This week on The Outlaw Lawyer, Joe and I revisit Palin v. New York Times. That case came to a conclusion this week. We also took a look at how Remington agreed to a settlement with some of the families affected by Sandy Hook. And then we've got several federal hate crime cases going at the same time.
So we'll talk about them as well. And now, Outlaw Lawyer. The Outlaw Lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, your hosts. You can find them at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. They're the managing partners there. They are practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. 46 combined years of experience between these two. And they have offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verita and Gastonia.
Throw a rock, you're going to hit an office pretty much. Now, if you've got a legal situation going on in your life and you've got questions, I've got a number for you. Jot this down. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information, a little bit about what the call's about, and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. You can always email your questions to the show, questions at theoutlawlawyer.com, and we'll get to those in future programs.
And always, check the website out, theoutlawlawyer.com. Gentlemen, you've got a lot on the plate today. I see the New York Times has made the show. Is this the Wordle decision? They purchased Wordle. I know a lot of people are very into this game.
Is that what we're talking about with the New York Times? Look, that game is awesome. That's the American dream. This guy put that game together. Well, I guess he's not American, right?
I think he's from London or wherever. But anyway, very simple game. Very easy to play. It only takes you a couple of minutes every day. They didn't say what it was, but it's definitely over a million.
They said it was like six figures or whatever, but sold it. What more could you do? Joseph, do you play the game? Do you play that game? Joshua, I don't play the game. I've seen it.
I see the people posting it, but I'm busy doing show prep, man. I'm dedicated to this. I'm dedicated to this program and I don't have time for games.
No, that's not the truth. I don't know why, man. You see the people posting about it.
I understand it's a game. I've never cared to look into it more. Maybe I should, man.
Your speech this morning was a good advertisement for it. I think I'm going to go check it out now. Well, you know, I have a subscription to the New York Times and just digital. I used to get the Sunday New York Times, but I'm old school, man. So I used to get the Sunday New York Times and it got delivered. And, you know, it was really it's a thick newspaper and I like holding a newspaper and like flipping through it.
But I ended up with the kids and the sports and the church and everything else. I didn't have time to do it. But one of the things Wordle did, you know, when the New York Times bought it, I was like, that's dumb. I couldn't understand the investment, but it got me back paying it, playing the other New York Times word game.
So they have like the mini crossword and all this other stuff. So a brilliant, a brilliant tactical move by the New York Times on that one. But I feel like we're glossing over the most important thing that has happened in 2022, and that is the Super Bowl halftime show. What do you think about that, Joe?
Me? I mean, it was right up my alley, man. It was right. I think it was made for my demographic, my age range, a lot of nostalgia back to my earlier high school, middle school, that that era of my life. And I greatly enjoyed it, man.
That's just me personally. I'll chime in, too. I really enjoyed it. I mean, yeah, it was really well done. You know, just I like the representation. Long overdue.
I just I'm there in L.A. It was perfect. It was great. I took from it. I was really excited about it.
I'm in my what I guess, depending on how you look at it, mid to late 40s. And so a lot of the the Dre Snoop stuff was right in my high school time. And but yeah, it was it was like the set was good. The way they did it was good. Like I just enjoyed my wife mentioned when they when when Dre came up and then Snoop came up, they just genuinely looked happy to be there. You know, they just looked like it was fantastic.
But but this is what I go back to. You know how we rank these. I think it's too soon.
I'm not going to do it now, but maybe in a month or two. I have to sit. Does it beat the Michael Jackson halftime show? That's tough. And that was a good one. That was a really good man.
You know, here's the thing. I'm not I enjoyed it greatly. Like, I really enjoyed it.
I was cheesing the whole time and literally the whole time cheesing smile on my face. Not a huge not the biggest Mary J. Blige guy. And I think she did. She did a good job. But that's I think I think that's more of like a subjective personal preference type of thing. But right.
Right. You know, and that was a brief little snippet of it. But but that that would that would be a detriment to the overall show if you're looking at it as compared to the Michael Jackson. Joe, I got to ask you, when 50 Cent came out of the ceiling, did you jump on the pole and just start dancing? Man, I started laughing because I was thinking this is what I thought. I was like 50 Cent. I was you know, I was geeking out a little bit, but I was thinking, man, he his body type has gotten less. His body type is less old 50 Cent and more now. So all I could think about was me hanging upside down.
Yeah, dad by the Super Bowl. Yeah. And I could just it's like I could feel the blood rushing through my head and like I feel like I'd pass out and then fall. Yeah, I'd have to get mouth to mouth from a backup dancer.
Well, I think we're I think we're all in that category, but there's a rumor I can't prove it. But he's put in for a name change. Full dollar.
Full dollar. I don't understand why you just don't you didn't go Dre Snoop the whole time. You only got like 20 minutes.
You know what? Just go Dre Snoop the whole time. I didn't I didn't think we needed all the other. I actually like Mary J. Blige. You know, I I'm not a big 50 Cent guy.
