(06/22) 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 no case. I'll betyou you didn't know that. The military
draft is still in place now.No one's being drafted, of course,
but registration for the military draft isstill the law. Now it's done automatically.

(00:26):
When a man, a boy hitseighteenth birthday, boom, register for
the draft. Now, when Iwas eighteen, you had to register for
the draft. I mean you hadto physically register. And then trying to
get out of the draft is whata whole lot of people were doing because
it didn't take long to figure outthat maybe Vietnam, because those were the

(00:51):
days of Vietnam, the Vietnam War, which in Vietnam is called the American
War by the way, people wantedto get out because it didn't take very
long for were people to figure outcome on. There were demonstrations going on
all over the country. People endedup going to Vietnam and dying. There
were fifty thousand deaths in Vietnam duringthe course of the war. And so

(01:14):
people tried to get out for allmanner of reasons, and there were exemptions.
Now where I was in North Hollywoodin the San Fernando Valley in Los
Angeles. I had the North HollywoodBoard. In other words, a draft
board was a matter of fact,I'll never forget on Colfax Avenue in Los
Angeles, in North Hollywood, andit was the toughest, toughest draft board

(01:40):
in the country. You could notget out of the draft. You couldn't.
You came in with one lake,the draft board would say you can
hop on the other. That's notgoing to stop you from being not only
in the military, but fighting inthe jungles of Vietnam. You couldn't get
out. There were certain dental conditionsyou could get out on. There were

(02:02):
exemptions. There were guys that wentto the dentists to have those problems put
into their mouths. There were dentistswho felt so strong about the Vietnam War.
Anyway, I digress. How unusual. So military draft is still in
place even though there is no conscription. A bill has just been introduced that

(02:23):
would require women to register for thedraft, or would automatically be registered.
And tell me how much sense thatmakes. Because women are now in every
aspect of the military. I thinkmaybe submarines they're not, although I may
be wrong on that. But certainlyevery ship has a complement of women.
The Air Force, even combat fighters, combat aircraft have women pilots. I

(02:49):
mean across the board. I meanthere are women commanders the Coastguard. Women
can command ships and divisions the reserves. So now a bill that would require
women to also register or be registeredfor the draft. It's a Senate committee
approved it. The bill is stillfar from becoming law. It has to

(03:12):
be approved by both chambers of Congressand signed by the President, which I
think is going to happen because itonly makes sense now. Frankly, I'm
surprised, well, I'm surprised thatthe draft was still in place, the
registration of the draft, because Ithought you just you simply just volunteer.
And the fact that if that's thecase, women are still not required to

(03:39):
register or be registered. All right, let's go ahead and take some phone
calls. All right, Becky firstup, and welcome to handle on the
law. What can I do foryou? Hold on a minute, Becky?

(03:59):
Are you there? Yes? Thisis oh there you are. Becca.
I'm sorry, Beca. What canI do for you? Becca?
Yes, sir, I have acase coming up that I really can't discuss.
But I can ask you this.Sure, I'm concerned about jury nullification
and the right in our United StatesConstitution ninth and tenth amendments for juries to

(04:20):
be informed and no, I'm sorryfor juries too. I'm sorry juries to
what be informed? Yeah, beinformed and nullify a bill NULLI second,
hold on a bill, and Iquite don't understand what kind of a bill,
let's say a COVID bill. Okay, how where where would a COVID

(04:44):
bill? I I don't understand howthat would work because COVID is generally declared
by or it's regulated under departments ofhealth. So explain to me what and
what your case has to do withany of this. And you don't have
to be specific, but you canbe in general, because I have a
hard time understanding this. Okay.Well, and you know, various states

(05:09):
have, you know, signed intolaw by their governors their own particular version
of a COVID immunity bill that wasoriginally started by Governor Cuomo in New York,
Okay. And so the state I'min has a bill. And so
what I'm concerned about is the jurybeing informed that they can disregard language and

(05:30):
that bill or throw it out whenthey hear a case. But you know
what also connects with that is I'mreading that a judge, you know,
is permitted in a jury trial tointerpret a law and I would assume a
bill and then instruct the jury howto follow his or her into Oh yeah,
it's done all the time. It'sdone in every single jury case.

