Coming up on this edition of Judica County Radio, your host Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, your practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, going to get into some questions from around the legal community. The lottery office pool, the wrong survey, the wedding gift check, and the dog bite at the dog park. That's what we'll start with. That's coming up next on Judica County. Whitaker and Hamer presents Judica County.
with Joshua Whitaker and Joseph Hayman. Welcome in to Judica County Radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, and their practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, in offices all over our great state. Down at the coast, Moorhead City, you got Gastonia over near Charlotte, and then sprinkled in between, Fuquay Varina, Goldsboro, Clayton, Garner, Cleveland, and the Cap City, Raleigh, North Carolina. I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to jump on with the attorneys.
We're going to get into some legal questions from around the legal world, and these do happen, these scenarios, and we'll talk about them. But first and foremost, let's just jump in with how the week went. Josh, you're first.
Well, uh So I we'll see we're coming off July 4th holiday and uh That was a good week. July 4th's always a good time. I think I just think July 4th may be my favorite. holiday Okay. mister USA.
But you don't like them. You don't like America? I'm I'm fine with America. Me and America are good.
Okay. But you think it's just okay. I think it's fantastic. You're just trying to face it, man. The But it's just such that you get the extra day off, right?
So it's a three-day weekend. Mm-hmm. It's usually nice. It was super hot, but I mean, you know, I'll take that over. pouring rain, right?
Super hot? No. It was like the sun. The lake was warm. Yeah, the beach was nice, man.
I was at the beach, and uh. I cannot complain. personally. Oh. Thought it was very nice down there.
Good breeze. Not too.
Now, if you get, you need when it's that hot, you need to be around the pool, whatever it is, man. You need to be around water because you need to be able to just. I was. I was I was cleaning up and uh One day was like a workday, and I was just cleaning up, doing stuff, but I kept getting in the lake like every hour. I just got in the lake, rinsed off, got cooled down a l a little bit.
'Cause it was, you know. Lake temps are pretty high. I was gonna say you probably have to go down about 10 or 15 feet to get the cool stuff, right? Yeah, you have to go you have to go down to get your legs. You do a lot of deep diving when you're at the lake ties.
Caught some catfish. Um Yeah? Yeah. It was nice. It was a good time.
So I enjoyed it. It's kind of sad to be. Back here, honestly, Morgan. But, uh. Way to sell it, Josh.
I really don't want to do the show today. I want to be back at the lake. That's what I want. But wouldn't everybody? I mean, I'm sure Joe would rather be at the beach.
Um, yeah. Yeah. Well, you do have the Moorhead City office. One of you could relocate and just go remote from there. I called Dibbs.
I called Dibbs on that. We got to get the kids out of school, man. Get the kids done with the school. Oh, your kids are in school? Yeah.
You got some fortune kids for them. Yeah, my kids are free-range right now. I don't know where they are. I don't know where they are. We could go home school and just take the kids wherever we wanted to go.
I don't think the kids would. Are you volunteering to homeschool? No. Oh. I didn't know if you would homeschool me.
to home school folks. I uh I don't have enough math knowledge. Yeah. Right. That's one piece of the puzzle, man.
It's still out, you can still tell what the puzzle is, man. It's no big deal. Hmm. Anywho. That's it, man.
That's all we did. I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything else just at the lake. And now now we're now we're here, which is fun. This is fine.
Uh any of you guys watched the World Cup uh and and our uh our exit? Yeah. Wildly disappointing, man. Yes. Wildly disappointing.
F-O-O-T. We should play Belgium in football. Ha, tomorrow. Ha ha ha. I think that's a good idea.
Send our professionals. Send our professionals. I think it's only fair that that's what we do. They should have to play us in football. Mm.
Yeah. That's what we should do, man. Did everybody watch? Was everybody. I mean, did everybody was watching except me?
Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. I was watching a little King of Queens. You probably had a more enjoyable experience watching the King of Queens than you would have watching the King of Queens. I'm just thrilled it wasn't the Simpsons.
I mean, King of Queens, man, you're really stretching it. I like it. Yeah, you're growing, Josh. I've seen all the King of Queens, man. Like, I don't watch soccer traditionally, right?
Like, it's not something that I've spent much time watching, but at the beach. With like people who enjoyed it. I found. Was alright, man. I didn't hate.
Watching it, man. It was okay. I'm trying to think. There was a game on this past weekend. It was like, it was like Saturday, and there was baseball wasn't on.
And there was nothing on TV. It's watchable, man. I can tell you it's watchable. I know you're like me. You didn't grow up a big soccer guy.
I understand that. But I have actually found enjoyment watching it until last night. which was not enjoyable at all. Whatsoever.
Well, I immediately went and looked at legacy, family, blood ties. And I noticed that we do have Norwegian in our bloodline. And having Norwegian in my bloodline, now I'm shifting. I've been practicing on my rowing. Yeah, I'm with you, Morgan.
I'm on the same page. That's what I'm saying. Dude, he is. I've been I've been I everybody's getting it on their social media feeds, but uh how he's a massive Hurricanes fan too, man. How can you not?