He was a little bit past my prime, but just Dre Snoop the whole time. And I think that had been fantastic. I love the whole show. Really, really did. Thought thought they did a fantastic job.
Love the aerial shot of L.A. of South. That was an awesome set. That was an awesome set idea.
They did a really good job with the set. But well, I didn't actually I watched the game. I made it through the whole game. I stayed awake the whole time, which is remember who played in the game. I do.
I do. You know, it was a close game. What did you think of the Chiefs performance Josh? You can't ask.
You can't ask for much more. My kids were up. They all enjoyed it.
And they're all old enough now to kind of stay engaged with it. So it was a good family, a lot of family fun. But well, I don't even remember. What was the actual line on the game? Like, did they come close to the line?
No, it was the I think it I don't know if it opened at this, but the last I looked at it, it was Rams minus four. And so it was close. Yeah, it was close, man. I thought I if I would have bet on this game, I would have taken the bingo spread, which would have won. And I also I had a weird feeling that it was going to be Rams first half bingo second half. You know, the Bengals played very well in the second half.
Had a lot of comebacks. And I thought whenever whenever you saw O.B.J. hurt his knee, non contact injury, you could tell it was it was bad.
I thought that was it, man. I thought the Bengals were going to we're going to end up running away with it. But credit to the Rams, man, for fighting back, for gutting it out. Questionable. I think it was fairly well officiated. I think that was the one questionable call on the the holding call on Cooper Cup when they were down in the red zone. But other than that, I think the rest of the penalties on that last drive were pretty legit. Overall, it's hard to complain. It was an entertaining game. Yeah, I didn't. My wife and my kids get really into the commercials. I don't really pay that much attention to the commercials. But I guess there was a good couple.
One of those are what people said. But all in all, it seems like you got everything you wanted. You got some good commercials, really good halftime show, an actual good game. It was a pretty, pretty resounding, successful Super Bowl. I was like, no, I totally agree. And, you know, we ended up watching some of the some of the commercials.
I didn't get them all in the down, but Doritos I thought did really well. And Mick Alter, I enjoyed, you know, Peyton Manning, Serena Brooks Kalka. I enjoyed that one. All right. Well, you know, we always we always talk about sports a little bit. But now down to brass tacks, down to the actual legal things we want to talk about. And so we need to follow up. We talked about Palin v. New York Times.
So Sarah Palin had sued The New York Times for libel for defamation in print. And we we had a lot to say about that on the last show. And then jury came back. We had a couple of things happen, but the jury came back Tuesday. And so that was that was dismissed.
So we'll talk more about that. And then the big story they just hit earlier this week, kind of out of the blue to me. I had forgotten that it was even there was even active litigation. But some of the families affected by the if you call it the Sandy Hook tragedy or the I've seen it called the Sandy Hook Massacre. But the definitely unfortunate event at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, some of those families had been suing the manufacturer of the weapon that was used, which was Remington.
And that settled for I think it was seventy three million dollars. And so that was a big settlement and a lot to talk about there. And then we've got two federal hate crime cases underway, one in Minnesota, one down in Georgia, I believe. But we're going to talk about those two, just federal hate crimes and double jeopardy and things like that. So a lot of a lot of meaty legal things to talk about.
All right. The outlaw lawyers are going to roll on here. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, your host. They are the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They're also practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Forty six combined years experience. And we tell you, every single show they have offices everywhere.
Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. If you have a legal situation, you've got questions. You can call this number. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.
That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. And just leave contact information briefly what the call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. You can also email your questions to the show. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. We'll take a look and we'll answer them on future programs. And check out the Web site, the outlaw lawyer dot com. We're back with Palin versus the New York Times.
That's coming up next. Back on the outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, your host. They are the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. Forty six combined years experience. Offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia.
They are practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. If you've got any questions on the legal side, something you're going through, you can call this number. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.
That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. And leave your contact information briefly what the call is about. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will return your call promptly. Also, you can email your questions to the show.
Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. Palin versus the New York Times. We start there. Morgan, this is this one that I paid a lot of attention to.
We talked about his last week. I won't rehash it too much. But but obviously I got a journalism background, practicing attorney here in North Carolina.
So this is this is something that was very interesting to me. And just a quick recap, you know, Sarah Palin had been the target of a editorial in the New York Times that basically linked her or said she may be to blame for some of the shooting deaths that happened at an incident where Gabby Giffords was shot in Arizona and a couple of folks died. And Sarah Palin took offense to that. The New York Times came back after the editorial, did a retraction, did an apology in print.
She sued him for libel defamation, defamation in print. And the case kind of wound through the course. I think that was 2016 when it all got started. And so here we are the past week or two, we've had a trial that was was heavily followed by kind of all media outlets. I think everybody did a good job kind of covering this one and realizing how important it was. And so we talked about it last week while it was while the evidence was going on, while the trial was going on. And then this week, I think Monday, the judge came out and I guess there was I'm assuming I didn't read this, but I'm assuming there was a motion to dismiss at the end of the case by The New York Times that he took on her advisement.