(05:51):
The judge in fact tells the jury, uh the law that you must rule
this way because the law is inplace. This is the law. You
must find that if you find someoneguilty or innocent, you must then render
a verdict. And then if that'sthe case, then you must go forward

(06:13):
and make another decision, or theother way around. So if you find
this law does not apply, thenyou cannot go forward and find that this
person is guilty or innocent or liableunder the law. It happens all the
time. So I don't quite understandwhere you're going with this. Well,
I'm yeah, I'm reading that alot of judges are not informing a jury

(06:36):
that they have a right. Okay, So I mean that's true. Now
what right I'm wondering. And alsoI've heard that you know, lawyers in
the courtroom, if from either side, are not permitted to even bring up
jury nullification to a jury. Sothat's that's true. Probably, So what's
your question, right, So isthere any way to you, you know,

(07:00):
get you know the judge, youknow, make emotion, but yeah,
you know you can make emotion,but you're in front of the same
judge, and then if you don'tlike the decision, you appeal it.
So I understand, are you ifyou're in a case and are you the
defendant and you are you want toargue that the jury has nullified what the
judges said during enough of nullification,which in light of all of the evidence,

(07:23):
the jury doesn't care and decides oneway or the other. That is,
by the way, jury nullification.So are you concerned that's going to
happen to you? Yeah? Okay, So if it happens to you,
Okay, if it happens to you, you appeal it. And if you
lose the appeal you well, firstof all, you go to the same
judge and you're gonna lose, andthen you appeal it. And I don't

(07:46):
know if you're gonna win or not, but I have no idea. Are
you being charged or being sued civilly? What's going on? With you no
plaintiff, you're the plaintiff. Allright, Well there's the argument. You
know, if you don't like it, you're go in front of the judge
or you're gonna argue that you didn'tyou didn't apply the law correctly, you
didn't charge the jury correctly, andyou're gonna lose. Then you go on

(08:07):
an appeals court and you're probably gonnalose there too. That was the most
convoluted phone call I have ever madeor I've ever received. Well, actually
that's not true. It doesn't helpwhen you say I can't talk about it
and then you dance around it.It doesn't help me, doesn't help anyone.
Jury nullification is really simple. Thejury goes the other way in light

(08:28):
of any evidence, any evidence that'spresented. They just want this guy guilty
or not, or liable or not, and it doesn't matter what the evidence
is. That's jury nullification. Uh. And by the way, the judges
go berzerk on that one. Hi, Jonathan, Hi, Hi a liability
question? Go ahead? Yeah,I can't. Okay, I'm a track

(08:52):
starter along a lot of the guys. I'm sorry, you're a what high
school track? High school track?Okay? Yeah, we start racist,
we fire blank guns, all right. Blank ammunition you can buy or you
can reload the ones you use.Reloading is like one fourth the cost.
I reload my own shells. Itry to be friends. I reload theirs
too. So my question is,Okay, if one of the other guys

(09:15):
they fire and they caused some kindof damage, maybe, you know,
do I have any liability? Okay, you're talking about loading blanks. That's
correct. Oh yeah, No,you wouldn't have any liability because the whoever
you loaded them for, unless theblanks exploded and the gun exploded and somehow,
uh, the damage or the injurywould be as a result of liability

(09:39):
that you did something wrong in termsof loading the blanks. Uh. Yeah,
you could be liable if injury wascaused from the blanks. But you
know what can blanks do? Forexample, let's say there have been a
couple of not suicides, but peoplejust have a good, good time and
do for example, they play RussianRoulette with blanks, and people don't understand

(10:01):
that can still go through your brainand you're not liable for that. You're
not liable for anything if it's yousomehow in a crime. No, only
if the blanks themselves are in factsomehow the blanks are either you've done it
wrong, for example, you puttoo much in and the thing explodes.

(10:22):
I mean, it's a long stretch. The answer is no, you're flying.
What if I charge money? Whatdo I say? A guys,
it's okay, you can charge moneyfor that. That has nothing to do
with it. Good. Good questiontoo. By the way, I mean,
there has to be connections, andthat's not enough of a connection unless
the blanks, as they said,are mishandled or somehow manufactured wrongly and the

(10:43):
damage is caused by those. Butthat's about it. Hey, Jeff,
welcome to handle on the law.Hey Bill, Hey I have I'll try
to make a quick developed, bigdeveloper building like fifty houses on the other
side of a hill from where Ilive. There's two driveways coming down on
my side of the hill, mydriveway and then one adjacent to mine.

