Vaccine Mandate - Texas Abortion Law - Revisiting The Past

Coming up on this week's The Outlaw Lawyer, we talk about the COVID vaccine mandate. We talk about the new controversial abortion law in Texas, and we will discuss some old things that we talked about in past episodes next.

We are on the air. The Outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, 46 combined years experience between these two. They have offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina. Yeah, they're two lawyers. They have five offices. They have to divide it up.

They have to cut themselves up into several people. No, I'm kidding. And anyway, I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate, and we talk legalese every single week here on The Outlaw Lawyer. Guys, welcome in.

A lot of things that we get into, real estate closings, estate planning and administration, personal injury, criminal and traffic, family law. And we've been at this long enough that we are getting feedback. We'll talk about that in just a second. But welcome in. Hope you guys had a great couple of weeks. We appreciate it, Morgan. We were back. We had our listeners may have noticed we had a replay last week because our friend Joe's took him a while to get over the COVID. It's no joke. The COVID is no joke. And Morgan, I think you're on to something with cutting ourselves into several pieces or cloning ourselves, finding some way to to multiply the two of us. We got a lot going on.

But yeah, that's right, man. Unfortunately, weren't here last week. Had to had to take some additional time to recuperate. And the COVID is no joke.

I can confirm that the COVID is no joke. How, Joe, how did you, you know, I talked to you, so I kind of know the answer to my own question here, but it really, it really drug you down. You know, you weren't hospital as you know, you were in the hospital on a ventilator and you know, any of these, you know, horror stories that we hear about, but you weren't doing good. No, Josh, I was not doing good for it. For anyone who can't see me. I'm the picture of health, very, very fit muscles everywhere.

No, I'm kidding. I'm not, I'm, I'm not a, I'm not necessarily an obese individual. I exercise fairly regularly. I eat decently. I'm a 35 year old gentleman.

I'm not necessarily the most high quality person in the world. I'm not necessarily a high risk person. I don't have comorbidities.

I don't have risk factors necessarily. So, you know, did not have the easiest time with the COVID. And it's really a cautionary tale. The thing about it that that's so difficult. And that's so kind of worrisome is, you know, you can kind of throw conventional wisdom out the window in some cases, because you can't really predict how it's going to affect every individual person. And it's kind of a roll of the dice. And I know there's, it's a low likelihood that that's someone that is healthy, that's younger, that doesn't have the comorbidities. You know, it might not be the highest chance that they're going to have a real difficult time or have some kind of crazy complications, but it can, it can really happen to anybody, I think is, is the lesson to learn.

And let me jump in as almost like a neutral party here. You guys did your first, I don't know, handful of shows in studio. So I'm very familiar with the physical presence of both Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. And they are in very good shape. And Joe, you know, you, you know, you had something dealt your way and not just you, your entire family. Yeah, the whole family got it. And, you know, my kids fared very well. The kids have actually had it twice now and did very, wouldn't even have known they were sick really both times. My wife did not have, you know, she definitely got sick, much less sick than I did.

But you know, yeah, it's weird, man. We did that, we did that episode of the show. I was probably, I guess I was like three or four days into COVID at that point. And I was actually feeling pretty good and was, had thought I was kind of on the mend and was getting better.

And I think at the same time I was, I was being realistic in my understanding of how COVID works. And you go through that acute viral phase where the virus takes over, you feel real crappy, you've got the fever. But then it's really that day seven to 10 window where you get into that inflammatory phase.

And that's when it can go into the lungs, you can have the issues. And so, you know, I started feeling better. I got the antibody infusion, really started feeling better. And then it was like eight or nine days in, I start coughing, I get this nagging cough and I'm coughing up blood. And it's very confusing to me because I'm feeling better in other ways, but I start coughing up this blood.

And so I go into the urgent care, they kind of freak out a little bit worried about blood clots, end up having to go to the ER. One thing I can say to all of our listeners without any hesitation, if there's one place you don't want to be right now, at any cost, it's at an emergency room, an absolute madhouse. And I think we, if you don't do it, if you don't work in the healthcare industry, if you're not in an emergency room, the people that are there, what they're dealing with every single day, they really need to be commended and supported because it's an absolute madhouse there.

I think that's a great public service announcement. We really don't understand what they go through on a daily basis. They're having a tough time really all across the country with front liners just giving it up. They can't be around it.

