(05/27) HOTL Hour 1

Handel on the Law, Marginal Legal Advice

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This is handle on the law.Marginal legal advice where I tell you you
have absolutely no case. And Iso enjoyed doing that, telling you you
have no case, and the legaladvice I give you isn't marginal. Sometimes
it's good, sometimes it's marginal.Sometimes it's just downright not good. But

(00:20):
that's what makes it show so muchfun. I want to share with you
a story that the Supreme Court ruledon, and the Supreme Court ruled and
this was not though the Court isissuing orders all the time. Supreme Court.
We talk about the three or fourbig cases that the Court deals with.

(00:43):
The abortion case, of course,so my god. You know everybody
was covering that. Gun laws,the extension of gun control or removal or
removal of gun control, huge votingrights laws, of course. But then
there are laws that go up tothe Court wants to hear, and these

(01:03):
are cases that have been filed andthe Court says, yeah, we want
to hear. It is completely arbitrarywith the court. It can hear.
It can say yep, we'll hearthat case. Nope, we won't hear
the other case. A few things, when states are involved with suing each
other, that goes to the SupremeCourt. When do you have one of
the districts are nine districts in theUnited States. When one district rules one

(01:25):
way and the other district rules anotherway, then that goes up to the
Supreme Court to basically decide which wayis going to go. And the vast
majority of cases the Court says,no, we don't want to hear it.
Five thousand cases are submitted to theSupreme Court every year. They pick
about eighty maybe a hundred, andso this is one of the better ones,

(01:49):
at least more interesting ones. Allright, there's a court. There's
a law in California that flag graw. And you know what fua graw is.
This is in large livers of forestfed ducks and geese producing chopped liver,
smooth liver. It's flag graw,and it's very French, and it's

(02:12):
very she she and it's very controversialbecause California law, and this was after
the animal rights people really pushed thisfor years. California law bands the selling
or distributing a flag graw in thestate. Go to a restaurant. You're
not going to see flag graw thevenue. It's against the law. Try
to buy it in the state froma retailer. You're not going to see

(02:36):
it on any shelf. If theywant to give it to you, for
example, in a restaurant, it'snot going to happen. It's illegal.
Now you can still have you canbuy it from out of state. You
can bring it in from out ofstate, and you can eat it.
But this has to do with restaurantsand retailers and distributors. Okay. So

(02:57):
now with that being in mind,there was a lawsuit involved in a dispute
over California animal cruelty law because that'swhat made it illegal. And so you
had the flag raw industry representative,the flog rap folks file a lawsuit saying
that law is unconstitutional because based onthe animal cruelty law, they're saying there

(03:25):
is no animal cruelty. Okay,So now we go to how foig graw
is manufactured. They force feed theducks and the geese and it's called gavage
and it's a horrible job. Andyou got a guy who is standing in
boots, rubber boots because he's sittingin geese crap and just it's horrible and

(03:49):
duck crap. And he goes inand the animals are in pens. The
birds are in pens, and hegoes over to them. He's got this
tube where food is brought down fromabove, and he has a little nozzle
thing and it's it's a little bitlike oatmeal, And several times a day
he opens up the mouths of thegeese and just shoves the tube down into

(04:11):
the stomach and just pumps an extraordinaryor a specified amount of this oatmeal like
gruel. Now that's animal cruelty.But if you've ever seen gavage, the
ducks and the geese don't care.I mean, they don't run to it
to be fed, but they justwaddle along and the guy stops the goose,
shoves the tube down. They don'thave the animals don't have gag factors

(04:36):
at all, and so they justwaddle and then they waddle back. And
I've seen this. This is notanimal cruelty. So what is it?
It looks like animal cruelty, butit is not. Those those birds do
not suffer, But it doesn't matterif it looks like they suffer. Even
if they don't suffer, they're suffering. So here's what happened. Lawsuit was

(05:00):
the court dismissed it saying we're goingto keep the law in place. That
it goes to the Supreme Court allthe way up and the court says we're
going to keep the law in place. No fla gras in California. Oh
yes, Brian, let's start withyou. Welcome to handle on the law.
Good morning. Yes, I havea family member who made an unfortunate

(05:24):
loan there in the state of Nevada. The loan was for forty thousand dollars.
On paper, the loan says thatthe interest on the loan is ten
percent, So forty thousand dollars fora year, four thousand dollars interest for
a year unsecured. That's reasonable.What they tell me is that verbally the

(05:47):
loan is four thousand dollars a monthinterest. Wow, well wait a second,
how could that be. Is therea written agreement, there's a written
agreement, and then there's a verbalagreement. Okay, forget about the verbal
agreement. We go to the writtenagreement. What does it say. The
written agreement says forty thousand dollars plusten percent for the year. Okay,