(11:05):
They run parallel by one hundred andfifty yards long, very long, and
between there is a ten foot easementbetween the two driveways. There's supposed to
be a sewer line running down betweenin that easement. Turns out the sewer
line was smack dab in the centerof my driveway. I came home one
day they had dug a twenty footby twenty foot hole in the center of
my driveway and they were tying theirsewer line. They were supposed to run

(11:26):
all the way under the new drivewayinto the old sewer line which runs under
my property. I said, hey, what are you guys doing. They
told me it was in the easementthey had to do this. I couldn't
really stop them. The hole wasthere. That was the end of the
story pretty much. Now the sanitationdepartment is coming after me, wanting me
to sign to increase my easement,give up more of my property so they

(11:50):
can always they can come and servicethe manhole at some point in the future
or whatever. Can they force meto do that? Yeah, they probably
can because for a couple of things. Uh, is the liability on their
part or let me ask you,any damage is or them interference with you
your enjoyment of your property? Isit just a manhole that they're going to

(12:13):
service otherwise all underground? No,they dug a big hole. They ruined
my driveway. They put a youknow, a pretty insufficient patch over.
Okay, that's different. Okay,I got it. Well that okay,
that that is something you can dealwith. And you're saying, is there
a is there an easement that hasbeen recorded or not? Yes? There
is, Okay, Okay, thatdoesn't matter if a has been recorded.

(12:37):
Uh, they can do that rightoff, right off the starting block.
Uh. And they can dig itup, but they have to bring it
back to where it was. So, now who's put in the sewer line
developer or the city itself. Thenew developer did without any permission I think
from anybody. Okay, they tookit upon themselves. Got it, well

(13:00):
you have. I think you havesome legal action against the new developer because
he never got an eastman or thecity never put an easeman in there.
Yeah, there's some liability, butin the end, it's gonna happen.
The only thing that's wrong here isthey didn't make the property bring it back
to where it was. The cityhas unbelievable power, and it's a city.

(13:22):
The easement is in favor of thecity. Correct, it's actually in
the county. I don't know ifthat, it doesn't matter, it doesn't
matter. It's a legal authority.Yeah, yeah, I don't. I
don't think so. I don't thinkyou can do anything other than place just
make them bring it back to snuff. I mean, they have the ability
to come in legally even after thefact, you know. I mean theoretically

(13:46):
you could force them to go aroundand not use your property, but that
means that they're going to go throughsomeone else's property. So I think the
short answer is, yeah, theyhave a right to do that. It's
amazing what cities do and have awrite and you know, then the argument
is we're going under the property.And granted that there has been you know,
they've gotten in your way of yourlife by digging up your driveway.

(14:09):
But you know, if they've donethat for a couple of weeks, what
are the damages. Oh, letme tell you about Zelman's. That's right,
thanks, Jacob. Zelman's is allabout your bad breath. And I
always have a packet of Zelmans withme because for some reason, I actually
care about breathing on people with badbreath. I don't know why I do
that, but certainly people breathing onyou with bad breath is just no fun.

(14:33):
So Zelman's minty mouthmens is clearly theanswer. It's not just a mint
either, it's a true breath freshener. It's a little capsule that you swallow
or bite into. The minty parttakes care of your mouth part, and
then it goes into your gut andreally works in your gut because so much
bad breath comes out of your stomachand the bad foods that you eat or
the good foods that you eat.That's Zelman's. Zelman's gives you a money

(14:56):
back guarantee. I've never seen anybodyuse one. Free shipping if you order
multiple packs, and I know you'regoing to order multiple packs, that's Zelman's
Z E L M I n Sdot com fifteen percent off when you use
the code handle at check out.Take the fifteen percent. Go to Zelman's
and use the code handle Zelman's ZE L M I n S Zelman's dot

(15:20):
com. David, Hello, David, welcome, Hi, thank you.
We bought a home up in AppleValley, California, about eight weeks ago.
We've already made our second payment.We've not been able to move in.
The home was inspected by various inspectorsand it has a termine infestation and

(15:45):
we are hitting roadblocks on getting someoneto own the responsibility. Yeah, that.
Well, let me ask you acouple questions. First of all,
sir, Apple Valley, that's wherethe Roy Riders Museum is, right it
used to be, Yes, sir, it's no longer there. Where did
it move to? No? Ithink it went to like Missouri if I'm

(16:07):
not mistaken. Okay, Roy itwas a great uh sort of I don't
know how great, but sort ofa singing cowboy television shows, movies,
and his very famous horse, Triggerwas actually stuffed and put in the museum.
And I don't know if you knewthis, but his very famous wife,
Dale Evans, he also stuffed andput right next to Trigger. I've

(16:33):
been there. It's very impressive.Okay. Now to your question regarding infestation,
Uh, how how serious was itin the sense of how long was
it for you to get to thatplace? If you if you know my
question, five five weeks after weclosed? Okay, how okay? Let

(16:56):
me ask you this, how longdo you think those terms lights were there
to reach your level of infestation,your level of damage. From my personal
investigation and the contractor I've working forus, he said, it's been over
two years two years ago. Okay. Now, I'm assuming you have you've

(17:18):
had inspections prior to buying the house. Correct? Okay, the termite inspection
was the inspector paid for and hiredby the seller or you or both or
none seller seller. How much damageare we talking about. I have the

(17:41):
drywall off of two of four wallsin the master bedroom and half the ceiling
and several load bearing two by sixok I'm assuming there hasn't been a whole
lot of rot. There hasn't beena whole lot of damage to the structure.
It's is the question of just removingthose termites. Is that correct?

