Coming up on this edition of Judica County Radio, your host Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm and practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, gonna get into, yeah, the First Amendment. And we have an issue with the power of attorney. Interesting story coming into the law firm this week. We will talk about that as well. And plus, our regular hijinks, that's coming up next.
Whitaker and Hamer present Judica County. with Joshua Whitaker and Joseph Hamer. Welcome into Judica County Radio, your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. They have offices almost everywhere: Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquavarina, Gastonia, and down at the coast at Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick.
Just a pleasure to jump on with the attorneys and talk about some of the latest when it comes to legalese. And we're going to get into the First Amendment eventually. But first and foremost, we kind of started off with how was the week, Josh? It's you know, it's been a it's been a long week, you know. Um We don't we don't really get into current events very often, but um You know, last week was a difficult, a graphic week, right, on social media.
You had. You had Mr. Kirk, Charlie Kirk, being assassinated on live TV, and then you had a couple of the young lady who got stabbed in in Charlotte. And so I spent a lot of this week talking to my kids about social media 'cause my oldest kid saw those things. and you know, on social media and um You know, I got into a conversation with a client and we were talking about comparing it to when to like sixty eight, you know, to sixty eight when uh When there was a couple of assassinations that were you know, on live T V and they're not as graphic.
Right. But, um, you know, kids seeing that, how you deal with that, and, um, So I think that was a rough week. I don't know if you guys had to have similar conversations, but before I could talk to my oldest son about it, because I saw it. And then I was going home and I was going to tell my kids, like, hey, why don't you just stay off social media today? We'll talk about what happened.
And of course, he had already seen it, but that was pretty rough.
Well, I mean, Josh, how did the conversation go? I mean, that's because your son is 16, 17? Yeah, 16. Yeah, I mean that's Yeah, it The whole time I was on vacation last week, and it just dominated everything. And, um, you know, it's just it's sad that we've gotten to the point where Uh it's almost like violence is normal.
And it just seems to happen all the time. And it's being ratcheted up. It seems like a notch every time. And this is some serious stuff. you know, we need to you know, come together as opposed to separate.
And I think right now we're pretty divided. We'll uh we'll see how it goes. Yeah, I talked I talked to my son just about um you know, kinda kind of the same thing. And and when something like this happens, you you know, hopefully everybody kind of stops and you know, thinks about what they say and and when they say it. That's gonna kinda lead we're gonna have a little bit of a First Amendment discussion 'cause we're uh you're kind of seeing the fallout where maybe when some people didn't react.
Uh Appropriately, and uh, you know, their jobs ended up terminating them or and social media and what You know, it's just like when we were growing up, we didn't have social media, so I didn't know what everybody thought about stuff. Right, I didn't know about the Everybody in my class, or everybody I work with, what their political opinions may be, or what have you, but there's consequences for that kind of thing, you know, and the First Amendment doesn't protect you. from some of the things I think people think it does. And just to add, back when I was working with Duke and the women's basketball program and and doing some radio with them, you know, we had social media and um We had Not classes, but we had sessions during basketball camp when all of the high schoolers from around the country, before we had NIL, would come in and they would participate in UNC's camp, they'd participate the next week in Duke's camp, they'd probably come over to state. But you would have some of the best high school players around the country sitting in the media rooms, and they had us come in and talk about social media.
The posting, the constant posting, being aware of the fact that people are watching what you do on social media and be aware that. you know, from a recruiting standpoint back then, it was a big deal. Uh, because if you're making an off-color comment in any way about anything, it's going to come back to possibly, you know, hurt you in the recruiting game back when that was, you know. Relevant right now, it's probably not as relevant. But when we had those discussions back in the day, you had to be very careful about.
Twitter, back when it was Twitter. Facebook Instagram. of educating the kids on, you know, it's out there. And it can be regurgitated.
So just, you know, be aware of what you post. and how you post. You know, I think about that when I was growing up back in the late 80s, mid 90s. That would be me, Joe. The uh Yeah, you didn't have social media.
You know, I don't I barely have any pictures of me and my friends, and the ones I do have look super old-timey. You know, every time I see them, I get disgruntled how old the film's like decaying, you know, or whatever, the pictures crumpled up. But uh you know we didn't we didn't have those issues. I didn't know what I didn't you know, I didn't know what people thought about everything that happened to him, you know, and and uh You know, my kids are pretty silent on social media. They just kind of observe.
But yeah, the kids, there's a lot of kids putting a lot of stuff out there, you know. That might come back to the haunting one out there.
So would Joe.
So there's a lot of adults putting a lot of stuff out there, man. There's a lot of So a lot of folks I never really understood the I don't think anyone cares what I have to say. Yeah. I don't. No, I'm just kidding.
And we like each other. You know, I don't know. I don't need to know. That's the thing. That's part of it.
Like, when people put stuff out there, like, who are you? You know, who are you? Why do you think people care what this like you're not an expert on the situation? It's just a different mindset, man. You know, I back in my day, I was around at the four, like.
When I was in college, that was like when Facebook had just come out and you know, at the time it was limited to your your campus, right? Like just just your college campus. And uh I don't think we had the foresight to understand how big it would come. And maybe that was our ignorance, but uh It was very different then. And, you know, I was a lot more active then because you you were just talking to people in your class, your close personal friend group.