Yeah, he showed up here uh early on. Uh I guess it was the Stanley Cup finals. He was at one of the games. Um But he seems like a really cool dude and Yeah, I mean, he didn't have an easy time, you know, getting to the level that he got to because he was pretty much overlooked, and then he hit a growth spurt. Kind of like, remember back in the day when you guys were much younger, when Tim Duncan.
Was recruited out of the Bahamas by Wake Forrest, and he was 6'1, 6'2 playing guard, and then all of a sudden he shot up to his 6'11. And obviously, the rest is history. But, you know, Holland's the same way. I mean, he was kind of a little guy. He was a real rough-style player, but really good skills.
And then when he grew in. To that frame, and he's almost unstoppable. You know that guy, Josh? You familiar with him? He's a one-man show.
I saw, I saw, yeah, I saw him. You'd appreciate him, man. He kind of, he'll, he'll. It's funny 'cause he'll just like stand there and he'll he'll walk around. And then he just scores like crazy.
It's like, and he looks like a Viking. I mean, he's just big and blonde, and he's got the flowing locks. I mean, it's just like. You know, the growth spurts. My kids are in high school and they measure themselves every day, like they weigh every day.
Dude, your oldest kid? I mean, what is his frame right now? He's a massive kid. He's 6'2 ⁇ , 290 because he's getting ready for the football season. But they're.
They're constantly like excited, right? Because they're still growing. They're not old and decrepit like us. But how fun would it be? They're not shrinking.
Yeah. How fun would it be if, like, You got a growth spurt like every 10 years, like you know, at 40 and 50 and. 60. You knew you were.
So you're 20 feet tall? What are you, Job of the Hut? No, but wouldn't be 60? That was exciting with a kid. Like, my doctor told me, like, back when you used to have to get physicals for sports.
My doctor was like, Oh, if you keep growing like this, you're going to be 6'6. I'm not 6'6. It didn't happen. He jinxed you. But I remember being excited-like, oh, I'm gonna grow.
And, you know, he knocked on wood, man. Yeah. Now the only way you can grow is by getting real fat. Nah. You can do.
Can't you do implants in your legs now and stretch them? I think you can get your legs broken. Yeah, let's do that. Let's do that. I'm still holding that hope, man.
If I can get to 7-1-7-2, I still have a basketball career ahead of me. That's right. You got all your eligibility. Yeah. You got all five years now.
Yeah. Save it until they develop the technology to make me seven feet tall. All right, so what we'll do is we'll take a break, come back, and we'll hit some of these questions. Want to remind you, too, and Josh, real quickly, the complimentary consult, estate planning, personal injury cases. Got some questions, those are available to you.
Yeah, give us a call. Will one of our attorneys, you know, if you've been in a car accident, you need help figuring out what the next steps are, putting a value on your case, you know, that stuff we do for free.
So you can give us a call, you can talk to an attorney, figure out the process, your rights. And uh, that doesn't cost you anything, and then we do the same thing kind of for estate planning.
So, if you've uh You know, been putting off, getting your will done. You've got questions about revocable living trust, power of attorneys. We don't charge you to sit down with you and kind of educate you, tell you what we think about the situation based on your facts and your. Assets and your family.
So that's all, we do all that for free. Um so the console is is is free on those things. All right, here we go. Consult. You can grab one at any time, 919-7727000.
That'll get you in touch with Whitaker and Hamer. Estate planning, personal injury cases, got questions? Grab one of the consults. No cost, no obligation. 919-77270000 or visit the website wh.lawyer.
We got more at Judica County coming up. Judica County Radio, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts. They're the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, which means they're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, and they've placed offices all over the state: Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquave Arena, Gastonia, and down at the coast, Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to jump on with the attorneys.
We get into some legal questions. You've got some questions possibly about a case that you're in involving possibly estate planning. Maybe there's a personal injury case. We do offer up complimentary consults for our listeners. Simply call 919-77270000.
That's 919-7727000. No cost, no obligation. You can visit wh.lawyer as well and get signed up there. Again, consult on estate planning, personal injury case that you're facing. Got some questions, grab the consult 919-77270000.
Or WH.Lawyer. All right, guys, first category: the lottery office pool. This happens quite a bit. Here's the question: 10 employees have played the same lottery numbers together every Friday for eight years. One employee was on vacation and forgot to Venmo the $10 that week.
The group bought the tickets anyway using the usual numbers, and they won, are you ready for this? $42 million. The group says he wasn't in because he didn't pay. He says everyone knew he was part of the pool and intended to reimburse them on Monday. Does he probably have a claim?
So I've never I have never played The lottery. I have. You have. Yeah, we've done the office thing. Yeah, it's a thing.
Big team. Do you win? Not 42 million. I don't think you'd be here on our radio show. We did it for a couple of years at a former employer, and they're about maybe s it started off with like six of us.
And I think we won. I think we won like a grand, won a thousand dollars. But the rule was we wanted walk away money. And the group had decided that if it wasn't walk away money, we would just reinvest whatever winnings into more Tickets and we did scratches. We didn't do the big lot.
And so a couple of people very early on when we won that early $1,000, they wanted their piece and they go, That's not what we agreed on. We agreed on rolling it into more scratches. And we got up to about, I think, $4,400 in total winnings, but we kept reinvesting, reinvesting, reinvesting, hoping to hit the big one. Never did. But we ended up losing.