They're burned out. So again, you know, you need to do what you need to do to be healthy. But I agree with you, Joe, stay away from ER unless you absolutely have to go. And you know, there was a time early on in the pandemic where they went to great lengths to separate people who had COVID from people who didn't have COVID.

They do all the screening. That's gone, at least at the ER I went to. There was no discretion. There was no, we're going to put people we suspect have COVID over here, everybody else is going to go over here. There's one waiting room, everybody's going in it. So if you don't have COVID, you're there with several people who do. And it's not a good situation to be in.

So if you can avoid that, avoid that. But yeah, ended up getting diagnosed with the double lung pneumonia, which really freaked me out when I heard it because that's what you hear and then people die. That's what you hear. But I was kind of stunned by the doctors weren't concerned at all about it. They basically took the position of, hey, this is what happens when you get COVID. This is what happens to a lot of people. A ton of people end up with this COVID viral pneumonia. It's just a thing.

You just got to deal with it. So they weren't overly concerned. My oxygen levels were good. I could breathe.

Really was very fortunate. Did not have as bad of a time as so many other people have had out there. But yeah, it's taken a while, man. It's taken a while. I still don't feel normal. I still definitely have the brain fog. The brain fog is one of those things that you can't really conceptualize until it happens to you.

And it's the strangest thing. So if the show is terrible, I'm 100% we're chalking it up to the brain fog. Blaming it on the brain fog.

Gotcha. And Joe, you're like four weeks out. I'm back. I'm here. I can breathe. I have some of my faculties back. Every day is a little bit better. Never lost my taste. Lost my smells.

Can start to lightly smell some things now. So every day is a little bit better, man. One thing I'll say to anybody that's out there, we've talked about the vaccines. We're going to talk about the vaccine mandate today. Take care of yourselves. Definitely take care of yourselves.

Get vaccinated, especially if you're high risk or have any kind of risk factors. And one thing I will say is the monoclonal antibody treatments, you know, they're becoming more prevalent. There was a lot of less talk about them early on. But lately, you've seen an increase in the centers that will give that treatment.

You've seen more people finding out about them. And man, that's really, I know personally of several people who ended up going and who have gotten that treatment and who have made, you know, really gotten better almost immediately after it. So it seems like there's really a low risk, high reward factor with that treatment. So, you know, don't sit around. If you get sick, don't just sit around at home and, you know, coalesce and just wait, wait to get better. Just take care of yourself. Take your vitamins.

Go get the treatment if you can. And hopefully we will one day return to that sense of normalcy that we have dreamed of on this show for so many weeks now. Well, Joe, while that's an unfortunate story that does set up one of the things we're going to talk about today, the news was kind to us this week, and we've got a lot of legal items that we can pull from the news. And I'll remind everybody when Joe and I sit here and talk about legal news, we're talking about it really just as attorneys who are interested in the legal process and kind of figuring out what's going on. We're not here to make you feel bad about an opinion you held.

We had someone call in this week, and I think we may have offended them somehow. They were not happy with something we had talked about last week on the replay, but we're not here to upset anybody. We're here really just some of these are highly charged things that we're talking about, but we're not here to say your opinions wrong, say your opinions right. We're really just examining the legal statutes, cases, arguments that are going on behind the scenes and kind of looking at what has happened. And so one of the things we're going to look at this week is President Biden did come out with a pretty strong, I'm calling it, I guess most people are calling it a COVID mandate. And so we're going to look at what that is. And we're not looking at is this right? Is this wrong?

We're looking at is this legal? Yeah, you make a good point, Josh. We talk a lot about the whole point of what we're doing is we're not going to take a side.

We're not going to take an opinion. We have lamented the fact that when you watch the news these days, you get such a slant. You get such a political bias, be it a conservative bias, a liberal bias. You don't really get just a straight factual approach. And so that's really what we're doing. So if we present a topic, if we discuss something, we're going to do our very best to examine it from that neutral legal perspective to look at both sides of it. So we're going to try to present both sides of the argument.

And that doesn't necessarily mean we're advocating for either position. We're just trying to speak about it as fairly and neutrally as we can. So like you said, we did have the caller who got seemed a little bit upset with us. And I'm not sure if that person's listening today.

If they are, we want you to know, we want you to keep listening. We do care about you. And we want to emphasize the fact that we're not necessarily siding with anyone when we discuss these things.