(18:03):
No, there's several pieces of lumber. Okay. How much? Okay,
how much is it costing you?How much is it costing you? I
have not gotten a solid proct You'regoing to have to know that repairs.
Okay. If it's under ten thousanddollars, you're going to sue the homeowner.

(18:25):
That's easy because he didn't tell youthat there was an infestation, and
he had the information, so hemisrepresented right there, he has a duty
to tell you that there is aninfestation. Now, it could be that
the termite inspector screwed it up bycoming in there and saying there is no

(18:47):
termite damage, there is no termiteinfestation. At that point, the homeowner's
free and clear. Because the homeownercalls an expert to come in, relies
on that, and turns around andtells you, my inspection shows there termite
damage. You don't have a dutyto rip open walls to see if there
is or isn't. So it's thetermite inspection. I would go after the

(19:07):
termite inspector by not telling you,you have detrimentally relied on both the owner
and the inspection. You have reliedon them to your detriment. I think
there is a small claim suit.Hopefully it's under ten thousand dollars, so
you can do it yourself in courtand you sue them both. You sue
them both. I believe it's morethan that, but I'll get estimates,

(19:33):
okay, And by the way,if it's more than that, you can
hire a lawyer, because guaranteed thatin your sales contract he has clicked off
no known termite infestation. That's oneof the boxes that has to be clicked
off. So yeah, I thinkyou got it. I think you got
it. Of course, the evidenceis is there for two years. It

(19:53):
should have been caught the seller knewabout it, or wow, the seller
knew about it, and therefore there'smisrepresentation, misrepresentation, all right, Eric,
Hi, Eric, welcome. Yeah, my sister is the executor of
my brother's will and the state ofArizona. He died a couple of weeks

(20:15):
ago, and I was there forthe funeral this week, and I found
out that I have ownership in thewill of the possessions, which includes the
vehicles, and so the vehicle inquestion hasn't been hasn't been serviced in over
a year. And my sister,older sister executor, wants to let my

(20:38):
younger sister and her criminal, druggedout husband used the vehicle, and I
said, no, I don't wantthem to use it until I took possession
of it and he gets serviced.Okay, all right, So has will?
Has the will been probated yet?No, it's starting that portion.

(21:00):
Okay, got it. So youhave an executor who is violating the terms
of the will. Correct, That'swhat it sounds like to me. And
okay, fair enough, So withthat, Okay, now I get it.
I get it. It sounds thatway based on what you said.
Uh, so you've got your theexecutors in breach, and you are the
beneficiary of that car. Uh yeah, yeah, you sue the executor the

(21:22):
executor for the value of the car. Okay, I just don't want them
to drive it. I understand.But you're gonna have to go to car
Are you gonna actually, are yougonna go to court and get a court
order saying you can't drive the car? You could and nail them. That's
the other that's the other way togo. How much is the car worth?
Oh, it's worth like maybe eightthousand dollars. Okay, so it's

(21:48):
going to cost you thousands of dollarsto hire a lawyer to get a court
order to have the sister who's drivingthe car return the car. I think
that certainly the executor can repossess thecar because it belongs to the estate.
It doesn't belong to the sister.And I think executor sister has to be

(22:08):
told, hey, you know what, you're breaching the terms of the will.
You have a fiduciary duty which youare breaching, and just I would
just make a phone call or havea lawyer write a letter saying, hey,
you're looking a lot of liability.You know, do you really want
to do. They haven't driven thecar yet to my knowledge, because that
was on Wednesday this week. IfI haven't driven the car yet, then

(22:32):
the estate owns the car until it'sprobated. Okay, all right, so
that is so you can't even getthe car unless it's probated. Right,
it will, but she okay,that's okay. Somewhere in there was an
answer you got me on that one, Lauren. Hello, Lauren, you're
up, good morning. Till myproblem is my neighbor accuse my daughter of

(22:57):
backing into her car and damaging it. My daughter said, well, maybe
she did, but it was becausethe neighbor's car was extended into the driveway
and we have a picture of that. However, we did not give our
insurance information. She had her insurancecompany send us a letter making a demand

(23:19):
for either payment or payment arrangements.However, they sent the letter to me,
so I replied, my car hasnot been involved in any accident or
collision with anyone, including you know, your claimant. Now that that debt