And I don't think anybody, you know, at least I didn't realize at the time that this would be a thing. that would grow to the extent that it grew, but uh No excuse for the kids nowadays, man. They know. You should, everyone should know. You know, it's it's not difficult to sort out.
My kids have a little section of their. I don't know what class it is. I don't know if it's history or where they carve out the time, but they have a. Almost like a social media training camp that they do in different grades, you know, because the kids are already on there looking at videos and stuff. And And just kind of giving them a heads up.
And, you know, we try to talk about it at home. That's a good plan, man. That's good. I mean, that's the type of stuff. That's valuable knowledge, you know.
That's very impactful. I mean, well, you're you're being proactive. That's a good thing. Yeah, but yeah, that's my kids, man. I hadn't seen your kids post any dumb stuff, man.
I don't want them taking pictures of their nipples and throwing them out there or anything crazy, you know. Oh, that's what we're talking about. I didn't know we could do that. Everybody, that's big. Wow.
That's important. Yeah. Is someone doing that? I don't know. I don't know.
It seems to be that. It's front of mind for Josh with so much specificity, as if that's an epidemic among the kids today. That should be like a new trend. Like, guys just take up close personality. No, no, don't start anything.
Certainly. Don't suggest. New trend taking over. But anyway, a lot of people are throwing stuff out there, and then they're surprised when there's consequences for it, you know. And then you see some people try to use the First Amendment to, but, you know.
Yeah, we'll talk about it, but your employer can fire you for any reason. And whether that's good or bad, I don't know. For the most part. Yeah. For the very most part.
But. Anyway, we'll talk about that a little bit. We're going to talk about. You know, we talk about estate planning a lot on the show, and we talk about power of attorneys and how useful they are to have. But we're also going to, we're going to tell you what power of attorneys aren't.
Aren't always good for.
So, kind of, you know, they're not, they do a lot of stuff, but there's some things they can't do, and then that comes up from time to time.
So, I wanted to talk about that. Then, we're going to probably have a couple of listener questions. I always like those, right? If people are asking me those questions, then I assume that real world stuff, real world stuff. Like it.
So, we're going to do that. And then I watched a lot of football this weekend. I think this was the most football college and pro. I just watched football all weekend. There's nothing wrong with that, man.
That's pretty a wife a life well lived, I'd say. My old my oldest son loves watching plays football, loves watching football, and so I really watched football for like fifty-eight straight hours. And you guys are both you follow the bills, is that what you do? They're they're big Bills fans. We um You know, I'm a Panthers fan, but I don't have any ill will towards the Bills.
Um which is which is a tough life, you know. But you know what we did though?
So we got the package and we watched the Red Zone channel. Yeah. And once you start watching the Red Zone channel, you really hard to watch regular football. Regular football's too slow. And so we were watching, we were sitting on the couch watching the Red Zone channel for the first slate of games.
I think there were eight games at one o'clock this past week. And they were all close games, they were all pretty high-scoring games. It was nuts. That's a fun fun Sunday, man. That's a fun Sunday.
But if you're not raising kids the right way, Joe. If you're not watching the Red Zone channel, you're missing out. But for that first time. Hitting them with football. Keep him busy.
Well, you watch the Red Zone channel and it's like, do they play defense in the National Football League? And certainly in the Dallas Giants game, they didn't. Yeah. It's funny. That was a crazy game.
Yeah. That one went way into the four o'clock time slot 'cause uh I kept getting distracted from the Panthers bad first half by watching that one, you know.
Well, it's, I tell you, we are going to get into discussions on the First Amendment, also power of attorney. We'll have some listener questions coming up. We want to remind you, too, Josh, real quickly, talk about the complimentary consult and estate planning, what they're going to get if they can grab one of these. Yeah, as part of the radio show, we always do free estate planning consults. And so you can give us a call.
You can visit our website. Morgan will give you that information. But if you call and you say you listened to the radio show or you heard me and Joe talking about nipples or whatever we're talking about, and you want to sit down with us, we'll take a look. We'll give you a free estate planning consult. We'll get some basic information from you and then kind of give you our idea of what your estate plan should be.
We do a lot of this. Every week we do a lot of estate planning consults, but for a radio show, folks, that that's what we do. Rating spike, nipples, nipples, nipples. Josh, what are you doing? Uh, Judica County Radio going to continue on the other side.
The Complimerary Consult. on estate planning 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. It's complimentary. You're not paying for it.
It's an opportunity to see if you're on track with your estate planning. And if you haven't started, great way to do it. Again, there's no obligation. You don't have to become a client. 800-659-1186.
That's 800-659-1186. We'll get into the First Amendment coming up next on Judica County. We're about to get into a discussion on First Amendment and looking forward to it. Just want to remind you, too, we have complimentary consults on estate planning. They're available to you.
All you got to do is call 919-77270000. That's 919-77270000. Again, 919-77270000. You can also visit WH. Dot Lawyer Josh.
Yeah, so like we like we talked about last week you know, kind of a uh I guess a polarizing figure, Mr. Kirk, was assassinated on live TV. And we were kind of talking about that as it relates to kids and social media. Um but what we noted was that A lot of folks, you know, that's kind of the, you know, a lot of folks go on social media and and give their uh Hot takes on things that have happened. And sometimes when that's political in nature.
people get themselves into trouble. And so you're seeing a lot of folks who may be had kind of an insensitive take on Some of those events, you know, it's becoming national news that they're getting terminated, right? Their employer. is finding out what they posted on their private Facebook page, um And some folks, I don't know how many there are, you know, but some folks are getting terminated, and then those folks will cry. and say that the First Amendment should should protect them.