And so he kind of ruled on it. And so he was going to dismiss it because legally speaking, he didn't think Palin's folks had met their burden. And so he still let the jury the jury was out for deliberation. He let the jury deliberate.
They came back yesterday with the unanimous verdict that Palin had not met her obligation. And we talked a little bit about actual malice in the Supreme Court case this came from. But I guess they just both factually and legally, they didn't meet the burden. They didn't find actual malice. So this was this was dismissed.
The New York Times won at this level. But that's just the way it was. That's the way it ended up. I just think it was a pretty resounding slam dunk. And every Palin basically lost in every way that you can lose. Like, it wasn't just like a close, close loss.
It was like literally slamming the door shut and then just repeatedly slamming it shut over and over. You know, the fact when you have the judge tell you ahead of time, I'm going to dismiss this. And then the jury comes back and they unanimously rule. Again, it's about as resounding of a loss as you can have in a lawsuit. Would you agree? Yeah, I would.
I mean, yeah, it's definitely not encouraging. The thing that got me is these don't usually survive early motions to dismiss a lot of times in a civil lawsuit. You know, if I file a lawsuit against you, Joe, I hope that never happens. Was that let's say I file a lawsuit against you. Your attorneys will come back and file what we call 12 B six motion to dismiss.
There's not enough here. Failure to state a claim. There's all these motions you can make like right when somebody sues you. And usually because of the actual malice level that you have to prove, a lot of these get thrown out. They don't go to trial.
Right. So last week we were talking about how interesting it was that this even made it to trial because they usually don't. And we talked about how The New York Times just has this, you know, for the past 50, 60 years. They've taken the position where if you're going to sue us for defamation, if you're going to sue us for liable, you're going all the way.
We're not settling these things. So you've got to be prepared to go the distance. And that's worked for them because, again, the burden is we talked about the burden being real high because we've we've got competing interest here. Right. So you want you know, you want the newspaper to have their constitutional right. Free speech. You want them to be able to report the news.
You want the newspaper or the newspaper. You want the news, the media to be able to talk about important people. And if something stinks, you want them to report that. And but you also don't want them to act, you know, take people down. You don't want the news to have a coordinated effort to to to defame someone. And so.
But anyway, you've got this high standard. And I was just I was I was encouraged that it went to trial. But yeah, she was resoundly defeated. And then I read some of the after the trial, I think Palin had some comments. I think her attorneys had some comments. And if you read that, I don't know that they're going to appeal it. I thought, you know, early on, they said no matter what happens, you know, we're going to appeal it to the we want the Supreme Court to hear this. We want to change.
You know, we want to change the law or what have you. And they didn't sound very encouraged after after this kind of double defeat. So I think the New York Times and depending on how you view this freedom of press kind of won here. So I guess it's you know, it is what it is. But it was it was interesting to watch it unfold. Yeah, it was interesting.
And I think we did. We you know, we speculated and I don't want to say we speculated because I think we just drew from from Palin's own comments and the things that she had said leading up to the trial that it was this was getting appealed. You know, this was something that they were going to to take to the fullest extent that they could in an effort to really look at how this is looked at. You know, they basically wanted to go back from what they represented at the time and kind of challenge the underlying standard. And and she kind of made it out to be this whole crusade against the, quote unquote, lame stream media and really talked a big game about how this was going to be something that they really pursued, regardless of what this verdict was. They were you know, if it went against them, they were going to appeal. Like you said, they were going to take it and try to really push a new way to look at things and a new way to look at this actual malice standard. And I couldn't say exactly why. It seems like there's been an about face on that.
You know, the fact that it was such a resounding defeat in the fact that it was unanimous and basically just kind of got destroyed in that sense. Maybe that was a factor. Maybe I can't imagine that this was a cheap endeavor for her to pursue this lawsuit.
I can't imagine there's no telling how much it has cost at this point. I don't know if that was a factor in any in any way, but interesting nonetheless. And you know what, Josh, I don't think we made any kind of prediction on this other than saying that it was interesting because we're very careful about that. So I think we're still perfect on our prediction record. And even if we said something different, I'm not going to go back and listen to it. So I'm going to say we're not fact checking this. Well, I always wonder about that, too, Joe.
And this this will go into what we're going to talk about next, too, after the break. But I always wonder where the money comes from on something like this, because Sarah Palin, she's a people know who she is, right? She's a celebrity of, you know, some some level we all recognize. So now that she was at one point, I think at one point she was, you know, very, very prominent in the public eye. Very, you know, everyone knew who she was. You couldn't couldn't not know who she was.
Yeah. When Tina Fey when Tina Fey did Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live. But what was that 10 years ago? Yeah, it was a long it was a long time ago. And since then, her she kind of dwindled out of the public eye to an extent. She's still been in it.