We're just trying to present it from that neutral perspective and kind of talk about all sides of the argument like an attorney would do and think about. All right, guys, well, let's go ahead and set up our first break and just tell everybody out there, including the listener that called in and left the message for you that had colorful language. It's OK to leave a question.

We will answer it on a future show. The number to call is 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. You can also email your questions that you may have to the guys. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. And these questions will be answered on an upcoming show. The Web site.

You can go there and kick the tires. The outlaw lawyer dot com. We've got a ton of stuff to talk about today.

We will be back right after this. Coming up next, we continue our discussion of the vaccine mandate and whether it is legal or not. The outlaw lawyers on the air, Josh Whittaker and Joe Hamer, Whittaker and Hamer law firm, again, 46 combined years experience in offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro and Fuqua, Varena. Real estate closings, estate planning and administration, personal injury, criminal and traffic, family law. Folks, if it's legal, we're talking about it on the outlaw lawyers. The number to call is 800-659-1186. If you've got a legal question you want answered, 800-659-1186. You can also email questions to the show.

Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com will answer those questions in an upcoming show. So we're looking forward to that. But covid is all the rage, guys.

Take it away. Morgan, wanted to spend some time, big news. President Biden kind of made his, what we're calling a covid mandate, so a push to get folks vaccinated and use basically every tool that he thought, I'm assuming that he thought was legally in his arsenal. Joe, did you see his speech? I did see his speech, Josh.

As a covid victim, I pay especially close attention to the covid news. And yeah, I saw this. I think everyone saw the speech. And you know, if you keep up with the news and the current events, it has been, as we would say on the show, a very hot, hot button type of issue.

And I think we're going to see a lot of development there. You see a lot of leaders in various areas of the government, various states basically coming out and saying that they're going to fight this tooth and nail. Very interesting rhetoric going around on both sides. But yes, long answer, short, I did see that, Josh. It's very rare that we see something that divides the country.

So just 50-50 almost. And people, you know, we talked to a lot of people who were, it's about time he did this. He should have done this a long time ago. Everybody needs to get vaccinated. They like all the prongs.

I think this is a six pronged plan, if I remember correctly. And then you have a lot of people that kind of got rubbed the wrong way, kind of he was dividing the country, us against them, running out of patients. He had a lot of language that that certainly, you know, this is kind of a topic people have kind of dug in on whatever side you're on, unless something's happened to change your opinion personally or in your personal circle.

It seems like everybody's dug into where they're going to be. I'm personally one of those folks. I'm vaccinated. I have no problem with the vaccination. But the rhetoric and kind of the way you put this across, which is not legal, is just feelings. But I thought it was kind of odd for a sitting president to talk to two halves of the country like this. Yeah, it's definitely odd. It's a different type of approach because you would assume that you never really want to alienate any portion of your constituency.

And that way. And the counter to that argument, again, given both sides of the argument is, you know, there's a lot of folks who are just frustrated with anyone who is hesitant to get that vaccine. And, you know, there's a lot of people who look at the unvaccinated as being a big driving force in the pandemic. And neither of us are scientists. Neither of us are trained medically to really dive into the scientific aspects of the discussion. But, you know, there's arguments to be made both ways as to, you know, how how much the unvaccinated are attributing to the spread or, you know, causing further issues. But that's really the argument there. And then you've got the folks who are very anti-vaccine and their argument is, you know, essentially that this is something that hasn't been around for very long. They may be a little hesitant because they've heard of, you know, either anecdotal or even verified reports of people having some adverse reactions. And they may believe in their own immunity. There's again, when you've got two sides of an argument where people feel so strongly about their position, you get this strong, strong conflict. And yeah, taking the legal aspect out of it, it was a little bit surprising to see the tone and the rhetoric from the president as far as really going hard on that one portion of the population and coming down on them like that. But again, people are very frustrated.

Kind of a sidebar, Joe, but I don't know if I ever told you this, but I was kind of on the fence there for a while of whether to get vaccinated or not. You know, we meet with a lot of people. Law firms were essential businesses and we never stopped meeting.

We did as much as we could via Zoom and virtual, but there's a lot of stuff in our day-to-day practice where you just have to sit down with people. So we sat down with a lot of people. And so I ended up deciding to get the vaccine. But did I ever tell you why I decided to do it?

What tipped me over? You never told me that, Josh. So I was watching the newest Chris Rock special at the time, and Chris Rock was talking about the vaccine and how he was hesitant. And then he said something that really resonated with me. He said, I don't know what's in Tylenol.