(06:11):
that's it. That's what's going tocontrol. You've got a written agreement,
you have a verbal You have awritten The written can prove the proposition.
The verbal. You can say anythinganything. Even though a verbal agreement is
enforceable, you've got to prove it. And if it's I said no,
I said this, No I saidthis. Uh okay, that's not going
to prevail. And so the presumptionis on the person who loaned the money,

(06:36):
the written agreement. You know,you could say anything, verbal agreement.
They said, one hundred percent interestper month. Wow, the court
events. Is there no usury lawsanymore? That's gonna fly right, Yeah,
So it's it's a written agreement thatprevails. So and they need a

(06:56):
good attorney. No, well,I don't know if they need a good
attorney because it straight breach a contract. It's one of those things. Actually
you have a written contract and youcan just go to court. Uh you
know, do the documents on theinternet because there's nothing. It's simple.
I mean, there's nothing there otherthan here's the contracts. Go to pay
me. He didn't pay me,your honor here it is okay, thank
you, and we're done. Wasthis secured by anything? No? No,

(07:21):
they they asked. They asked toget a payoff demand and the person
making the loan refused. They said, nope, Wait a second, what
do I mean to payoff demand?They said, you must make a demand
before we're going to pay you.No, I was trying for them to

(07:43):
get some proof of how much theyhad a payoffs. So if they paid,
if we okay, But you havethe proof. It's in the contract.
It's right there. It's written inthe contract. That's all the proof
you need. So I don't knowwhat I'm missing. This is handle on
the law, Jerry typical, butyou know it's it's still interesting. What
can I do for you morn andBill to have a property line issue that

(08:09):
we put up a fence, theold neighbor next door and myself put up
a fence twenty one years ago basedupon the old fence, and now the
neighbor next door that had bought nineteenyears ago from there is stating that the
fence is off by point eight eightfeet just for a partial of about two

(08:31):
thirds of the property line, hada survey done. Survey doesn't say explicitly
when it comes off of the propertyline. But now they're trying to force
me, well, she wants topay for it and everything to move defence
and everything, But they're not givingme any information on who. And I'm

(08:52):
a general contractor myself, they're notgiving me. Is it a license?
General contractor? What? Are theygoing to build a fence inside of the
current fences? Metal post not woodpost? Are they putting in a wood
post? None of that? Whatsoever? Um? Do I have to necessarily
allow them to move the fence?Yeah? Well, first of all,
if you say no, no,thank you, you're talking about three quarters

(09:16):
of one foot, all right,so come on really? Uh? And
you're willing and they're willing to payfor several hundred linear feet of fence for
three quarters of one foot? Okay, assuming that's the case, Have they
written a demand for you to movethe fence? Um? No? Okay.

(09:37):
So she had a lawyer send mea letter okay, well okay to
say that she wants to do itat her cost, right, I mean,
she can. But here's the problem. If she bought the place twenty
one years ago or nineteen years agoand has accepted it for that long,
you know she's going to have aproblem because the rules are I mean the

(10:00):
longer you stay. And she um, if she expected even if she didn't
know about it, if she's allowedyou to do it, allowed you to
work on it. Now, okay, so the demand and you say no,
then a lawsuit is filed. Thenyou have to defend the lawsuit.
However, they're going to have todo another survey, and surveys are about

(10:20):
fifteen hundred bucks as far as howlong that line is. And so that
may be a complicated survey because itgo at one point, it goes into
the other property. And let meask you, I mean, is do
you care? No, I reallydon't care. It's just that I you
know, there's but the problem whatI have with it is who do I

(10:43):
talk to? Do I have anyrights to know who? The contractors?
However, not so much the rightnow, not so much their contractor.
But you have to be given thirtythirty days in California, it's different every
other state. I have to beginthirty day saying here's what I'm building out
of. Here is not the nameof the contractor, that's not necessary,

(11:03):
but thirty days noticed that here's whatI'm going to do, and I'm going
to pay for it. And thenthere are cases that both of you have
to pay for it is along theproperty line. And so I mean let
me ask you this. I mean, you've known the neighbors for a while.
Are they prepared to spend thousands andthousands of dollars for a lawyer for
starters and then pay for the fenceto be built for not even or a

(11:28):
little over three quarters of one footfor a period or a length of the
fence. I mean, how muchland is she giving up, assuming that
she prevails about seventy five feet approximatelyat the point eight No, no,
how, I'm sorry? How big? How big? How big is a