You know, she's still active, but not anywhere close to what I would say she was at the peak of her kind of popularity and being in the public eye. So I know at the law firm of Whitaker and Hamer, we try to charge very reasonable legal fees. But I always wonder what this law firm charged her. Whoever's paying, you know, maybe she's not paying. Maybe someone's paying the bills for her. Maybe there's a political action. I imagine it's a combination. You know, there's people that really care about these issues that are well funded, you know, PACs and whatnot. So I would assume it's kind of a mix of the two, because I'm sure she's not she may not be making Judge Judy money, but I think she's doing OK. Well, and you also have and again, guys, I mean, you're in this. This is what you do. I mean, if it's a big case and you wanted to, you know, volunteer your services, obviously you're going to get some publicity out of helping a Sarah Palin type.
So possibly there's there's some kind of trade off there. I don't know. I mean, I'm just I'm just throwing that out there.
Yeah, no, I agree. You get slam dunked on by the judge and the jury. The yeah, the publicity probably is something. But I'd imagine these these fees in this kind of trial are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And I would estimate closer to the million mark, you know, all in, all considered. You're going against a major media conglomerate. And I don't think that's a cheap I don't I don't think it's a cheap battle. And like you said, a lot of these things don't get to this point. So, you know, this has been going on for a while. And lawsuits are not cheap, man.
They're not cheap. We hear about how print media struggles, you know, that, you know, but The New York Times, I don't think is struggling. They talked about how they how many subscribers they have or whatever. And it was what it was. I don't know if it's like it was a lot.
I mean, it's millions and millions and millions. So they and they were they were kind of up, you know, on their subscriber. But yeah, you're going to get some deep pockets there. And anyway, it was it was really fun to watch it play out. You just don't get this kind of case very often. And so if you're a journalism geek and a law geek like I am, it was it was very interesting to watch. Very interesting to read about. I don't know that we'll see another one of these in the next 10 years or just not.
You just don't see them very often. The lawsuits for libel that actually get tried and you get editors on the stand and reporters who have to give you their their thought process and why they did this and that. So it's very interesting. But but on that same train of where the money comes from up next, I think Joe and I were going to spend some time. The big settlement between Remington and Sandy Hook was announced this week. And I think it it poses a lot of questions.
So a lot to talk about. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, your host of the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. They have offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia.
They are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. If you've got a legal situation you're going through and you've got questions, we've got a phone number for you. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.
That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Just leave contact information briefly with the calls about an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. You can also email your questions to the program. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com will answer them on future programs and check out the website. The outlaw lawyer dot com.
We come back. Remington and Sandy Hook. Back on the outlaw lawyer, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, your host, the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. And they have forty six combined years of experience between these two and again, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. If you've got a legal situation you're going through, call this number, leave your contact information and briefly what the call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. The number is eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.
That is eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Remington and Sandy Hook on the block. Morgan, this just came out. I just saw it yesterday, but I had I had even forgotten.
I just forgotten about this at all. You know, it is very hard in the United States to sue a gun manufacturer for much of anything. Right. So, you know, you've got the we've got the Second Amendment that says everybody has the right to bear arms and that's interpreted different ways and under federal law and in different states. And you could have you know, we could probably talk all year about gun laws and how they differ and as they relate to the Second Amendment. But there's also civil statutes, federal and some states that kind of shield gun manufacturers from from liability, because that's the first thing. You know, when something happens, somebody is shot and killed with a gun, you know, attorneys and and folks try to think of a way to get back, you know, to the gun manufacturer. You know, when you're when you're thinking about suing somebody, you always think about how much money they have.
Right. So if you're the victim of a gun crime or, you know, a family that survives, a lot of times the person who committed the crime doesn't have any money. There's no insurance.
There's nothing to get at. If you were to sue them for something, a wrongful death action, things like that. So people, I think, try to come up with ways to get back to the folks who manufactured the gun. How are they negligent, you know, and kind of anyway, doesn't work a lot because there's a you know, there's a there's a couple of shields there. And it's just something that's traditionally been very hard to do. And so Sandy Hook, you know, just horrible event, you know, where you had I don't remember the kid's name.
I guess it's not important. You don't want to you don't really want to give the people who commit these kind of atrocities the the fame that that maybe they were looking for. But, you know, just a lot of kids killed, just horrific, like the most horrible situation. You can almost picture Sandy Hook was was terrible. And no matter how you feel about gun rights, Sandy Hook was a tragedy.
And so the the perpetrator there, the guy who did it used in Remington, apparently a Remington manufactured AR-15. And so a lot of the families who were who lost kids and loved ones in that tragedy had had been trying for years to sue Remington for for some sort of negligence. And again, that's just a we talked about suing The New York Times. That's an uphill battle in our first segment. And this is even more of an uphill battle to kind of get back at a gun manufacturer.
And so, like I said, I completely forgot about it. Then yesterday I saw the story was breaking that Remington had agreed to a seventy three million dollar settlement with the with the affected families. And with that settlement, not only money, but they agreed to release a lot of internal documents. So when you sue someone again, I'll go back to my example where I'm suing Joe. I sue him, but I also ask him I can I can do some discovery.
Right. So I can ask him questions. Why weren't why weren't you here?
Why were you doing this? So I can ask him some questions. Those are called interrogatories. But I can also request the production of documents so I can say, give me your Google calendar for the day of, you know, whatever.