A couple of our employees because they were irritated they didn't get a piece of the thousand. But we'd already had the discussion, so. You should have written in with that question, Morgan. I mean it's a good one, but I mean 42 million is 42 million. I mean, this is a big deal.
Yeah, and you know, this is the kind of thing where, you know. you know, attorneys start talking about oral Contracts and what you can enforce. And I'm sure if they showed this was a pattern, you know, where they accepted money from him on Mondays, you know, that would be his claim. But this is the kind of thing that. That settles, you know.
You look at this as an attorney, and you talk to this one employee who didn't pay, is getting excluded and. Yeah, there's enough of an argument there to get a lawsuit filed. And have to try it. And a lot of times, this kind of stuff, you know. You know what the real loser is in this in this scenario?
Hmm. It's the uh it's the company who's gonna have zero employees after they all quit from winning the lottery. What a nightmare. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's probably that's probably right.
'Cause I say ten employees splitting forty two million.
So four point we have four point two million apiece. It's a pretty good day, man. That's a pretty good day.
Well, and, you know, taxes gotta pay the tax man. But still it's a nice lump and Yeah, I can see a lot of those people not. For that kind of money, you know, the lawsuit will be a serious lawsuit, but you're. You know, as the attorney here, you got to get the oral contract in, you got to get their. What was the agreement?
Like you were talking about, Morgan, even that simple agreement that you and your employees had, it was misunderstood, right? Everybody thought they were on the same page. very simple Agreement, that happens all the time, man. All the time, where people come into us. And they've got some sort of agreement, or they went into business with somebody, or they were going to sell land, or buy land, or do something, and it was all.
Verbal, and everybody thought they were on the same page. And there's always one major term that they weren't on the same completely. you know, misunderstood. And that's why attorneys always harp on You know, we need something in writing. Give us something in writing, and then if everybody agreed to that, you know, there still can be misunderstandings even when it's in writing.
You can have a sentence that means two different things to two different people based on. you know, their understanding of the facts. Uh but it's less likely to have a misunderstanding if you commit it. to to writing. But this guy's gonna have to prove he participated.
He paid late before. It wasn't a big deal. Here are the text threads where we talk about it. And I would imagine this guy, they've been doing this for a year or two. could probably prove he's he's probably entitled to a share.
Um And even if he doesn't get the full 4.2 million, I mean I'm sure he'd settle. Right? For two or three, you know. But um Yeah, man, I never we didn't have it growing up. I was going to play it one day.
Like, I was going to play the numbers one day, but I was kind of confused by the forms. And I was like, you know what? I'm just not going to. I guess scratch-offs make more sense.
Well, scratch-offs, and then they've got the quick pick now. You can just say, give me quick picks, and the computer will pick it for you.
So you don't have to fret over the numbers. But there are a lot of people that like to do birthdays. birth years you know, stuff like that. Anyway, I think that's a very interesting question. All right, we got one more, this segment.
Category is the wrong survey. Here's the question: A buyer purchased five acres after reviewing a survey provided by the seller. Two years later, while building a detached garage, a new survey revealed the original surveyor mistakenly included nearly an acre belonging to the neighbor. The buyer already cleared the land and built a driveway. Who probably bears the loss here?
Well, you know, you've got a couple of things going on in this question here.
So, buyer purchased, you know, anytime you're purchasing property. Your closing attorney is going to recommend You get a survey. You hire a survey. And you get a new survey of the property, right? The surveyor is the one who goes out there and marks the corners.
Shows you where your lot lines are. Shows you if there's any encroachments, fences, garages, you know. I always call on surveyors. We do a lot of real estate closings here at the firm, and we can see everything that's on public record. Like we can see when your subdivision got platted out, right?
Let's say you're lot 30 of Josh and Joe acres. We can see. lot 30 what it would originally look like. Um And there's GIS, there's other things we can look at, but we don't know where everything sits on your property lawn. We don't know where your neighbor's fence is or your neighbor's, like, we can't see.
The building and encroachments, that's what the surveyor does. He's like the eye. The surveyor, he or she are like the eyes of the. Of the closing. And so we always recommend you get a survey.
It's not always practical to get a survey. That's always our recommendation. Get it.
Sometimes timing doesn't work out.
Sometimes you're buying a property that's been surveyed so many times you don't really have a lot of concerns. And here, that seems like that's what happened, right? This guy's buying five acres, so he's buying acreage. which you really want to get surveyed. And the seller just gave him the survey that he got when he bought it, right?
So I don't know, Joe. I would argue here the buyer. Um That survey the the seller had a surveyor do a survey for him Not the buyer.
So the buyer doesn't, I don't know that the buyer has any action against the surveyor. Yeah, that's that's that's true 'cause again, there's I mean, that's almost a. That's almost too complicated for Sometimes we'll get these that we could do an entire legal breakdown that would take the entire show on. Um and this one's one of those where it's it's tricky 'cause you got privity of contract issues. Um you know, there's just there's so much there.