And that's not what it does, right? Right, Joe? I mean, that's not what the First Amendment does. People get confused. That that's right.
You know, there's I I think there's a misconception. Really, with a lot of folks, especially with those folks who are making that claim as to what the First Amendment actually protects. And, you know, there's several elements of the First Amendment. We're talking specifically about, you know, free speech, essentially. the right of individuals to express their opinions.
Um and and What's protected there is individuals have a right to express their opinions without. Government censorship or restriction. And there's exceptions to that, of course. Incitement to violence or threats or. You know, there's certain things that that That protection doesn't apply to, but The protection is against government censorship.
So, in these cases, these aren't cases of individuals being censored by the government. They're saying what they want to say. The government's not stepping in to limit their ability to say that. They have the right to say it. But there's no protection in the First Amendment.
Yeah. consequences as to you know, individuals, your employer. And you touched on it earlier, Josh. Yeah. We can speak to North Carolina, right?
North Carolina law, and North Carolina being an at-will employment state, in the absence of a contract that governs your employment. your employer can fire you for any reason Other than a reason that violates public policy.
So, you know, race-based reasons, religious-based reasons, there's things that are protected there as well. But. There's no protection. Yeah. Making Certain statements on social media, and your employer seeing that taking issue with it.
and firing you for it.
So Yeah, it's you you you can't you can't claim the First Amendment in in these situations. That's it. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting to see um you know, some folks and and and you know Your your employer doesn't have to You know, and it's weird because, you know, we were in this era of cancel culture, and I didn't like it during COVID. I was a big, you know, I didn't want to get a. I didn't want to get a vaccine.
I didn't want to do a lot of stuff during COVID.
Some of our Businesses were shut down. I wasn't a big fan of how COVID was handled in North Carolina, but. you know, there was a there was a big effort to kinda cancel Folks who felt that way. And I think those folks have been a little bit vindicated over time.
So it kind of works, this cancel culture kind of works. both ways and um I'm not a huge fan of it either way, but it is what it is. And so you need to know that.
Some of these people should have taken my kids' social media conversations. Context course that they're having to take about maybe what's appropriate to put out there. 'Cause if you're, you know. If you're what was the there was one of them, like you're a doctor. You know, a doctor was kind of celebrating what happened to Charlie Kirk, and his employer didn't really like that.
And that's a bad look for a doctor. Yeah, I just wonder. Oh yeah. Again, we talked about this already, but who who are they putting this out for? Yeah.
You know, like who what do they think? is going to come from People that follow them knowing this opinion. Um. But uh But anyway, First Amendment, sure, you can say whatever you want to, doesn't necessarily protect you from the consequences. Unless it's illegal, right?
And like Joe said, you can't be fired for your race, which is the way it should be. You can't be fired. For your religion, which is the way it should be, but you certainly can say whatever you want to, but your employer doesn't have to. Like it.
You know, and that's just the way it is. And I think most people know that. I don't think that's news to a lot of people. I don't know, guys. I it's almost like we've gotten to a point where we have this false sense of anonymity, where we can just put stuff out and you know we're we're in our little bubble.
You know, it's on our Facebook, it's on our Instagram, it's it's wherever, but it doesn't really impact you.
Well, it it does, and I think it's it's coming home to roost right now because a lot of people are making some comments. And man, when it's about politics, and you guys have seen it with probably family members, it's just cringeworthy stuff. And people just it's almost like, well, only my friends are gonna see it. It's out there. Yeah, yeah.
Uh You know, it's like you said, Josh, regardless of how you feel about cancel culture, whether you agree with it or disagree with it. I think our point from a legal standpoint you know It's just the understanding that again. The First Amendment's not going to protect you. From cancel culture and from individuals who are not the government taking efforts to. sabotage your life in some way.
And if there's If there's nothing else that that you can learn. from the internet and you know the the folks that are on the internet and that that use social media There's a lot of people out there, man, who are. They will make it their life's goal. They clearly got a lot of free time. And.
You know The anonymity is only going to protect you, but so much because there's folks who spend more time online than you do, and they are more resourceful than you are. And they will dig and they will dig and and You know, it's, it's, you're, you're playing with fire. I think I'm going to go back to flip phone. I think I'm going to go back to a flip phone. Yeah.
I would go back and use your flip phone to post dumb things. I think they're still going to find you, Josh. Instead of a flip phone, I used to have a trio, and I like that. You could still kind of search the internet and you could type normal, like type in a text on the I text a lot, and the text on the flip phone is tough. Yeah.
You got to really want to tell somebody something to text them from a flip phone. I think that's good, though, man. You have to really care about your message and put a lot of thought into it. Less is more concise. You're not going to go emojis.
Yeah, you're not going to go tweeting a big long tweet on your flip phone. Yeah, Maury, you touched on something, though. The anonymity and the. I I think that there's this false sense. For a lot of folks who are chronically online and who are very expressive in their opinions and You know, that's this isn't true for everyone that feels that way.