(11:50):
lot? The whole lot is onehundred and two feet deep by seventy feet
wide, all right, So it'sa good it's a decent side lot.
And so if she's crazy enough todo it, you have no choice.
But you know, do you thinkshe's that's enough to do it? Yes,

(12:11):
well, then then you get tohire a lawyer or you do exactly
what she says. And if sheis willing to pay all that much money
for a lawyer, you say,okay, do it. You know,
especially she's gonna put in a decentfence, and then you can argue if
it's a you have a chain linkfence, you have a permanent fence.
She wants a wooden fence, andyou're arguing that that she's putting it in
an inferior fence, and so thereare some defenses to it, but you

(12:35):
know, the law is pretty clear. Can she prevail in the end,
maybe, and in the end,have her put everything in writing. I
offer to pay for it. Here'sthe material that I'm going to use,
and then you take it from there, and if the lawyer picks it up,
the lawyer picks it up. Penny, Hi, Penny, welcome him.

(12:56):
My months off away and all assetswere in a trust. My dad's
still live. They had joints,joint accounts or things were in a trust.
This little account which had some stockin it. It's been paying dividends
into their bank account and at firstwe didn't even know what it was.
But for some reason, she neverput a beneficiary on it. It's under
two thousand dollars. It's not muchmoney, but we're having a heck of

(13:20):
a time just trying to get itfrom the company. It needs to sell
it. It needs that medallion,signature, guarantee, stamp and our bank
is I mean we sold that allthe paperwork. Yeah, you're probably going
to need Yeah, you're probably gonnaneed a court order, but it's real
simple when you get how many beneficiariesare there, assuming there was, Oh,

(13:43):
there's just actually we just want togo to my dad. Actually I
was trying to get it just togo into their trust. I mean,
so you have to sue on behalfof the trust. You have to sue
on behalf of the trust. ButI don't think the trust is a beneficiary
under the law. It's people thatare beneficiaries. And so you got a
corridor. It's simple stuff. Imean, just get to forms. You
can do it yourself. I mean, it's absolutely perfunctory, and the orderer

(14:05):
will be that the money goes tothe people that are entitled to it,
children first, and then husband firstand then children. So it's pretty easy.
You just look that up or callthe clerk of the court and ask
for what the kind of rules are, although they're not going to give you
the exact you know, the exactrules are pretty careful about that, but
it's a pretty simple process. You'renot going to need a lawyer. And

(14:26):
then you know, the banks arevery very careful about that because if they
do it wrong, they suck itup more handle on the wall with a
homeless question. Lee, highly morehomeless questions. Okay, no, just
happy Memorial Day Bill. Yes,sir, thank you for your service because

(14:46):
you spent some time in the military. That's what I've been told. Yeah,
wrong, I haven't. But that'squite But I do admire people who
did spend time in the military.I'm sort of awe of folks who have
done that. But yes, move, let's move. So here's the short
question. I probably should have calledWarren Epstein. I'm one of your competitors

(15:07):
the pet show. It's a legalquestion. I'm homeless. I live in
a vand I park on a commercialproperty. About close to a year ago,
somebody dumped free feral little black kittensby a sewer grade. Two of
them didn't survive. I guess thecoyotes got them. One founder way over
to a raffle on the other sideof the building, and me and about

(15:28):
four or five other girls started feedingher, and she basically lived in my
van and I tried to keep herfrom you know, when the heat gets
When the heat gets on, shegot pregnant and she gave birth to five
little kittens. I've adopted out threeof them. One of them died.

(15:50):
I still have one, and Icalled the Humane Society and they basically were
stalling. I called him on aor say, I called him on a
Friday. I didn't work on theweekends, so I ended up burying this
poor little free two and a halfthree month old kitten on the property about
six six feet away from where shewas born. Have I broken eight a

(16:17):
law? Okay? A couple ofquestions. First of all, you say
you still have one cat left,right, I've got the Mamma cat,
and I'm okay one of the otherkittens and okay, and they're and they're
not dead. You don't have themlike parked on the mantel or on the
stove. You don't have any deadcats hanging around? Is that right?
No, I live in a band. It doesn't mean and you don't have
dead cats. I mean there arepeople that collect dead cats for a hobby.

(16:38):
I mean they're granted, they're prettystrange people, but they do it
all. Right. So you soyou buried a cat on commercial property?
Correct, that's right? Okay?And so did you break the law?
Yeah? Probably, I'm sure there'ssome ordinance out there where you can't bury
animals other than a specified uh dogcatcemetery. But it's probably out there.