This yeah, the I know we're coming up against the break. The buyer's probably gonna have to sue their seller if they didn't get what they bargained for. I mean, that's ultimately where it's going. And then the seller can sue the surveyor 'cause they had a they had a relationship, but But anyway, I know we're up against a break. We could.
We both do a lot of real estate. We could talk about, we could bore our listeners with that question for some time, but we won't. All right, the complimentary consult, estate planning, personal injury case that you might be facing. Grab it at any time, 919-77270000. That'll get you in touch with Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm.
You can also visit the website, wh.lawyer. Again, complimentary consult 919-7727000 or wh.lawyer. More Judica County coming up. Judica County Radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, located right here in the great state of North Carolina, and that's exactly where they practice law. They have offices placed in our capital city, Raleigh, also in Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Few Clave Arena, down near Charlotte in Gastonia, and on the coast at Moorhead City.
I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to be on with both Josh and Joe. And we get into these legal conversations. We also. Have complimentary consults in and around estate planning or a personal injury case you're facing.
You got some questions, grab one of the consults. You can call it anytime, 919. 772-7000. That's directly to the firm, 919-772-7000. Just say I'd like one of those consults and they'll sign you up.
You can also go to wh.lawyer, get signed up there as well. All right, next category is the wedding gift check. Here's the question: A grandmother wrote a $50,000 wedding gift check to her granddaughter. Before the granddaughter deposited it, the grandmother unexpectedly passed away. The bank refused to honor the check because the account had been frozen for a state administration.
Does the granddaughter probably still receive this money? That's a tough situation right there, isn't it? It's a super tough one, man.
So, our listeners have really been coming up with some humdingers today. This is.
So, a grandmother was gonna, it sounds like a grandmother was gonna pay for a granddaughter's wedding. Cut her check and then she passed away.
So when you pass away, As soon as your bank You know, anybody doing business with you is going to kind of freeze everything, right? Everything once they find out you've died. everything's going to be frozen. Um So here if the grandmother's passed away and they're gonna the bank the bank is gonna look and on your accounts Right on your accounts, you can have different beneficiaries who are going to get the money. Right, so let's say the grandmother's accounts are going to her Kids, right?
She wrote this $50,000 check to her granddaughter, but all of her checking and savings and money market and investment accounts, they're all payable on death. To The mom of the granddaughter, right? The son of the grandmother, that generation. And that $50,000 check, if it hadn't cleared, it's an incomplete gift. Surely the grandmother intended for her to get that $50,000.
It didn't happen. The check didn't clear. It didn't happen before she died. The check ain't gonna clear. And that money is technically going to belong to somebody else.
And um You know, if it's not a close family. If it went to multiple people and not just the the the parents of the granddaughter Yeah, I don't see the granddaughter getting that money. There's a couple of things the granddaughter could do. Right, you know, um But it'd be real interesting. The part of the question that would be make this more interesting is: did the grandma have a will?
Who was getting the money in the account that was. that the check was written on. You know, these are all this information that we don't have. But I would bet you, I don't know, Joe, I would bet you that this grain dollar is probably not going to see that money. Yeah, I think it's unlikely.
And I mean, you could go even farther and, you know. Uh this granddaughter could have a a potential claim against It's a bad check, right? Like, it was. Yeah, she could have a claim against the estate. That's essentially a contract to provide these funds, and they're not there.
So, yeah, you're talking about a scenario where a granddaughter could be suing her sweet grandma's estate that she loves to try to recover money. It gets really good. It's such a bad, bad, uncomfortable, bad situation day on the show so far. I like the phrasing: suing the sweet grandma. Sweet grandma.
Yeah, yeah. Sweet grandma. Listen, we have complimentary consults with Whitaker and Hamer. Estate planning, personal injury are the categories. You've got questions there.
If you've got a case, If you got some questions about estate planning, grab one of the consults, 919-7727000. That's 919-7727000. Or visit the website, wh.lawyer, and get signed up there. More Judica County coming up. Um Judica County Radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Managing Partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, and they have offices all over North Carolina in the Cap City, Raleigh.
Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquaf Arena, Gastonia, and down to the coast, Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to jump on with both Josh and Joe. And we get into these legal conversations, and these are hypotheticals. These are questions that come from all over the legal world.
And you may have something in a similar category. There's going to be an opportunity to get on the calendar with Whitaker and Hamer a complimentary consult. Think about estate planning. Maybe there's a personal injury case. You've got some questions.
Grab one of the consults and get some direction. 919-7727000. That's 919-7727000. You can also visit their website, very useful website, WHO. All right, gentlemen, we go to our next question.
The family business loan is the category, and here it is. A father loaned his daughter's startup company $600,000 over several years without formal loan documents. Every transfer was labeled loan in the memo line. After the father passed away, the daughter claims he forgave the debt during a family dinner. the other heirs disagree.
what probably happens in this situation. Man, all these sticky situations ruining families and awful relationships. And bad, bad facts, man. Nothing.
So here you've got. Yeah, here. I mean, here it says he made a note on the check that it was alone.
So, you know, important information here would have been. He made these loans over several years. Does she ever pay any of it back? Right, was there ever any payments made? Um Because we don't have a promissory note, which is what you want.