There's some folks who are very convicted. And they would probably stand in front of the people they criticize and say the same thing. But I would bet. That's a small percentage of those folks. This false sense of security and the bravado of people who feel like they're protected because they're in their house, on their phone.
out of reach of of the people that they're saying things about. They're not gonna If you're right in front of somebody. The vast majority of these people They're not going to take that approach. And they're not going to be able to do that. There should be an option on social media.
Like, if you're friends with somebody and they post something you don't like, there should be like a fight me button. Yeah. Where if I if I click that then you're bound by like legally legally bound to come to my house and fight me. That'd probably deter a lot of it, man. I think they would save people a lot of trouble for sure.
Yeah, just private message them and say, seriously? No. No, no. Fisticuffs. Yeah.
legally required fisticuffs.
So you're a block people type of guy, right, Josh? Like I'm a. I'm a m like. It almost makes me like I I don't like to block people because it gives me it's like there's this sense of like How dumb can you be? And it's like watching a train wreck.
And I kind of like to see the train wreck sometimes. On Facebook and Instagram, I'm on Facebook and on Instagram. I really just want to see how your kids are doing. Right. You know, what's going on with you?
Is your business doing good? Yeah, it's a good way to keep up. Maybe your kid's got a fundraiser, their team just won. That's what I'm looking for. And then you get smacked in the face.
That's right. That's all I'm on there for. And then I'm not on there for your political opinions or, you know, that I just I wonder who that works on. Like, what do they hope happens? Like, you put it on.
I think it works on the other people who do that. I think it's like an echo chamber. And. There's people like to feel validated, and it's like this circle of validation. Um and then they like to get a rise out of people.
Like it's it there's a multifaceted Well, and think about it too, the the algorithm is going to send Whatever you're going to post, if it's in a certain vein, you're going to get more of that on your feed. And so it's just like pouring gasoline on a fire. I saw a stand-up comedian make a joke, but he's talking about social media and how you end up following these people you barely know. Like, you know, hey, I met you at a networking event in 1999, and now I know about you and your kids and your political leanings. And you used to not know nothing.
You didn't know nothing about nobody, you know? And. I'm just saying maybe that was better. Maybe it was better when we were.
Well, you can still make that happen as to yourself. That's right. Keep it for that. People aren't. I mean, people listen to your very incredible radio show and learn things about you.
But outside of that, What are they gonna know about you? You know? I don't know. I don't know, man. You're a mystery, you know.
I don't know. You gotta think about what you're uh what you're what you're doing there. But the First Amendment's not gonna save your job if you post something uh controversial that your your employer Doesn't like.
So keep that in mind. Yeah. Don't get that in mind. We have complimentary consults. It's in and around estate planning here on Judica County Radio.
We're powered by, of course, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. Our hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners at that firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. To grab one of those consults, again, on estate planning, call 919-772-7000. That's 919-77270000. You can also visit the website wh.lawyer.
That's wh.lawyer. We've got more Judica County coming up on the other side. Judica County Radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, and they are practicing attorneys here in our great state of North Carolina. They placed offices everywhere: Moorhead City, Gastonia, Fuquay Varina, Goldsboro, Clayton, Garner, Cleveland, and right here in the capital city, Raleigh, North Carolina, for your convenience. I'm Morgan Patrick.
A pleasure to jump on. And we also want to remind you: we have complimentary consults in and around estate planning. Everybody needs one. You feel like you're Just hustling and bustling through life, what's going to happen in the end? Make sure you have an estate plan that will help you out in that category.
Again, the number to call: 919-772-7000. That's a complimentary consult on estate planning. 919-77270000. You can also visit the website, WHO. Dot lawyer Josh.
So we talk about estate planning a lot on this show because estate planning really affects everybody. You know, everybody needs some sort of estate plan. It could be different levels of complexity, but everybody needs to think about what's going to happen when they die. And so we talk about it a lot because it affects everybody. And you'll hear us talk about what's in an estate plan.
And of course, you know, we talk about wills and we talk about trust and we talk about healthcare power of attorneys and things like that. But we also talk about your general. durable power of attorney. Um And of course, a general durable power of attorney is what you sign, appointing someone to basically be able to handle your day-to-day business affairs when you no longer can. You know, it can be immediate.
You know, if you're adjudicated to be incompetent, they can step in. You can name some backups, but those are the people that would pay your bills. Go to the bank for you, just generally take care of your money, your investments. They're going to do everything that you would do in your normal day-to-day life. There are things that the power of attorney can.
Can't. Transfer power to do, right?
So let's say. Let's say I've got a general power of attorney. And I appoint Morgan. I say, hey, Morgan, you're going to be the guy. If something happens to me and I can't take care of stuff, I want you to take care of it for me, right?
So, Morgan can do a lot of things for me. You know, he can come to my house and he can pay my bills and he can check my mail and he can talk to my financial advisor. You know, he can talk to my lawyers. He can do a lot of things for me. But one thing he can't do, usually, the default is: let's say I'm the trustee of a trust.
I don't want this to get too confusing, and Joe, so stop me if this gets too convoluted. All right, stop.
Okay. Yeah. And I think you're good, man. We got a sophisticated audience. They're going to be fine.
Okay, so let's say, you know, we know Morgan can hand as my POA, as my attorney, in fact, as my agent, he can handle a lot of stuff for me, but there's things that he can't. Do by default. And so You know, I'm a partner here at the law firm, and so he can't run the law firm for me. I can't delegate that power to him. via power of attorney.