(23:40):
has been passed to a law firmwho's making a demand on me and my
daughter who's never had you know howold your daughter insurance. How old your
daughter? So my question is arewe required? I get the question.
I understand, but let me askyou, hold on, hold on,

(24:02):
I get it. Does your daughterown the car? Is something that you
can't hear me, Lauren. Youhave to reply with there is something wrong
here for all of the yeah,all right, damage claim. So there's

(24:22):
there's essentially the issue, Jacob.Just let her keep one, okay,
to give them referencing my insurance orher insurance if there's no validity to the
claim. Yeah, there's no cheeseand the refrigerator. So I can't make

(24:44):
a sandwich, Lauren. Can youhear me now? I can? Yes,
Bill, okay, because I triedto ask you a questions through the
whole thing, and you just kepton rattling on. So you didn't hear
me ask you questions. No Idid. I was trying to get okay,
all right, So let me goback. All right, I'm gonna
give you. I'm gonna give youa pass on this one. Does your
daughter own the car? My daughterowns her car, okay, and you

(25:11):
don't have any part of it.Right, No, but the neighbor thinks
my car. It doesn't matter whatthe neighbor thinks. The neighbor thinks your
car did it. Okay, fine, do you have any proof that you
say, no, it isn't.Here's my car, there's no dens,
there's nothing there. I had nothingto do with it. Okay, Then
that's what you say, I havenothing to do with it, and you
shut up. You don't have anyduty to tell them it's your daughters or

(25:32):
anything else. All you do issaying it's not my car, and you
put it in writing the bill.The law firm also sent a demand to
my daughter. But okay, shehas to worry about it. You don't
have any You don't worry about it. It's not your car. So you're
off the hook. You're off thehook. Now your daughter, she may

(25:53):
be on the hook. And there'ssome defenses you have saying you blocked my
driveway. I couldn't get out,and then they're going to argue you should
have had a toad and you say, well, I was on my way.
I tried. Did you try contactingthem? Was there anything your daughter
did to try to ameliorate the situation. Well, you know it was like

(26:15):
extended in no, yeah, Igot it. No, I understand it
was extended into the driveway. Iunderstand that part. Is there anything your
daughter did to try to ameliorate thesituation? Did she call the neighbor,
did she try to get it toad? Did she do anything other than pull
out of the driveway and hit thecar? No, she was on the
way to work. Okay, sothat's your defense. Okay, here's the

(26:37):
problem. Your defense is, Iwas on my way to work, and
the small claims judge, by theway, you're gonna get sued in small
claims court, or she is Imean turning it over to a law fer.
Maybe she'll get sued and superior court. Whatever. The only defense she
has, the only defense she hasis in the driveway on my way to
work. I couldn't be late.I didn't have time to call anybody.
And it depends on what the judgeis going to say, cause I think

(27:02):
certainly the driver of the other carhas a case. All right, you
hit my car and you have acase, or your daughter has a case
saying you didn't let me leave,you blocked the driveway. So we'll see
which way. It's a question whichway the judge wants to go. It's
that simple, nothing more, nothingless. On that one. Misty hi,
missy high. Yeah. Yes.So my dad died a few years

(27:30):
ago and left his estate to myoldest brother and sister. My brother blocked
my sister on everything, stopped speakingto her, changed the locks on the
house. So she died last weekand was never able to get her half

(27:52):
of the estate. My question iscan her children sue my brother? Yes?
Yes, yes, because she wasentitled to it. Uh and the
so she owns half whether or notshe actually has title to it because the
brother isn't letting her do it.She should have sued the brother by the

(28:14):
way, she really should have suitedthere maybe better to do it. And
there's and there may be a statuteof limitations. How long has it been
since your sister died and he screwedher out of her half? What was
the time my dad died? Aboutfive years ago? My sister died a
week ago? Okay, but letme ask you this. Your dad died

(28:38):
five years ago, and at thatpoint the sister and the brother were to
inherit the house. Who had titleto the house. So there, so
there's a will and as far asI can remember, just it was least
fifty to fifty to them. Soyou know what this is getting. Okay,

(29:00):
hold on. You know what I'mgoing to do. I'm going to
stick you on hold because of coursewe have a convoluted question. But I'm
going to give you a break.Let me do this after when we start
the next hour. Okay, okay, thank you, all right, just
hang on. Very rarely do Ido that, by the way, but
she seems nice. I don't knowwhat's wrong with me today. I don't
maybe I'm running a temperature. Ihave no idea. But let me tell

(29:22):
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(29:48):
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(30:10):
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