I just know when I have a headache and I take Tylenol, I feel better. And that's what did it. It was no doctor.

There was no science involved. Chris Rock, I was like, that's a good point. And then I went and got the vaccine the next week or two. See, if you were if you were a presidential adviser, you could have just told Joe Biden he could have just he could have brought out a TV like they used to do when you were in grade school and the ACC tournament would come on.

You just roll out the TV and just put Chris Rock on and play that clip for the people. And there you go. Boom.

100 percent vaccination rate. I like to think I'm a pretty reasonable guy. I've been to school a little bit.

I grew up my dad's an electrician. You know, I've got some good I think I got some good street smarts. I got some book smarts, but that's what put me over the edge was Chris Rock. And I think, you know, I'll never talk to Chris Rock, but maybe one day he hears this episode. He knows he made a difference somehow.

You know, I think Chris Rock, he might be a listener. He could have been the person that called in and with the colorful language, letting us know his opinion about about what we talked about the other day. But yeah, but it's a good point, man. You don't we we aren't scientists. We're not doctors. We don't know a lot about a lot of things that we put into our bodies. But like you said, they just work. And at the same time, I mean, I don't think it's unfair for anybody to to be slightly hesitant because it was a different process. You know, it's you know, it was a quick process and I think it's really a testament to, you know, the scientific advancements and everybody kind of coming together. There's a lot of things that you could look at as positives from it, but it's not a stretch to see how some people might have some hesitancy to that.

But at the same time, at some point, you do trust the science to an extent, because like you said, if you're going to take Tylenol, if you're going to take ibuprofen, how much research are you really going to do on that? But regardless, you know, diving in more to the substance of what the president announced. So what we're really going to jump into is the fact that to sum this up as simply as we can, the president basically said that any business with 100 employees or more is going to be mandated that all their employees must be vaccinated. And I think they laid out, they're kind of going on what OSHA has established, because a couple of shows ago, we talked about, you know, we talked about your employer can can probably make you get one now.

You know, it's an at will state. And if that's part of it, employment and you don't meet one of these, you know, religious exception, medical exception, then you are probably going to have to get one anyway if your employer so chose. And I know a lot of employers, small, medium, large Fortune 500 were on the fence about requiring it because of the of the brushback. And so I think a lot of a lot of those employers are probably pretty excited about Biden's announcement, because now it's off their shoulders. You know, the government's requiring it.

Nothing we can do about it. You know, liability goes away, perceived personal, you know, civil liability goes away and just kind of a Biden just made it a lot easier. And I saw somewhere where a lot of unions like Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, these big companies all sent some follow up questions because this mandate was announced. And I didn't see an effective date.

Maybe you did. I didn't look deep enough, I guess, but no one still really knows how this is going to work and what the exact penalties will be and deadlines. And if someone does exempt out, how often are you have to test them?

Who pays for those tests? So there's still there's still a lot out there that's not even been maybe they talked about it, but I didn't see it anywhere. Yeah, I'm not I haven't been checking every second for updates, but my understanding is that the actual the actual black letter law portion, you know, the mandate itself, how it is going to play out in effect.

I don't know that that's been released where you can really dig into the substance of it. I think it's just been talked about in broad strokes, kind of like we're talking about now that penalty wise. I know what I've heard has been I believe it was going to be up to 14000 per violation, which would be again, that's a maximum penalty.

That's not going to I don't know that it's going to be 14000 a pop. But, you know, you raise outside of the legal issue, which again, we'll get into the legal aspect of it and what the authority is for this and whether it's permitted. But outside of that, you got a lot of practical considerations. And you mentioned it, Josh, how do you how do you enforce it? How do you who's going to police it? A lot of the things we've already mentioned when we've discussed proof of vaccination, there's a lot of issues that it raises. And this encompasses several, several, several, several businesses. And it's going to be a wide scale operation. And there's just a whole lot of practical aspects of this that are going to have to be flushed out as well. So this covers almost everybody.

Right. I mean, you're a federal employee. You got to get it. You know, if you're a hospital or, you know, someone who's getting federal money, you got to get it. If you work for a company that has more than 100 employees, you got to get it. You know, it really when they say this is a final push to get the unvaccinated vaccinated, this covers almost anybody. Definitely anybody who's out there working.