He he does not have the ability without More. Right, the default is he can't just come in and start running the law firm. Um Let's say I'm the trustee of a trust. You know, we talk about trust. Let's say there's a Whitaker family trust, I'm the trustee of the trust.
He can't step in for me as trustee. I have a fiduciary duty. and he can't use that POA to step in for me. Normally. There's exceptions to this.
Um So When we talk to you about your estate plan, if you're self-employed, if you own a business, if you are trustee of a family trust. we're going to talk to you about what a POA can and can't do. Right. So that trust so let's say in my role at the firm, Right, if I'm not available, if I'm unconscious or I've got dementia and I can no longer handle my day-to-day duties at the firm, Morgan's not going to handle that as my POA because the law firm. Is going to go.
Joe's going to run the law firm, right? That's we and Joe both run it together. If I'm not around, Joe's just going to do that. The business has dictated. That that's what's going to happen if I'm I'm not around, right?
So Morgan doesn't step into my spot as my POA because the business has determined ahead of time that Joe's just gonna be the man, right? I like that, man. I like how you described that last part.
So, and the trustee, in the same vein, the trustee, the trust document that creates the trust, if I'm not available, there's going to be a successor trustee. And let's say that's somebody else. Let's say that's uh that's one of my kids. Right. And so Morgan is not going to come in and run the trust as my POA, as my agent, as my attorney.
In fact, because the trust already says, hey, if Josh isn't available, It's uh it's old Mikey there who's gonna who's gonna be running the trust. And so I think a lot of people Very, very competent people don't necessarily aren't familiar with how that legally plays out, right? 'Cause we have a lot of people who call the firm and they'll be like, Hey, I want my um I want to give a POA to somebody, and the trust is buying property, or the business is. Selling itself, and we need, and you can't do that. That's not how that's done.
Right? It could be Morgan. If my trust says Morgan's the backup trustee, then Morgan can act as the backup trustee. If in our law firm, Morgan goes to law school and becomes a lawyer, and our law firm determines he's the guy, then he can do stuff for the law firm. But he can't do it as a POA.
And so POAs aren't. The whole point of this thing is that it's great to have a POA. You need to have a POA, a power of attorney in place. But a power of attorney is not this all-encompassing document that allows, in this example, Morgan to do everything for me that I could do for myself. Yeah, that's a good point, Josh, and I think it speaks to There's other elements of the law that you got to consider.
when you're you know either forming a business, you know, that's that's part of the example. Or in the context of your estate plan, if you've got a trust where you need to understand that the person you appoint is your POA. like you said, isn't just going to Be you in every situation. And even outside of those examples that you gave. You know, POAs take different formats, right?
So you can have a POA that's just completely custom drafted by an attorney, and they tailor-make it from top to bottom. They stipulate all the powers that you're delegating. And you know, that's that's one way it's done. And then there's there's a North Carolina statutory state form. that a lot of folks use, where it's just kind of a boilerplate Initial to give whatever authority you're going to give, or there's a spot you can initial to give all preceding authority.
But I think another thing that's important to mention is there's. There's a few other situations outside of the ones that you mentioned where If you don't, if you use that specific state form, or if you don't otherwise explicitly state, this is a power that I'm giving. to my attorney, in fact, to make these decisions on my behalf. They're not going to have that power. And the.
The most prevalent examples that I can think of is the first being gifts to the attorney in fact himself.
So I say I appoint you, Josh, as as my power of attorney. Uh Unless I explicitly state it and make it clear that you have the ability to do this, you can't just gift. Things to yourself as my attorney, in fact.
So that's, I think that's an important distinction, and that's one that actually comes up. a decent amount. You know, we see it a lot with real property. with individuals that for whatever reason You know, it could be a completely justifiable reason. They want to de property from the person they have the power of attorney for to themselves.
And in the absence of their power of attorney explicitly stating they can do that, That's not one of the powers that would generally be conferred.
So there's got to be some specificity to allow that. And then the other the other way we see that is with Dealing with life insurance and either canceling a policy or establishing a policy for an individual. Yeah. I think the the ultimate lesson is again be very careful with how you structure these things and make sure that you're looking at The entirety of your business plan and your estate plan in the context of these POAs, because you don't want to get into a spot where you think that that POA is going to cover you. If you get into a sticky situation and you end up stuck to where that person that you've you've intended to make these decisions for you can't do it the thing you want them to do.
So when you sit down with an estate planning attorney, that should be a conversation, and the estate planning attorney should bring that up. There's different kinds of power of attorneys. There's general ones that are very broad, there are specific ones for certain things. There are power of attorneys where you can kind of select the powers you want to gift. But, like Joe said, some things aren't automatic in North Carolina.
If you want your, if I wanted Morgan as my POA to be able to give himself gifts, right? And some people want to do that when it's their kids. And there's, you know, there's stuff there. They want their kids to be able to. Anyway, you have to state that.
It's not assumed. There's a lot of things that aren't assumed, and the default is the opposite. And so if you have those wishes or desires, your attorney needs to talk to you about that and get that kind of worked out. But, um, Power of attorneys are very useful. There's things they can't do.
There's things they can do, but it's not the default.