Or give me the receipt showing me you were buying gas on such and such a date so I can I can request things. And so I guess why this lawsuit was going on, Remington was not responding to discovery request. And so part of this settlement was the family's got a lot of internal documents from Remington on how they advertise, because apparently that was the crux. I don't know if you've been following this one really well, but apparently that was the crux of the lawsuit. Remington, they said you're liable because you advertise this AR 15, a military style weapon that that normally you'd only sell to, you know, a few hundred thousand people.
You advertise it to the general public and sold three, four million of them instead. But but that's what I and again, I haven't I want to read more of the actual court documents, but I haven't had a chance to just yet. Yeah, a few things, man. First of all, it's been a bad show for theoretical me in my legal troubles. You sued me. You sued me several times and I didn't even do anything to you, man. I was going to say, Joe, do you how do you feel about working with Josh?
I don't know, man. I feel like he's just been in his basement plotting lawsuits, just dropping for my next theoretical suit. I'm going to see Morgan. OK, that's going to come on the show and it's going to be like, Joe, I don't want to get sued by you, Josh, because, you know, you seem to have really been put a lot of thought into this. And look, man, I will theoretically sue everybody if I have to just sue someone else other than me, man.
It's going to kill our show dynamic and maybe it'll make it better. Maybe that's what we need is you start suing me and we come on and we just fight the whole time. We argue about our fake lawsuit. Just to touch on a few things that you mentioned, you know, you talked about the fact that this situation obviously terrible. It's a tragedy.
It's horrendous, absolutely horrendous. And the people, when they go to sue, they want to get back at someone. And you mentioned how generally the person who perpetrates these crimes, you know, I think it's a safe bet.
We make a lot of bets here. It's a safe bet that the people who are committing mass shootings of this type are generally going to be what we would refer to as judgment proof plaintiffs. These aren't people who have, generally speaking, gone out, done very well for themselves, acquired a lot of wealth, the real property that you could attach a judgment to that you're going to have a good chance of recovering. They're usually going to be the types that really have nothing that you can get after.
So what else do you do? And like you said, you go after these gun companies, which, as you touched on, has been virtually impossible due to federal laws that essentially grant immunity to them in a lot of ways. So the fact that this has gone the way that it has, has proceeded to this point, and then has ultimately settled not only with this monetary sum, but also with that production of internal documents piece, which was maybe the more relevant thing here, because that was what the families seem to really be after. Obviously, you can't compensate for something like this.
There's no amount of money that is going to make you feel better about what took place and make you whole. I don't think anyone would dispute that. But a lot of these families approach this as being a larger cause and trying to prevent something like this from happening in the future. And they looked at the best means of accomplishing that being, you know, looking into the internal practices of the gun manufacturer. And so they were really seeking the production of those internal documents, and that was resisted very heavily by Remington. So the fact that they've settled and as a condition of that, they're going to produce these documents that they really kind of fought to prevent. I think it's a super interesting development.
I really do. I really want to see the the the hard documents. I really want to see the case file on this because I don't I don't get it. I don't I don't know how close it was to going to trial. I don't know.
For me, it just seems so hard to get. And there's no there's not a lot of precedent. You know, I don't know. Usually you settle a case because you either you know, sometimes you settle a case because you don't you just don't want to deal with it. Right. So if you're a celebrity and you get sued and you don't have to go to court, you don't want your personal business out there. So sometimes you settle it just because you you just want to stop it. And that's why you'll see some of these folks, famous people get sued and it's probably made up trivial stuff, but they just settle it to get rid of it. Sometimes insurance companies will settle things just to get rid of it because, you know, fighting it, it takes time and money.
Right. So it's a it's a business decision a lot of times. And I'm sure Remington has spent a lot of legal fees here. But it seems to me eventually, unless there's something I don't know, which I'm assuming there is, they'd be successful. And so I don't know.
You know, anyway, I don't know. There's insurance companies involved in this. Remington has insurance companies. They insurance companies have been footing the legal bill, I'm sure most of it. And so the seventy three million I did read, it was all insurance money. So Remington had insurance policies in place to protect against this kind of thing.
And the insurance companies had decided to pay this money to settle it. So I just don't get it. I just don't understand. But this made me think more about, you know, we've talked about the it's got a nickname, but the abortion law that Texas kind of put forth last year where Texas, the lawmakers, they know they can't say, you know, you can't get an abortion. Right. You know, there's a there's still a constitutional right for abortion under certain circumstances, even though that's something we I'm sure we're going to discuss a lot this year. But Texas made that law where, OK, we can't stop you from getting an abortion. You have a constitutional right to get an abortion under certain circumstances.
But you know what? We're going to make it illegal for the doctor to perform an abortion because the doctor doesn't have a constitutional right to to perform abortions as they have that law where anybody, any anybody in Texas can sue a doctor or, you know, a family member who takes someone to get an abortion. And so they have chilled abortions in their state with this law that has been up to the Supreme Court a couple of times. And the Supreme Court hasn't said this is OK, but they also haven't been in a hurry to to strike it down. They want it to go through proper channels or what have you. But we've talked about, Joe, that this is a dangerous precedent because it has it has chilled people's right to exercise their constitutional right.
