and
I'm looking at my phone and rearing somebody and hurt
them really bad, even though I'm driving your car my
liability insurance. Even though that your car is not on
my policy, it covers me personally. And that same deal
happens with rental too, So it's not something you really
have to have. I would say, if you're going to
(38:26):
consider it doesn't cost much. Just read what it is,
get an explanation, and if it's a couple of bucks,
no harm, no foul, but you will be covered for
liability because you're a personal insurance will follow you.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Tayton Loaf from dot com have a great day, everyone fight.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Medwhsam ninety six point five stick one oh four point
five cross lane A WVRC Media Station.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
We're proud to live here too.
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