So, just a conversation needs to be had when you do your estate plan. We are going to talk more about the legalese coming back from Judica County Radio coming on the other side. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, and again, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Just finished up that discussion on power of attorney. May go back to it.
But we want to tell you too: a complimentary consult on estate planning. Call 919-77270000. That's 919-77270000. You can also visit the website wh.lawyer. Good resource for you there.
And you can sign up there as well. Dot Lawyer complimentary consult on estate planning. Call our number 919-772-7000 or visit wh.lawyer. We've got more Judica County coming up. Judica County Radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.
Office is located, Raleigh-Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuque Verena, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City down on the coast. I'm Morgan Patrick. Just a pleasure to jump on with the attorneys. We've talked about already today: First Amendment, obviously, a lot going on in that category. Power of attorney as well.
We are going to get into some more discussion. Got a few listener questions coming your way. Want to remind you that there is a complimentary consult on estate planning. If you want one, all you got to do is call 919-772-7000. That's 919-77270000.
You can also visit the website wh.law.com. And looked it up during the break. Actually, it kind of came to me. Robert Redford passed away this week, age 89. And I said during our commercial break: your favorite Redford movie, if you have one.
I mean, when I was a kid, I saw most of the natural. I haven't I haven't watched that in a long time and maybe I need to. Um I don't know that I could name another movie. You saw most of it? Butch and Sunday.
Get up and leave during it?
Well, I was a kid. I probably got bored. Yeah. Yeah, you got uh Let's see, yeah. He's got a lot, man.
Yeah, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. That was a big one. That's right. Barefoot in the park. We're talking about things in the 60s.
The candidate. Where he played Bill McKay. That's actually, if you like politics, you'll enjoy the candidate. Uh the sting. He was Johnny Hooker.
That's a famous have you seen these movies? Morgan's seen every movie, Josh. Yeah, I was a radio television motion picture major at the University of North Carolina, which is now Mass Communications. It was an excuse for me to watch a lot of movies and obviously TV. It worked out like a pretty cool for you, man.
Yeah, I did okay. It was way cooler than political science. Yeah. Yeah, let's see. Let's see.
Brewbaker, the electric horseman. I think he did horseman with. Fonda. And let's see. Legal Eagles was pretty good.
You guys would probably enjoy that. Sneakers. Yeah, there's he's you were a big fan of the horse whisperer, weren't you, Josh? I can't say I've seen I thought you said that was your favorite movie. Yeah.
Yeah, Spy Game, Last Castle. These are all coming out in the 2000s, but obviously that's just acting, and he's got a host of director credits. Um done quite well in that category as well. I saw a lot of things come up. You know, we're in the studio Tuesday morning, so a lot of this is coming up today.
But I, you know, they see the tributes on social media to Mr. Redford. And I'll just tell you this, guys, when I pass away, Whether it's God forbid, tomorrow, or I'm a ripe old 100 years old. Let's go for the 100. That's what I'm hoping for, bro.
200, man. There's a lot of advances. I think you get on the stem set. There are a lot of additives in your food. You might your your body might not decompose until you're 200.
I think in about five years we'll all have like robot legs. That's what I'm thinking, you know. Like when your knee goes out, you won't get a knee replacement. It was given to you.
Sounds like somebody wants to play more basketball. I'm waiting. You should play more basketball, man. I think that's another thing. The point of my story is when that time comes when I pass away, don't put like the most recent picture.
Of me, like in any kind of a tribute or whatever. I'm putting your actual corpse picture, man. That's mine. All right, so if we're looking if we're looking at a graph of pictures of Josh, what year is your peak? I think you go back to like 1999, 1998.
I think you go back to uh When you're a young man, when you're a strapping man, young whippersnapper job. Don't put a picture of me what I'm like. 88 and disheveled, right? And I don't, you know, I didn't comb my hair. I just, I think some of these pictures that they did for Mr.
Redford's tribute, they probably could have gone back and gotten something from Mr. Prime. And I think that's probably what he would have wanted, right? We're going to make a note in your estate plan. To make sure that this is noted.
Only young pictures of me to be used in my. And in 2172, when you pass it on. You don't want the rustic. Josh out there? No, no, no, no.
I think I mean maybe if there's Maybe if there's like a good one of me holding like grandkids or something, maybe you can go. Oh, so we're going way in the future, man. Yeah, I hope you. Yeah, there's a radio. Commercial that we put on television down in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, when I was 20.
Three. That would probably be the look. I had plenty of hair buff on the beach, throwing the football, coming off my lifeguard gear. I mean, if you're paying tribute to me, get me in my prime. Here's the thing, though, man.
I think what you're forgetting is. Your prime could still be ahead of you, man. You could turn the corner. I could. And you could really get yourself in incredible shape.
And the best version of Josh could be down the road somewhere.
Well, I mean, think about it. Think about it, Redford was, you know, obviously very big at a younger age, but he got even bigger. Uh, when he got the salt and pepper and he got a little bit older, like a cloony, you know, clooney's kind of grown into the lexicon of movies, but his mature self seems to be the favored by the uh, you know, the mass public. I think your clooney era is right around the corner. I think you're actually in your cloony era right at the beat, man.
Honestly, now on the small you think clooney now is better than facts of life, George Clooney. Oh, gosh, yeah, for sure, man. For sure. I don't know that he would. Maybe you get to pow around with Brad Pitt.