(17:04):
I mean it's never enforced ever ever, I mean, no one ever pays
attention to it. So yeah,okay, for example, let's say I'll
tell you about this. Let's sayin certain towns in the United States where
they haven't undone, the law isprobably still illegal to go more than a
walking pace with a lantern in frontof you with a horseless carriage behind you.

(17:27):
So you have to actually have alantern and tell people, oh,
horseless carriage still on the books.Okay, all right, who's gonna enforce
that? Nobody? And the shameof it is is that not enough people
do what you do. And thehumane side doesn't deal with dead cats.
I mean you look at their charterright there, dude. They pick up

(17:48):
carcasses all the The Humane Society issupposed to animal control. Animal control.
Yeah, that's not the humane society. That's a whole different animal huh.
So to speak, Yeah, andthey do, but you know that,
you know, dead cat there,They got a lot of dead animals they're
gonna do. They're gonna go outthere and they're gonna deal with animals at
our dangerous dogs that have to beput down. They're not going to say,

(18:14):
hey, we'll pick up a deadcat just get rid of it,
and they don't care. I mean, you can do anything with a dead
cat, bury it, which youdid. I'll throw it in the gutter,
which unfortunately people do, put it, put it in a blender,
which is very unfortunate, and peopledo that. But I think you're okay.
I wouldn't worry about it. Allright. That's a good question.
Is it illegal? Yeah, I'msure it is. I'm sure it is.

(18:37):
Steve, Hello, Steve, Goodmorning, Bill. Yes, sir,
I was. I was eating abean and cheese burrito when I heard
a pop and felt an excruciating painand looked in the mirror found out one
of my teeth had come very veryloose. I ended up having to have
it extracted. I'm going to haveto have a new faith choice added to

(19:03):
my partial to feel that void,and my upper lip has been disfigured because
of that void. Permanently, holdon, hold on, permanently, your
upper lip is disfigured. I don'tknow until the new tooth is added to
the partial. Okay, But myquestion is should I contact corporate the corporate

(19:30):
office. It was Chipotle, aChipotle burrito. U should I contact corporate
first or should I see an attorney? You see an attorney first, because
if it if you're talking about,well, it's damages in the thousands of
dollars anyway, anyway you do it. Putting an implant in a Putting an

(19:51):
implant in even a single tooth isnot inexpensive. And then if the partial
has to be redone, then asa result of that, which probably isn't
the case, but there is moreto it in terms of your quote your
damages. Now, if you aredisfiguring and it is permanent, that brings

(20:11):
it to a whole new level.And they're gonna say no, I mean,
they got a lot of defenses.How do you know it was this?
Did you? I don't know ifyou still have the burrito, if
you still have any evidence? Whatyou do with the burrito? What'd you
do with the whatever you crunched downon. I dissected it trying to find
out if it was an uncooked beanor maybe yeah, the employee, and

(20:33):
then what you do with him?Did you find anything? I didn't find
anything, so apparently I because Igagged on it. When it happened.
Okay, so think about this.You have no proof, you have absolutely
no proof it was the burrito.And here's the defense. You could have
done anything else. You could havebitten into ground turkey and there was some

(20:56):
kind of a four matter into it. You could have done anything. I
think you're gonna have a tough timewith that. I really do. And
so probably it may be worth anuisance suit or not. Talk to a
lawyer who probably bounce you. Andthis is a personal injury lawyer. That's
I don't think it gonna do.And then you and then after talking to
a lawyer, you write the letterand maybe the lawyer will write a letter,

(21:18):
and you do a some kind ofretainer agreement where the lawyer gets what
thirty percent or whatever. And ifit's a one page letter, the lawyer
writes and then Chipotle, they're gonnabe insurance company that the lawyer is gonna
be talking to. They'll negotiate formaybe a couple of thousand dollars or just
medical bills. Do you have insurance, by the way, that pays for

(21:40):
any of this? Partially? Yes? Okay, well then you can argue,
let's say it's going to cost youthree thousand dollars. Insurance will pay
fifteen hundred dollars. And now you'rearguing fifteen hundred dollars. And if a
lawyer is making that phone call orsending out the letter, maybe there's a
little bit of money in it,but not a whole lot. So um,

(22:00):
yeah, you got it. Therehas to be evidence there. Now
even with evidence, this is whatI found in the burrito, got it
there? It is, here's theburrito, and you freeze it. I
guess, uh, and certainly theforeign matter that goes in. And and
also how do you dissect a burrito? Do you I've cut into a burrito

(22:21):
and like cut off a third,um, and uh, we'll split it
into thirds and then you know threepeople there big burrito is at a dissection
of a burrito, I assume.So this is handle on the law Andrew
Europe. Oh Bill, I'm calling. I'm kind of on behalf of my
Landlady M. I've been living herefor two years and she is in terrible

(22:48):
shape mentally, physically, can makedecisions all sorts of problems, and money
has been u basically kind of anddazzled from her. She has a someone
that she meant some time ago.He's a mortgage broker, and she got
her reverse mortgage of sixty five thousanddollars and she turned it over to him

(23:12):
to manage it. I don't knowif she she asked or okay, how
old? How old is she?Andrew? She's but sixty eight years old,
all right? And she's not inher right mind? Does she she
have cognition? For cognition? Youknow, we had a tenant here for
thirty a half months, and shedid not remember that there was a tenant.