This is probably going to get pretty close to covering you. Yeah, I think that not everyone, but a substantial portion of the population is going to be impacted by this. So, again, it'll be very interesting to see how how it plays out. I think without question, I think the safest bet that we could ever make right now is you're going to see substantial legal challenges to this. I mean, people have already come out and promised that that was going to be the case. So you're going to see a ton of pushback. You're going to see a ton of attempts to strike this down. And I guess the question is going to be is how what does it accomplish before? You know, these legal challenges really put the halt to it.

It's interesting to think about from a strategic perspective, just as far as what what they were really trying to accomplish, because I'm sure they understood and knew that these challenges were going to be forthcoming. Ready to take a short break. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firm.

We'll talk more legalese coming back. Here's the number. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. If you've got any questions for the show, maybe something's happened in this discussion that has caused you to go, hmm, I've got a question.

Well, you call the number, leave a message and they will get in touch with the eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Or you can email a question to the program and we'll answer it on a future show. That is questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. We're back right after this. Can President Biden make you get a vaccine?

Maybe we'll talk about it next. The outlaw lawyers on the air, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. We talk legalese each and every week here on the outlaw lawyers. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate between Josh and Joe J&J, 46 combined years experience offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina. Again, real estate closings, estate planning and administration, personal injury, criminal and traffic, family law. If you've got any questions about your current situation, if you've got a legal question, number to call is eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Or you can email a question to the show. We'll use it in a future program. It's questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com.

That's questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. Well, we're really into covid, guys, so continue that discussion. You know, Josh, I thought you did a great job with that tease and asking the question, can President Biden make you get a vaccine? And for some reason, it gave me the mental image of literally Joe Biden coming to your door, just busting through the wall like the the Kool-Aid man and holding you down and injecting you with the vaccine. I don't know why that popped into my head. I just want to throw that. That's my covid brain. Can I just say that sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit right there. It does.

Pay me money. That'd be the best thing they've had on in a long time. So speaking of must watch TV is a good segue to completely get off topic before we get back on topic. You mentioned Saturday Night Live. And I think I think it's important to mention the the very, very tragic, terrible news. I know it hurts your your heart, just like it hurt mine, Josh, about the passing of Norm Macdonald.

Terrible. You know, it did, Norm. So you have to know a little bit about my back story. So I'm an I'm much older than Joseph.

I'm a I'm an older man at this point in my life. And just to tell you one of my old man stories, we my family did not have cable. We got cable.

It was available to us. And it came out to where we lived when I was in the sixth grade. So that's when I got MTV. I got the comedy channel and things changed. All I did was watch the comedy channel every minute that I was home, my kids in the hall, old SNL, whatever they played. I think I've seen every Kids in the Hall episode 25 times. But one of my favorites of all time was Norm Macdonald.

I just love to hear him. He wrote jokes. So if you watch a lot of stand up comedians, a lot of them are situational.

Some of them are political and they all have their own styles. But Norm wrote jokes. And he also didn't care if he thought they were funny. So if you've watched enough Norm Macdonald, if he told a joke in the audience, laughed.

That was OK. But if he told a joke and the audience didn't laugh, it's like he dug in. It's like he doubled down on it and just went harder. So if you've ever seen him on a roast or something when the folks aren't laughing, he like really digs in. And that was always funny to me. Man, he was fantastic.

It's terrible. You said it. One of the most refreshing things about him is he wasn't really worried like a lot of folks are today. If it was funny, it was funny. And he didn't pander to anybody.

He didn't pull any punches. And just really unfortunate, man. Tell you what, I don't know.

Completely unrelated to the topic we're talking about. Well, I mean, but it is current day. He was 61. He battled cancer for 10 years and he performed right up until the end. And if you see, if you go on social media, you see all the tributes from fellow comedians and that in itself. And actors and people in the business and just everyday people and how they responded to his passing shows you what kind of impact he had.

Yeah, he was the favorite comedian of a lot of comedians. And that that really tells you something. So anyways, back back to from that depressing news, back to the more exciting and lively topic of the COVID mandate. So jumping back into it, you know, we've talked to we talked a lot about some of the issues and we haven't really talked much. And again, all of this is, I guess, to a point, this is speculation because we haven't we haven't seen the actual executive order, which is how this is going to be passed down. There's going to be an executive order.

We haven't seen the language of it. So some of this is speculation. But but I think it's it's safe to speculate the mechanism of action, the way that this is going to have to be enforced, which we have kind of talked about. We don't know exactly how they're going to enforce it. But the way that they're going to get about this is through through OSHA, basically. So, you know, OSHA been around for a while. It's the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and kind of had some issues with it recently.