I mean, how bad could that be? Clooney's living a decent life, dude. MC's doing fine. He's doing fine. But uh.
When you go, man, I think that's when I'm gonna start posting inflammatory stuff on social media. I'm gonna break my hiatus and just go scorch to earth. Yeah. Should have heard some of the things Josh said on the brakes for this radio show. Secrets.
The secrets on the inner tube at the lake, smoking a cigar. Yeah. That's how you should go. That's how I hope you do go. 173.
In an inner tube. Floating. Maybe by the time we get older, man, you get like a pig heart, you know? Pig heart and robot legs and make it to like 200. That's coming.
And uh I look forward to that. You beating your you with your robot legs, your pig heart. Your uh your elk lungs just destroying your grandkids in sports, crushing their hopes and dreams. I hope that's it. I hope that's what the medical researchers are working on right now.
Well, if not, man, maybe the medical research listeners to the show. Just got an A-plus idea. That's what the people want, man. That's what the three people here who have now want, for sure, saved me with a pick heart. Hmm, I'll take it all day.
I think I'd go electric and AI and go that route as opposed to Pig Heart. I think we'll make those pigs out there, Morgan. Yeah, it's true. It's true. I mean, we're in a pig state.
We're in a pig state. Wilbur pig state. We want to remind our listeners, we do talk legalese. We've been hitting on power of attorney, but also First Amendment today. We are offering up complimentary consults on estate planning.
Simply call 919-77270000. That's 919-7727000. Took a little bit of a Robert Redford break/slash comparing Josh to Clooney. But that was interesting. 919-77270000 for that complimentary consult on estate planning.
You can come in and you can see if Josh. resembles Cloney at all. But anyway, we're saying he's in his cloony years. WH.LAWYER is the website, wh.lawyer. Josh, anything else before we wrap up this segment?
No, no, we were supposed to do a listener question. We didn't get to it, so we'll do it after the break. All right, listener questions are coming up. You're listening to Judah County Radio, your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. And they are located right here in North Carolina where they practice law.
They have offices located in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquai Verena, Castonia, and in Moorhead City for your convenience. Again, complimentary consult on estate planning available. Simply call 919-77270000. That's 919-7727000. You can also visit the website, wh.lawyer.
Sign up there, wh.lawyer. We're back right after this. We are back on Judica County Radio, your host Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners. Whitaker and Hamer law firm, they practice. Law right here in the great state of North Carolina.
They have offices conveniently placed in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay Verenic, Astonia, and down at the coast at Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. Just a pleasure to jump on and talk legalese. We're going to get into listener questions in this portion of the show. I want to remind you: we do have complimentary consults on estate planning.
If you've been thinking about it, not sure how to get started, this is a great opportunity for you. 919-772-7000 for that complimentary consult on estate planning. 919-77270000. You can also visit the website, wh. Dot lawyer.
Josh.
So, one of our listener questions we didn't get to, and this comes up from time to time. We had a client who Or we'll have clients who have defaulted on different agreements, right?
So let's say you sign a Note at the bank for a car loan, or you sign an agreement to lease equipment, or you know, rent a car, or whatever.
So, you've entered into this formal signed agreement, and then. Um You breach it.
something happens, right? You don't you don't follow through, you don't pay what you're supposed to pay, you miss you miss payments. Credit card's a good example, right? And you so you you have this agreement with these folks and then you you breach the agreement. And so let's for our example, let's just use a credit card because everybody has a credit card.
And let's say you owe $5,000 on your credit card, hit a hard time, you can't make payments, and you breach it. You don't make your payments, and so your credit card cuts you off. And the question here is: what can they do about it? Basically, what can In this example, your credit card. Do.
And how long do they have to do it? That's kind of the question, right? This person said, I can't pay this credit card. They may go talk to a bankruptcy attorney. There's all kinds of options available to this person, but.
Okay. Besides that, What can this credit card company do, and how long do they have to do it? That's the question, Joseph. A simple, short answer for you is: they're going to sue you. Yeah, at some point Right?
Sue you for breach of the agreement, the credit card agreement that you signed, and they're going to sue you for what you owe and interest and attorneys' fees, because that's probably all in that contract. And so at some point, they're going to to sue you. Um And I guess the second part of that question, Joe, is how long do they have to to do that? I mean, th what is what does your agreement say? And that's the.
I guess that's the That's one part of that question. And then there's also a practical aspect to it. And these. you know, these companies are not in the business of losing money. And they're not in the the business of just, oh, no big deal and and for you know, forgetting about it or just letting it slide.
You know, they have entire entire departments within their organization and their only job is Is or they outsource the collection of the debt that is owed.
So. They will one million percent. Be pursuing that. I think the exact timeline is going to vary depending on who. Who the company is, again, what the terms of the agreement say, but it's it's coming, man.
And uh So the, yeah, and I would add, so there's a, you know, for a breach, for a breach of most contracts, you know, there's a statute of limitations. Right. There's a. Yeah, so they they've got In a normal situation, in our example, the credit card company more than likely has three years from the date of your breach.
So if you breach it today, They've got until September of twenty twenty eight. To actually file a lawsuit and sue you for what you owe them. They probably won't wait that long. Yeah, and that's what I was going to touch on. Yeah, that doesn't mean they're waiting to the last minute.