And I think this is the beginning. You know, this has got a lot of people thinking about different ways to if you're against gun rights. Right. If you if you think there is not a constitutional right to bear arms or you think it's very limited or you think it should be changed. You know, this Texas law on abortion and this Remington lawsuit, you know, if you can make it where it's not cost effective for a manufacturer to sell guns, you know, that's that's something you can say. You know, Wal-Mart, Dick's, they don't have to sell AR-15s, they don't have to sell shotguns. And, you know, Remington doesn't have to produce these weapons. And so if you can make it economically unattractive to to sell things like this, then maybe you get your AR-15 ban if that's something you're after.
You know, I don't. Yeah, you kind of I see what you're saying. You kind of it's not an outright ban. It's kind of like you said, it's like the abortion law.
It's not an outright ban, but it's it's you go about it a different way. And so if you look at if you look at the history of similar lawsuits of this type, you know, the last big settlement that we saw that doesn't even really come close to touching this. But but is something that we can look at as having some similarities was it was 2004 when Bushmaster and a weapons dealer, they agreed to pay.
I believe it was two point five million to the families of the folks who were killed in the sniper attacks back in 2001 that took place in that Washington, Maryland, Virginia area. But but since then, you know, it was after that fact that you had that federal liability shield that was passed, which has made it so, so difficult to get at these gun manufacturers. So there's actually a quote from from one of the top gun industry executives that says that liability shield to this point is basically the only reason we even have a firearms industry at all anymore. So if you look at that quote and you take it at face value and then you look at this result where they've kind of circumvented that shield to an extent, I think this is a fairly large development in that whole space for folks who are really pushing for for more gun control of some sort. Yeah, Remington. So this these insurance policies that paid out, I'm sure Remington again, we make a lot of assumptions here because we're not privy to to a lot of this internal information.
So you can have to just read backwards, take the facts and kind of go backwards. But, you know, they've got insurance that would protect them from from liability. And so the insurance is paid out here. So this insurance companies aren't you know, they don't have unlimited supplies of money to pay out on settlements. So they're going to see, hey, we paid out seventy three million dollars on this policy. That policy is not going to exist anymore. You know, the insurance company does not want to lose money. There's not an amount of premium you can pay them for them to absorb millions and millions and millions of dollars of losses over and over again.
So I this is going to in the end be really important. I'm sure other gun manufacturers are going to see this and and and, you know, I guess maybe things get more expensive in the short term. But at some point, you know, it may not be economically feasible for Remington. Remington was I think they filed bankruptcy once or twice since this happened.
You know, trying to that's another thing. You know, if you have some civil liability out there, you have certain lawsuits, you file bankruptcy and you can be shielded from those. But I think they filed bankruptcy twice. They've been bought by a private equity firm. I wonder what Remington is going to look like in a year. You know, I wonder what they're going to be able to produce and just will they be a viable company going forward after something like this?
Because that's a good that's a good chunk of change. You know, the outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, your host. They are the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. Forty six combined years experience between these two. And again, offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. And they are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.
If you've got your own legal situation, you've got a question. We have a phone number for you. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave your contact information briefly what the call is about.
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And please check out the website. Our shows are there in podcast form. The outlaw lawyer dot com.
We're going to talk about some hate crimes when we come right back. The outlaw lawyers, your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firms, where you can find them during the week. They're the managing partners there. They are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. They have forty six combined years experience between them. And they have offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. And as always, we give you an opportunity if you've got a legal situation, a question, you can always call eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.
That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. And leave your contact information briefly what the call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can always email your questions to the show. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. And we'll answer them on a future program. And please visit the website, the outlaw lawyer dot com. A lot of stuff there for you to peruse and you can listen to former past shows and podcasts form all there for you. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate, and I turn it over because you're going to talk about some hate crimes and I can't wait to hear it.
Yeah, I felt like this would be a good time. We've got I can't remember the last time, if ever we've had kind of two high profile federal hate crime cases going on at the same time. And so, you know, we've we've talked a lot about here and of course, on the media, you know, Ahmed Arbery was murdered in Georgia. And his is a murderer, has been sentenced on the state level and has been convicted. And it sounds like we'll be in prison for the rest of his natural life. And of course, we had Gavin Floyd was found to have been murdered by Officer Derek Chauvin. And and and he's been sentenced on the on the state level. And so we also had federal charges. And so the federal hate crime statutes, they're the same until I'm old. I still feel like they're fairly new, even though they're 15 ish years, years old now. They've been on the books for a while. But it's always interesting to me to kind of see these play out. You know, when they when they went on the books, there was a big argument, you know, are they necessary? And, you know, in every case, you know, every case, you know, the federal government, if they want to get you on something, they're going to get you on something.