(23:33):
That was okay, all right,all right, So you got an
issue. And so this guy bazzledmoney from her, or at least I
took the money and gave it toher. And is he is he giving
her reports? Is he did heinvest the money? Did he keep it?
You have any knowledge about that?Yeah? He just kept it all
right to her? All right?All right? So yeah, you know,

(23:53):
here's what I would do. Firstof all, since she and you're
paying her rent, right, yes, yeah, the first thing I would
do is ask her to reduce yourrent to one third of what you're paying.
She doesn't know what the hell isgoing on anyway, right. So,
and then because you're a good guyand you've got a great heart.
I don't want to pay as bytrends as I have now. The other

(24:15):
issue is very complicated for her tobasically file a lawsuit and go through you've
embezzled the money. I don't havecognition. I mean someone has to do
it on her behalf of course,either family member or go in and ask
for a conservatorship in order to dothat, and that's no small amount of
money. I would simply call theDA and accuse mister mortgage broker of elder

(24:41):
abuse. That's it, and they'llget and they'll get into it. They
will get into it because this isclearly elder abuse. This is fraud,
elder abuse, reverse mortgage. Imean it just thinks the High Heaven convincing
her to buy to go into reversemortgage and he is holding the money.
Yeah, yeah, that's that's nuts, all right. So that's where I'd

(25:02):
go District Attorney's office and have awhole division that deals with elder abuse and
fraud. And that's absolutely, uhfor sure. John, Hello, John,
you're up? Hey, go howare you doing, sir? What
can I do for you? Man? I just witnessed an overturned felon you

(25:22):
hit and run accident, but um, it was terrible. Um the driver
ran off. I want to getto my story. By the way,
just really quickly. Did anybody geta license plate number? Of course?
Yeah, I think they'll get him. Called, they'll get him. I
called nine one. One the vehiclethat was being chase actually left the scene.

(25:45):
The one that the one that flippedover was the one chasing them.
I'm interesting. Well, I meanthat they'll they'll get him and they'll investigate
this. Well, let's get toI waited for the police. Yeah,
let's get to your story. Okay, what's going on. Well, I've
been married for years, Bill,and we got married. First of all,
I don't know if this is evenan issue because we've been married nineteen

(26:06):
years in August. Yes, that'show we got married in the state of
Nevada with the mater, I gotit. All I want to know is
can I can I deal with thedivorce on my own without going through all
the you know, the court?Yeah, okay, here, okay,
let me throw you a couple ofquestions. Uh is your ex wife I'll

(26:26):
call her her X your X?Now is did she work during the marriage.
Hold up? She worked? Yes, okay? How much inc relative
to your income? How much washer income? Um? See, she's
changed jobs a lot and things haveadjusted to where now she's making more than

(26:47):
I am. Okay, that's good, that's good. Okay, all right.
Let me ask you this would ifyou were to go to the guidelines
and there are guidelines that the courtfollows, and and those you pull lows
up right there on the internet andsay this is what the guidelines are.
Okay, would she agree to whatthe courts are giving out or would she

(27:10):
fight you? Is it required fiftyfifty on everything? Yeah, fifty fifty
while you were married? However,if you're earning one hundred thousand and she's
earning eighty thousand, theoretically she getshalf of twenty thousand, which would be
ten. But the court's not goingto give her any support or if so

(27:32):
a year, and it's going tobe minimal, it's not gonna be a
huge amount. So I'm talking aboutthe poor. I'm talking about the house
I did it? Oh yeah,did you buy okay? Oh okay,
you didn't ask that, all right? Did you buy the house during the
marriage? Yes? Okay? Anddid you buy it with money to us
saved or was it money coming inbefore? No savings? Okay, all

(27:56):
right, but the house is inboth the houses in both of your names,
right, Yes, of course.Yeah, she gets half. She
gets half, no matter, nomatter what she gets half. That's it.
Yeah, she gets half. That'sall. That's the way community property
works. You know. That's thebig mozzel tough. How about that.
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(28:22):
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(28:44):
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This is handle on the law