You want to, that's what a promissory note evidences debt.
So, anytime you're going to loan anybody money, you know, writing a loan in the memo line, writing a loan in the memo line of a check. I guess is some um some good context on what the intention was, but we don't know what the terms were. Um But that would be one of the things if I was handling the estate and we were trying to figure out are we going to try to claw back in. You know, is this $600,000 still owed? Would be Trying to figure out if payments were made.
Because if regular payments were being made, That's that's an indicator that the father didn't forgive the debt. Um But it's tricky, man. I mean, this ain't a great scenario for either side. You know, this is one of those where. I think there's arguments.
b b both ways, really, you know, and uh Man. Makes my head hurt thinking about it. Yeah, after, so our question says: after the father died, the daughter claims he forgave the debt during a family dinner.
So, a family dinner indicates other people were there. Yeah, true. Right, and so maybe there's something. You know, you that that could, in theory, potentially, that could have ha that could happen. Like, you can forgive a debt.
Like, you know, that's not something that's barred by law necessarily. But you get into the ultimate he said, she said situation here. And it's like you said, Josh, you're going to look at the totality of the circumstances, where the regular payments made, and it just becomes.
Well, this is a situation. You know, as an attorney, you never want to be in a situation. Like, you want to help people. And, you know, both sides, this is one of those situations where both sides have strong arguments. And a lot of it's going to be determined by facts.
Yeah. Right? Maybe everybody at that family dinner is dead. And so there are no witnesses. What's happening to this family, man?
I don't know, man. Bad bad jeans. Yeah. But uh They ain't a lot to go on here, and so. Again, just like the earlier the lottery question, a lot of these things end up settling.
Because both sides have arguments to make, but they both have weaknesses, right? The state can't prove very much. on what the father said to the to the daughter. Um So that you know they want six hundred thousand back. Maybe they'd settle for three or four hundred thousand back or or less.
But as you you get into the case, right, you file the case, you do discovery, you do depositions, you figure out what the evidence is. And then that usually You know, usually in something like this, you'd have a mediation before trial where everybody sits down at the same table. That's how Superior Court litigation goes, right? One party files a complaint. Alleges, here's everything that happened, and we need the state needs a 600 back.
The daughter would file an answer and counterclaims. There may be some motions to dismiss, or motions for summary judgment, or motions to kind of chop it up. And kind of figure out what you're dealing with, right? Everybody always alleges everything you possibly can. You get it cut up, you figure out the claims you're actually dealing with, and then you do discovery.
Answer interrogatories, produce documents at the checks, produce the documents. And then you do depositions and ask people about specific questions, and then. Then you can kind of see everything. And then you sit down and you attempt, the court forces you to do a mediation, which is good. Yeah.
Because you can sit down there, everybody's kind of in the same room. You make your arguments to a third party, a mediator. Um And a lot of times, these things would kind of settle. And this is one of the things that I would expect to. Settle.
You know, just based on based on our fact pattern here. But, uh, You never know. Judica County Radio rolling on. We got another question. This one is the category of the neighbor's security gate.
So here's the question. A subdivision has one entrance. The HOA installed a security gate that frequently malfunctions, delaying ambulances, fire trucks, and the like. A homeowner suffers a heart attack while first responders wait. for the gate to open.
could the HOA probably face liability? You know Most subdivisions Most modern subdivisions Um You're required to have a secondary entrance for HOS, for emergency responders, right?
So practically speaking, this This probably wouldn't happen, right? You have your main entrance, but you have to have an emergency entrance. And um That's part of planning, that's part of code, that's part of developing The subdivision. It depends on how many houses or how many lots, but uh, but usually you have to have some emergency access. We're going to assume this.
subdivision didn't have have to have emergency access. Um But I don't I just don't I don't see this happening for some reason. Right. Yeah, because what kind of game? You always hate on her.
Right, I mean, but at some point, you know, you break it, right? I mean, you don't. Yeah. I d I don't I don't you know an emergency situation that you just You got to get out of your car and say the magic words, and then you got to do the dance, and then the gate will slowly. Yeah, I agree with that.
But let's assume that this is a real factual. Let's just assume that's a real thing. I mean, does HOA have liability? You know. Yep.
Yeah. Yeah. I would argue. It's unlikely the HOA installed the gate, right? Like, it's likely going to be a developer issue.
And even then, what's the foreseeability of this specific? You know, I don't know. That's just. I'm going to say bad facts again, man. I think it's bad fat.
I just don't wanna see. Yeah. Yeah, 'cause it. And even when you have a gate... You usually have a bypass.
Anyway, I don't think this happened. This is the most poorly planned subdivision in the whole world if this happened. Oh, man. But we'll play along, right? This happened.
There was no other entrance. It was a massive gate, so you couldn't climb over it. There was no super fast access lane. This would never happen in a million years, but let's say it happened. There's probably some liability there.
Yeah. The facts as presented, the HOA would probably be manning the gate, maintaining the gate, I would imagine. And there's probably some liability there, but. The homeowner would have to prove they would have survived. You know, the homeowner would have to prove they would have survived had the emergency responders been able to get there five minutes.
I don't know. This is another tough case, man. I'm ready for an easy.