They've got a lot of weapons at their disposal and they can they can charge. And I think at the time, this is just my opinion. I think at the time, people felt maybe there was a need for these laws because some states weren't. You know, and Arbery is a good example because we talked about Mr. Arbery's murder and how there were several prosecutors on the state level who refused, recused themselves, refused to prosecute. You know, it was an instance where something horrible had happened. And some of some state officials kind of refused to do anything about it.
Finally got to to someone who did charge it out. And these folks were found guilty of murder. So if for some reason the state had failed to proceed, then you have the federal hate crime statute and certainly could try Mr. Arbery's murder errors against federal charges.
So that day, in my mind, that's how it is supposed to work. You know, it's kind of this. You know, if the state doesn't do what they're supposed to, you've got this this backup. But when the state does what they're supposed to and you still have a federal hate crimes trial coming up after it just as it seems it, you know, it raises questions. I think there's a lot of questions of whether this raises double jeopardy, things like that when these statutes kind of came on. But you do seem like you're kind of rehashing the same thing. They're technically different charges.
You violated different statutes. And then, Joe, I think we talked about double jeopardy in one of our earlier episodes and kind of the Supreme Court cases that the two sovereign rule. I don't know if you remember us talking about that. Yeah.
Yeah, we have. And, you know, you make a good point. And there are similarities, you know, there are similarities between what is being charged here. But there's also some pretty important differences and distinctions. And the laws that these these two things are prosecuted based off of are different and they have different intents and different purposes. And so I think you kind of have to understand to understand that distinction, you got to kind of understand what a federal hate crime even even really is.
And so a hate crime at the federal level is defined as a crime that's motivated by bias against the victims perceived or actual race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or disability. And that's according to the Justice Department. So whereas you've got the prosecution of the underlying crime, the act itself, the murder, the hate crime piece speaks to the intent behind it. And again, there's always going to be intent. There's a mens rea present in any prosecution of any crime. But this is specifically that motivation of hatred based on those protected groups and those protected classes that have been identified. So, you know, there is a distinction there.
Yeah. And it is, you know, and it's been hashed out. I think most most attorneys, most judges, most legal scholars recognize that that difference. And so while on the surface, it certainly does look a little bit like you're you're being tried on the same facts. It's not for the same thing.
Right. And so these trials have been interesting in the federal court is looking for for different things, you know, proving you murdered someone. You're looking at the facts and the weapon and what happened leading up to it and intent and self-defense and all those questions.
But the federal courts looking at what was your motivation behind it, you know, and our and that's I think that that's much, much, much harder to prove. We know, you know, the defendants now that there's been a trial. They've been convicted that they did, in fact, murder. Mr. Arbery was murdered. Mr. Floyd was murdered.
So that's not that poor. It's what is the motivation behind the murder? And that's a much different thing. That's very hard, I think, unless you've got some, you know, social media or a diary or some statements beforehand. That's I feel like it's very hard to prove. And that's kind of been the history of these cases, unless you have something, you know, out there. It's it seems the penalties are very harsh.
You know, it's something that we as a society, we want to discourage. I know Attorney General Garland has said this is a you know, this is a priority for his office is to prosecute hate crimes when they come to the federal government's intent. We're putting a lot of resources and effort into it. So I think the Minnesota trial has been going on for a little bit now, a couple of weeks. And the Arbery one is just coming online. But it's going to be very interesting.
Josh, it's out. You think it'll be interesting? It sounds like you think this may be interesting.
I really give anything the five or six varies there. So I think it will be very interesting in this. You know, this has been getting a lot of coverage. Not as much coverage as the state trials.
Right. You know, once once people do get convicted, everybody kind of, you know, I think has some kind of thought. Everybody seemed to the media.
Everybody seems to rest easy. So I don't know that these are getting the same attention as the state cases did. And of course, we talk about, you know, cameras aren't a lot of the time.
You can't go live and see it. You know, so everybody takes a step back. But it'll be we'll see how it plays out anyway. But I judge my I judge things. I judge things off of the off of the number of varies that you throw in front of them.
That's one of my meters for judging. That was like six. I think that was six varies. That's that's it was several.
And but I agree with you, man. I'm going to give it I'm going to give it four varies on my interest. I don't know.
We need to go back. It's our opinions vary on very. Yeah. Oh, man, it might be varies, but you know, it's different things that it's different things they're trying to prove here. And and so, like you said, it's difficult. It's a difficult proposition to prove that someone was motivated by hate. And this is the thing, man, even if you've got social media posts, you know, you could have someone expressing these views at one point in time. You still got to prove that that that person was actually motivated by those feelings, that hatred when it came to committing this specific act. So and you actually we've seen that thus far in this trial. You've seen the the court referring to past statements made by some of these individuals regarding, you know, racial comments, racist things that they said, comparisons they've made. So all of that's a factor. And like you said, Josh, we definitely have an interest, a vested interest as a society and preventing crimes of this nature from taking place.
Like you don't want anyone to be targeted for a crime as a result of any of those protected bases. And we we need to take care of those folks and we need to really, really put forth any kind of deterrent to someone who is a bad enough person to commit a crime based on these factors. But it's it's a difficult thing to prove that.