Arguably, if you default under that agreement, they could. immediately pursue action against you. And some will be quicker than others and some will work with you more. It just depends. Yeah, they might reach out to you and try to settle it for less than is owed so they don't have to incur attorney fees or collection fees.
But in the end, if nothing happens, eventually they'll sue you. They have three years to do it.
So they could wait until September 2028 to to do it and then they would in theory, get a judgment against you, right? As part of that litigation that they filed within three years, say they got a judgment against you for ten grand, because at this point you owe interest and attorneys' fees and everything else. And then that judgment's good for ten years.
So now we're 13 years down the road, and North Carolina law allows them to renew that judgment for another 10 years. This could go on for This could affect you for twenty three. Years. And we see it every day. You know, not every day, but it's not uncommon.
You know, especially we do a lot of real property transactions and. It's not uncommon to see somebody who who had one of these default credit card judgments entered against them, they just ignored it. And you're seven, eight years down the line. And what was a $7,000 judgment has ballooned. to ten ten plus thousand.
Uh and It has to be dealt with. That's something that if you're selling property and there's a judgment against you, it's going to be a lien against the real property you own. Uh You know, depending on the circumstances, but that's generally going to be the case. And you're going to have to pay that, you know, whether it's at your closing, whether you pay it beforehand.
So. Don't ignore these things. You know, there's not a ton of creative defenses that you can raise to non-payment of a credit card. You know, obviously, a bankruptcy could potentially fit your situation. That's something you could look into and pursue.
Or, like you said, Josh. Negotiating that debt down is what a lot of these folks will do just to avoid the the trouble of pursuing it. You know, don't don't just ignore it. Yeah, you know, we've talked about that before. It's easy to do.
You know, a lot of people. You know, legal issues can really beat them up. And it's a mental strain when you're having to deal with litigation or. you know, divorce and and you know, or or death and and and so You know, it's ignoring it never really works out. You know, if there's not any immediate consequences and you ignore it, there are definitely going to be long-term consequences.
You know, we, like Joe said, we see that every day. These judgments sit out there, and then you go to sell a house, or you maybe you inherit a house. Right? Maybe you inherit your parents pass away, you inherit some property, and then you've got all you've got these judgments that are just sitting out there that will attach to anything that you own that you can't otherwise protect. And so, you know, these things sit around and Uh we had we had we had one not too long ago.
Somebody had a judgment against them from uh the yellow page. You remember the yellow pages? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, I guess they had to sign a contract to advertise with a phone book or something, and there was a judgment, and no one remembered it or knew about it, but then it had to be dealt with because it was still around. Um I don't know the last time I saw a phone book, but they owed they owed some money, you know, and and so things things sit out there and they don't they don't go away easily unless you take some kind of affirmative action to to deal with it.
So it's I know it's easy to do. But yeah. We're going to run out of time, aren't we? Yeah, you're close. I was going to ask you for some closing thoughts as we wrap up the program.
Again, we've been talking about on the show so far. I mean, First Amendment, power of attorney, getting into some listener questions. Obviously, social media was a big part of our discussion today, just the importance of, you know, once you put it out there, knowing it's out there, and especially for our younger generations that feel like there's that anonymity, there really isn't, and it can come back to bite you. But anyway, I think very interesting discussions today. You know, I was thinking in the break, I get Robert Redford and Paul Newman confused.
Ah, talking about Paul Newman this whole time. Yeah, I was thinking about Paul. I was thinking 'cause he's the dressing guy, right? Paul Newman has the dressing, right? It's not Redford.
You would know the guy, man. Robert Redford had dressing. You would have sat there. But Paul Newman and Robert Redford were in Butch Casting The Sundance Kids. Yeah, together.
Yeah, there you go. Yeah. And you saw that movie, Joseph? No, no, but I said it like you knew what it is. I know what it is, yeah, for sure.
You know, I'm aware of it. A little before my time. A little before my time too. Yeah, you're definitely in your cloony stage there, Josh. All right, Judica County Radio.
We do have complimentary consults in and around estate planning. Call this number 919-7727000. That's 919-77270000. They'll set you up with one of those. Again, there's no cost to it, there's no obligation.
You can also visit the website, wh.lawyer. If you ever thought about getting started with the estate planning, it's a great way to kind of dip your toe into the estate planning pool, see if it's a good fit. 919-7727000 or WH.lawyer. Another edition of Judica County Radio is in the books. Our hosts are, of course, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm.
They practice law right here in the great state of North Carolina, and they have offices located convenient for you in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuque Verina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. Again, complimentary consult available: 919-7727000 on estate planning. That's wh.lawyer if you want to go a la the counter. I'm Morgan Patrick. We'll see you on the radio next week.
Judica County is hosted by attorneys licensed to practice law in North Carolina.
Some of the guests appearing on this podcast may be licensed North Carolina attorneys. Discussion on this podcast is meant to be general in nature, and in no way should the discussion be interpreted as legal advice. Legal advice can only be rendered once an attorney, licensed in the state in which you live, has the opportunity to discuss the facts of your case with you. The attorneys appearing on this podcast are speaking in generalities about law in North Carolina and how these laws affect the average North Carolinian. If you have any questions about the content of this show, you can direct such inquiry to Joshua Whitaker at jmw at mwhlaw.lawyer.