Okay. We'll give you an air. Give us an easy one. What's going on? An easier one.
We've got to take a break, but we'll give you an easier one. But I thought you guys handled that well. And again, emergency access. I didn't even think about that. But again, neighbor Security Gate, HOA, you know, they put it in.
Do they face liability? And, you know, again, need more facts in that case.
Now, opportunity to get a complimentary consult, estate planning, personal injury with Whitaker and Hamer. Just call 919-77270000. That'll get you in touch with the firm. 919-7727000. You can also visit wh.lawyer.
That's no cost, no obligation. We got more at Judica County coming up. Oh no. We are back on Judica County Radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Managing Partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.
Offices conveniently placed for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verena, Gastonia, and down at the coast, Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to jump on with the attorneys each week. We hit these legal questions, and again, these come from all over the country. And you may have something.
You're going through that's similar. Again, it's not exact, but take a lot of the information you get and impose those questions to your own case. And if you've got some questions in and around, let's say, estate planning, maybe there's a personal injury case, you can grab one of our complimentary consults, 919-772-7000. That's 919-772-7000. You can also visit the website, wh.
Dot lawyer. All right, next question up. The category: the realtor's side deal. All right, here's the question. A listing agent learned that a seller would accept $450,000, but told interested buyers the seller wouldn't take less than $500,000.
The agent's spouse then purchased the property for $455,000 through another brokerage. Is there probably a problem here? Yeah, there there's There's potentially a problem here.
So, you know, just to back up, a listing agent is a real estate agent who represents the seller. Right, a listing agent lists the property. for sell. Of course a you know a buyer usually has their own agent, which we call the you know the buyer's agent. And so here this question is telling us a listing agent You know, listed the property for half a million dollars.
Knows a seller, you know, a listing agent's going to know what the seller's bottom line is, right? If you hire an agent to list your property, you guys might decide the market value is half a million dollars, and that's what you hope to get. But a listing agent is going to know what you'll take, and that's the thing here. The listing agent knows that. Our seller would go down to 450 grand if they had to, but they're hoping for 500,000, right?
Um You know It's possible the agent doesn't talk. to their spouse. About work, right?
So, this is this could really be an innocent. uh thing where the agent the agent spouse had another, you know, uh agent representing uh him or her. And just made this offer with no information, just kind of made a low-ball offer and hoped it would get. But the the listing agent would have to disclose. Right, the listing agent would have to disclose I received this offer.
It's for four hundred and fifty five thousand dollars. This is my spouse You have to disclose all this. The listing agent owes her seller a fiduciary. Duty. Um So, this is, I would think this is probably a problem.
It's going to be a problem. Yeah. That's what the question asked. The question asked me in Joseph: is there probably a problem? Yeah, there is probably a problem.
There's probably a problem. Yeah, there's probably a problem. The the the the innocence Defense here. Yeah, someone's going to be. I think there's probably going to be a problem here.
I think this is the clear cut problems we've seen. It is. And disclosure would, in theory, fix this, right? If that was disclosed to the seller, like, hey, this is my spouse. You know, I haven't talked to them about your bottom line, but this is a legitimate.
Offer, I just have to be a lot of disclosure, you know, there'd have to be a lot of disclosure in writing, and then if the seller chooses to proceed. And they've been dis that everything's been disclosed, you know. Maybe they don't have any other offers, and 455 is the best offer they've They've gotten it's been on the market for six months and they're just ready to move on.
So maybe the seller. Got disclosure and was still okay with it. That could be a thing that happened. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, it could, I guess. Yeah, sure. Because no one's making them take $455,000, but I think the real estate agent has some ethical problems here and. you know, fool dis when you when you have somebody at fiduciary duty Full disclosure all the time. Um You put them you put their interest ahead of your own and it's uh We talk about fiduciary duty a lot on this on this show, but that's uh Yeah, that one's a little bit better question.
Yeah, all right, good job, Morgan. Keep them coming. All right, thanks, man. I appreciate that. A little cut and dry.
All right, here's your next category: the hidden septic problem. Here's the question: Family bought a rural home after the seller produced septic inspection paperwork showing everything was working properly. Four months later, the system failed. Investigation reveals the seller had pumped the tank three days before the inspection to temporarily hide the problem. Does the buyer probably have a claim here?
Yeah, yeah, I mean You know, this question is designed to get me and Joe to talk about. Fraud. In a real estate purchase context, right?
So. Was the seller it says the seller was trying to hide the problem If the seller was trying to hide a material fact, that's what we talk about in a real estate transaction. As a seller, you don't have to disclose much anymore. You have to disclose, you know, there are certain things you have to disclose, material facts you can't hide. major problems.
And hope the buyer doesn't find out about it. You know, that's not how it. That's not how it works. Yeah, and again, I think this requires more specific facts. Like, it looks fishy, right?
Like, sure, it looks fishy. But uh I mean getting a septic tank. Pumped. doesn't in and of itself indicate Yeah, you need more. Yeah, y you need more.
You you definitely need more. The question saying the seller did that to temporarily hide the problem. And you don't know that, right? You don't know that for a fact, right? And the way that the question is.