As far as there being some allegations that it's understaffed, it's underfunded. It's really ill equipped to do what it's already doing. And so there's got to be some concerns, assuming that this does pass the legal challenges that are going to come at it, whether OSHA is going to even be equipped to enforce it to the degree that it's it's going to need to be enforced. Because I think I read somewhere that it's some 80 million people are going to be affected by this.

Yeah, there's no there's no way. You know, we've talked about it with, like you said, when when, you know, because when a part of this six pronged effort is requiring basically concerts, football games, going ahead and requiring for every thing, the proof of vaccination and or test. But the enforcement, when people think, I mean, it's almost a scare tactic, you know, and maybe that's what's needed.

I'm not here to argue it's again, it's right or wrong. But when you think about practically, especially as an attorney, like, well, how are you going to enforce this? Certainly there's penalties, but it just seems nearly impossible.

You have to be almost like a military state to enforce this to the degree to make it effective. It would seem to me anyway. Yeah. And so here this says I'm reading right now that OSHA at the end of the Trump administration had 862 federal inspectors, which is less 100 less than at the end of the previous two administrations. So you're talking about let's add that 100 back. You're talking about, let's say, a thousand inspectors that are going to be tasked with enforcing this potentially.

I mean, it seems like there would have to be a massive upscaling. But that's the speculated mechanism of action. So, you know, we talking about whether or not this can even be done, you know, a vaccine mandate in and of itself is not necessarily unconstitutional. You've seen, you know, children required if going to public school, they, you know, requiring vaccines for that. So in and of itself, a vaccine mandate isn't something that's unconstitutional.

I guess the question is whether, you know, the president has the power to enact the mandate in this manner without, you know, action from Congress, basically. And it'll be interesting. The legal challenges that we're going to see, like that's that geeks me out as an attorney is I want to see these complaints.

I want to see these briefs. I want to I want to see how this gets attacked, not because I'm necessarily against it, but because this is this is what the legal system is built for. You know, if you think the president's overreaching, then the court system is really your only avenue to to attack that.

Yeah. And, you know, this is going to have to be enacted through the Department of Labor and the I guess the argument is, you know, from people who who would contest this is that, you know, the Labor Department can really only act pursuant to an act of Congress. And their argument would be that, you know, without some legislation passed by Congress, this isn't something that can just be done just from the executive branch. And I think the counter to that argument is going to be anyone who says that basically by establishing OSHA, Congress has granted the president this authority and he is well within his rights to do it.

And I've seen both sides of that argument advanced. And wild speculation, like you said, I don't think it's speculation to say that there's going to be a ton of challenges to this, but it'll be very interesting to see what route this takes and how deep this goes. And I would think there's a high likelihood that we're going to see this question before the Supreme Court and however they rule on it could really have some wide reaching ramifications on, you know, the president trying to do something like this in regards to anything in the future.

Yeah, there's definitely going to be some challenges. They're going to get consolidated. There's going to be something in every, you know, in every court across the country and I think the Supreme Court will eventually have to hear some sort of emergency. You know, they're going to have to weigh in. And once they do, you know, I thought we talked about that case where the University of Indiana was requiring students to be vaccinated and that got challenged and the Supreme Court just chose not to hear it and I was surprised by that.

I thought that would be a good first impression on how the court was going to rule on things like this, assuming I think at the time we kind of predicted there's more of this coming down the line and it would have been, you know, in a perfect world, the Supreme Court would have heard that and that would have given you some indication on what they thought. But so far, nothing's really gotten to them that's required them to kind of weigh in on this topic just yet, but it's coming. And, you know, just to talk a little bit more about the meat of what we're looking at, you know, OSHA is going to be the method by which this is rolled out. And it looks like they're going to use what's called the Emergency Temporary Standard, which basically determines that if a worker is in grave danger or exposed to grave danger and a measure is necessary to prevent imminent harm, then OSHA does have the ability to roll out something like this.

So it's really going to hinge on that question of whether this would constitute exposure to grave danger, being around unvaccinated individuals. That sounds to me like that's going to be kind of be the vehicle by which this is going to be advanced and then ultimately challenged as well. There's a lot out there. There's a lot of this that we can't, as always, me and Joe, we're just speculating. I don't know if legal geeks is the word, but this is what we thrive on.