And I think that's a difficult case for any prosecutor to make in the absence of some kind of really clear, convincing, crazy evidence of these individuals mind states, which it almost sounds like we may have that in this case. You know, what I'm about to say has nothing to do with anything we've been talking about, but we were talking about the very scale, four varies, five varies, six varies. My kids, you know, I got three boys all under 12. I think 12 is oldest. So I don't think my 12 year old is my oldest.
You're not sure about the ages of your kids. Come on, Josh. They get they get caught up on on memes, right? They're big on, you know, I saw this meme or, you know, I'll be playing like an old video from the 90s. I'm like, hey, that's a meme.
They'll figure it out. And so we were we're watching old 90s videos, getting ready for the Super Bowl. And oh, man, who's saying no diggity? Who was that? Dre was on Black Street. I can't remember the name of Black Street, Black Street, Black Street, Black Street. The Backstreet Boys sang no diggity. That was their best song.
Yeah, Black Street. So we saw no diggity. And my kids recognize that that was a meme. They recognize no diggity. They had seen I don't know if you guys remember that millionaire show where they ask questions and then they'd have the answers lined up ABCD. And so one was how many diggities Black Street was talking about in their song like it was a currency or like a measurement. And so the one A was no diggity and B was like a medium amount of diggities, you know, and they had all these. And so they're kind of putting this together and figuring out where this this meme came from. But, you know, it was really funny to think about that as like a an international scale of measurement.
You know, 14.8 diggities of the scale, whatever. We should we should adopt that here on the show. Well, I say we talk about everything. I mean, we talked about the fact that we've got hate crimes that are in the news.
And we you know, we go all the way to the number of diggities I like and the number of varies. We have a wrap up segment coming up. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer will be here for that. Whitaker and Hamer law firm is where you can find them during the week.
They are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, the managing partners of the firm, and they have offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. If you've got a legal question of your own, you need an answer. Here's the number. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.
That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. You can also email your questions to the show. No diggity. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. That's questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. And please visit the Web site, the outlaw lawyer dot com. We're back to wrap it up right after this. Welcome back into the outlaw lives.
Get ready to wrap up the program for this week. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts. They're the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. And they have forty six combined years experience between the two of them and offices almost on every corner.
Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. And folks, if you've got a legal question that you have been struggling with and you need an answer, we've got a number for you. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.
That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave your contact information briefly what the call's about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch shortly.
You can also email your questions to the show questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. All right, guys, let's wrap it up. During during the break, guys, I've been trying to figure out I really want to create a diggity scale, you know, something that we can rank each show by. And so I think that in our scale will be one to one hundred and twenty three. One hundred twenty three diggities being the most diggities you can get.
One being the least amount of diggities you get. I'm putting the show at about ninety eight. Ninety eight. Ninety eight. Ninety eight on the diggity scale. I like it. Look, just to go inception on you, I'm going to I'm going to add three diggities to your your rating to give it one hundred and one diggities because of the creation of the diggity meter during the show. I got it.
We need to work out some ratios so we can convert like leaders, diggities and meters per second diggities. We got to put our top our top. I think you're honest, man.
I think you're on. Thank thank goodness for your children for helping us to get to this point, man. Well, my my middle my middle boy has been working through some fractions, learning how to add and subtract fractions and things like that. So I think I'll I'll put him on like, you know, volume of a cylinder calculated solely in in diggities.
But I think we get I think as a nation, we won't embrace the metric system, but maybe the maybe the diggity system. You know, I'm proud. I'm really I'm really proud of us for in the course of one show being able to to discuss topics ranging from Sarah Palin to the Backstreet Boys. I think there's a lot of we're just really covering the gamut there. We also got to talk about our forty forty two office more. So Morgan always goes through our office locations and our newest is our forty forty two office. So we got to make sure we get that in the list going and it gets all one hundred and twenty three diggities.
It's a fantastic office. You know, you know, you know, you're big time when you you're just going ahead and getting rid of the names and you're just doing numbers now. Right. Yeah.
Just doing numbers many more. You always talk about throw a rock, you'll hit one of our offices. Please don't throw rocks at our office. Yeah, I guess that was the wrong. It's a good analogy, but it's you know, it is just it's just we're not.
Don't do that. All right, guys. Well, the outlaw lawyer, we have one in the books. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts of the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. Again, always just a very interesting conversation when it comes to legalese. We had all the hot topics each and every week.
And and again, some of the discussion you probably hadn't considered. They're going to get into again here on the outlaw lawyer offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. And they are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina that are managing partners at the firm. If you've got a question, call them eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.
That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. You can also email your questions to the outlaw lawyer dot com. And to quote Anna Kendrick from Pitch Perfect, we out. A lawyer is hosted by an attorney licensed to practice law in North Carolina. Some of the guests appearing on the show may be licensed North Carolina attorneys. Discussion of the show 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. Had the opportunity to discuss the facts of your case with you. The attorneys appearing on the show 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 the show, contact us directly.
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