Well, that's what the question says, but I mean the question you look The other thing is, there was an inspection three days after that, right? That's what the question implies. It was a septic inspection three days after that. And, you know. I I I don't know, man.
I think there's a potential claim there, but I also think that it's another one that's got some gray to it.
Well, when your septic tank's bone dry, you know, it's not going to pull. You know, the toilets are gonna gonna flush, you know, uh pumping a septic. System is going to hide a lot of things.
Now, I don't like you said, there's no problem getting it pumped before you know the buyer's going to look at it. There's no problem like tidying up, cleaning it up, getting it pumped, saying, Hey, I just had it pumped. But yeah, we need to know what's wrong with the septic system. You know. Did the seller know that they were but if you can prove this there was a problem the septic tank said the septic tank was not handling volume, you know, whatever.
We just need to talk about septic tanks for the rest of the show. Yeah. I know a lot about septic tanks. No, we don't. Yeah, I'm big on that.
I've always been a huge septic tank guy myself. Septic tanks are just crazy, man. When you think about what they do and where they're at, you know? And you have a lot of time thinking about septic tanks, man. I owned a house that had a septic tank issue, so I got really got my hands dirty with septic tanks.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
So, what was your big issue without going into too many details? Our issue at that house was Runoff water saturating the ground, and the septic tank would fail. Ah, the the the the septic tank would fail if it just it was too much water. And so when it failed, it would back up. The water would get in the septic tank, it would back up into the house.
And Josh would go in there barehanded. Dig it out. To Superman music, you know, as the backdrop. But septic tanks are no joke, man. If you're, you know, you want to, they can work forever.
But when they fail, man, it's not fun, it's not expensive, it's hard to relocate. But anyway. If fraud, you have to prove the other party knew about it. And it's a pretty high it's a high it's a pretty high bar, I'd say. And there's, I've seen cases where we've got enough facts where we can easily do that.
Like you wouldn't have been able to live in this house and not know it. And anyway, neither here nor there. There's probably a claim here. What I would talk to someone about is.
Well, how much is it to fix the damage? Is it $3,000? Are you gonna wanna take this guy to court and prove fraud for $3,000? Is it $10,000? Are you having to relocate this?
Is it $40,000? What's at stake here? Um That's a but that's you know, that's a thing. That's a thing that happens. We have again one more segment coming up.
Judica County Radio. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, are your hosts. And again, complimentary consults, estate planning issue, maybe some questions, a personal injury case you're facing. You got questions there. Grab one of our consults.
No cost, no obligation, 919-7727000. That's 919-7727000. You can also visit the website, wh.lawyer. We'll wrap up Judica County. Final segment coming up.
Junica County Radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners. Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, offices in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fucwave Arena, Gastonia, and Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to jump on and just talk about these. Legal categories with questions, and they come up on a daily basis across our great nation.
And how would the attorneys handle them? We'll talk about that in just a sec. Want to tell you, there are complimentary consults available with Whitaker and Hamer. If you've got estate planning questions, maybe you need one, maybe you've been thinking about it, grab one of the consults, 919-7727000. Maybe you're involved with a personal injury case, and you've got some questions there, how to get rolling on it.
Jump on the console, 919-7727,000. No costs, no obligation. WH.LAWYERWEBSITION. You can sign up there as well. All right, category.
Next category, guys, is the voluntary, the volunteer coach, voluntary coach, volunteer coach. Question: A volunteer youth baseball coach hit ground balls during practice. One ball struck a child standing nearby, causing permanent eye injuries. Ouch. The parents sue both the coach and the league, who probably has exposure here.
This question makes me sad. It does, man. It does. That that used to be your thing, though. You coached for a while.
You liked to injure kids, wasn't that? No, no, no. I'm against injuring kids. You've confused. I've got that mixed up.
I'm anti-hurt you. Anti-hurt the kids that play for you. You were my coachman, and I can confirm you never hurt. I never injured you. Intentionally.
Not intentionally, yeah.
So we got a baseball coach who's not, he's just regular practice, right? He's hitting ground balls. A ball struck a child standing nearby. I'm assuming that was a player. He's not hitting somebody in the.
Yeah, let's just say it was a player, man. I mean, unless he's just the worst hitter of all time and just smashed somebody. Hitting some serious ground balls. Yeah. The parents sue both the coach and the legal.
That's terrible, you know? Who probably has exposure?
So the lawsuit is negligence, right? That's what, you know, you get in a car accident, you're suing the other driver for negligence. That's a negligence case, a slip and fall. You're in the store and they have, you know, they mop the floor, they got a leak and you slip, that's negligence.
Somebody lets their dog go, it bites you. Those are all negligence.
Somebody's doing, you're alleging they didn't use this ordinary standard of care. And you're suing them for negligence, right?
So that's what the parents would say: hey, you were hitting these ground balls 100 miles an hour, these are four-year-olds. Wait, wait, wait. That reminds me of the Peyton Manning skit on Saturday Night Live where he's throwing passes to the kids and he's absolutely nailing them. I just dig the idea that there's a coach hitting 100 mile-an-hour ground balls at four-year-olds. A four-year-old.
I mean, come on. Come on, Josh. Four years old?
So you're in there, Johnny.
So you've got to assume. Hit it. Give me 20. Let's go. Your lawsuit has to claim that they did something negligent, right?
Because you've signed your kid up for baseball. They're at a baseball practice. And you probably signed some form of waiver from the league as well. You probably had to. You probably signed a waiver.
And that. You know, a defense to negligence, right?
So when you sue somebody for negligence, a defense is the assumption of risk. Yeah. Right. And that's probably the waiver is a great defense. Like, hey, we told you this could happen.
Right. It's like when you get surgery done and they give you that big long list of all the bad stuff that could happen. If the bad stuff happens, You've signed. A waiver, right?
So that's, we probably got a waiver, which would be a good defense for the youth coach and the league. And then, even if that waiver isn't good enough for some reason, your kid was playing baseball, being hit in the eye with a baseball. is a very attendant risk. Yeah, that's risk. Like I said, unless this coach was just rocketing these ground balls at defenseless children, you know.
I don't think there's anything here.
Now, this also points out something else, though, right? Anybody can sue anybody. True. And you have to defend it, right? You know, you can.
there's some ways to get some sanctions or make people pay some penalties, but like You know, even a meritless lawsuit like I think this would be. You still have to defend it, you still have to defeat it, right? Like, it doesn't automatically, you know, you can file whatever you want, and we've seen that. Right, and so this, I'm assuming this baseball league probably has like a general liability insurance policy.
So there's probably insurance involved. They're probably gonna provide an attorney. And they're gonna look at: hey, we're gonna have to spend $15,000 defending this, $25,000 defending this. Maybe we just give the kid ten. you know, to to make it go away.
So You know.
Well, I think this lawsuit would be completely meritless. There's still attorneys' fees, right?
Somebody still has to defend it. Yeah. It didn't just go away because it's. Bad, you know.
Well, and I apologize, you know, you throw these hypotheticals out there. It should have been just an eye injury, not a permanent eye injury. A permanent eye injury sounds pretty. Ugh. It's a tough break, man.
It's not it's not happy news, but I know I know it happens, but uh that that's a tough situation. All right, we got time for one more, and we'll move to this one, the four million dollar timber sale. Here's the question. A family inherited 900 acres of timberland The executor signed a four million dollar timber harvesting contract without obtaining beneficiary approval. Several beneficiaries believed the timber was worth a lot more than that.
did the executor probably have authority here?
Well, this question, I don't, these are, these are, these are bad facts again, right? You know. An exe an executor So, somebody died, right?
Somebody died owning this land, right? 900 acres of timberland. The family inherited it.
So, somebody died. Say it's the father, he died. And we've got an executor so we know there's a will. Right? That means that means somebody, the father died, there's a will that says who inherits everything, what everybody can do.
That will have been accepted and probated because now we got ourselves an executor. The executor is appointed by the will, and the executor does have some authority. But the executor would have to have been given this authority expressly in the will. Most executors would not have the. The authority to enter in this kind of contract because when you die, the heirs own the property right away.
Right. Yeah. And so maybe in this will, if the dead father said, hey, I want my executor to manage this property, or created a trust, or sometimes you see people leave real property to executors so they can take care of it.
So the will could have allowed for this. It probably didn't. It usually doesn't. But it could have. But this is when we don't have to, like, if this was a real situation, we would just say, well, show me the will.
And then we would read the will. And it would have to be specific as to the executor's authority. And. And there's a lot of stopping points, right? Like, if this was to happen in practice, there's a lot of stopping points along the way where that's going to be checked.
Yeah, the person who agreed to give $4 million for the timber, the harvesting company, the. They would probably not just take the. They would have looked at the will. Yeah, most folks who would be aware of are going to do some due diligence. Yeah, they would have done their title search.
They would have known who owned the property. They're not just going to throw $4 million at this guy and hope he had authority.
So, this question. I think this question is the worst question today. Yeah, which is happening. Because we had some stinkers, man. Thanks, man.
Throw me under the bus. Appreciate it. It's not on you, Morgan. It's the yeah, you're doing great, Morgan.
Alright, complimentary console. Josh, walk us through it one more time as we wrap up. Yeah, Morgan will give you our contact information. You know, me and Joe come to the, we come on the radio, we talk to you, we kind of go through these questions, but we do offer all of our listeners: you know, if you get in a car accident, Give us a call. We won't charge you to let you know what your rights are, help you put a value on your case, talk to you about the process, talk to you about the timeline.
So, you've been in a car accident, give us a call. If you are ready to do estate planning, we have a big estate planning team, and we're happy to talk to you for free about what we think your estate plan should be after we. Know more about you, know what's going on in your family, what you want to do, but we meet with you for free. You know, if you need us past that, we let you know what we charge and things like that. But talking to us, that's free.
It's a great way to test drive Whitaker and Hamer. Again, complimentary consult in and around estate planning or maybe a personal injury case you are facing. You got some questions, get some answers. Again, no cost, no obligation. Grab one of the consults, 919-7727000.
That's 919-77270000. You can also visit the website wh.lawyer. Get signed up there as well. Another edition of Judica County Radio in the books for Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. 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 the 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.