This is what we like to dig into. And I tell you what, Joe, this is really, again, dividing the country right in half, it seems like, and just people are all over the spectrum on what they believe. But that's going to come down to nine justices at some point. I think that's a very fair point. And another bold prediction. We will we will talk about this again at a future date.

I'm almost certain. Absolutely, guys. The goal of the show is to help inform, to educate. And if you've got any questions about what we've been talking about today, at any point during the show, you can always give us a call. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave your information there. Leave your question there and we will use it in an upcoming program. Or if you have a legal question regarding yourself and your situation. Obviously, one of the attorneys at Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm will be in touch with you.

And again, offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, they're there for you. So, folks, just remember, we need to take a short break, but we're going to continue the legal conversation with Josh and Joe in just a few minutes. So don't go anywhere because there's more Outlaw Lawyer on the way.

Coming up next, we will talk about the controversial new abortion statute out of the state of Texas. The Outlaw Lawyer's Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, forty six combined years experience. Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, that's where the offices are located. Real estate closings, estate planning and administration, personal injury, criminal and traffic, family law.

They're covering it, folks, in those offices. If you've got any questions legally, here's the number to call, 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. You can also send questions to the program.

We'll use them in an upcoming episode. Questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. The website, theoutlawlawyer.com. Kick the tires there. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate, and we are getting into more legal discussion now.

Guys? Well, Joe, Covid is not the only thing that happened in the nation over the past week and a half. There was a big, big news coming out of Texas. Texas kind of took us took a kind of weird turn on on abortion. And so, you know, I think we all know Roe v. Wade was the landmark decision of the Supreme Court. It protects a pregnant woman's liberty to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction.

That is what we called settled law. And again, I think this is a good time. This is abortion is about a hottest topic, as you can talk about is as much as covid and vaccination is dividing the country.

Certainly for the past however many, I don't know, 50, 60, however many years, people are either against abortion or they're for abortion. Joe, I've asked you this before, but how's your seasons one through 14 Simpsons knowledge? Would you say it's strong or weak? Man, I'm going to be honest with you. I can tell by the way you asked that question that it's very important to you. And I know my answer is going to disappoint you. But if we're putting it on a scale of one to ten, I'm going to it's like a it's like a one. It's like a one point seven.

So we somewhere in there that is so it is. That's that's I don't know why I never it never really I couldn't tell you why, man. It's not that I disliked it. It's just it never really hit with me. It's hard.

Maybe one day, one day I'll discover it. And it's amazing where you can talk about really, to be honest, the so my six year old watches all the Halloween, for better or worse. My wife would prefer that he didn't watch it, but he really likes the Treehouse of Horror episode, which, Joe, for you is is the Halloween episode. And I know that now. See, that was those were the ones that I would actually watch. You know, that was generally speaking, I've seen more of those episodes than I have of any other type of episode of the show. So you've seen the one with with Kodo and Kang when the aliens come down and they run one one takes over Clinton's body is a clone. Yeah, actually, actually, that's I'm actually familiar with that.

All right. And so the Bob Dole one, you know, he's given a speech and it's coming. The topic is abortion. And so he says, you know, abortions for all. And he gets booed. And then he said, OK, abortions for no one.

And he gets booed. And so then he comes to he uses his alien logic and he says, abortions for some tiny American flags for others and everybody cheers him. But but that being said, there's not there's not a more decisive issue than abortion.

And so we're not here to change anybody's mind. But this Texas law was big news, got coverage everywhere. And it's an interesting statute. And just I don't know if you've had a chance to read it. So I have not dug deep into the actual, you know, actual substance of the statute itself.

I've seen the summaries. I've got a general understanding of what the statute says. And essentially it says that any pregnancy in which there's a heartbeat that can be detected cannot be aborted. So effectively what that means is if you're six weeks pregnant, you can't have an abortion in the state of Texas, because that's that's around when most of that fetal cardiac activity can be detected and and they don't punish the individual. So this the this is what makes this law weird, because obviously, as a state legislature, you cannot outlaw abortion. You'd be in direct contradiction to Roe v. Wade. And as soon as the Supreme Court got involved, you'd be toast.

You would just you would look foolish for even trying and wasting the time. So the I think the folks down in Texas, at least in the legislature, seem to be, you know, they're they're not for abortion. They would they would allow them a pro life. And so they came up with a statute where they don't punish the young woman or the woman who who may be getting an abortion. But they've decided that they're going to give standing and a cause of action to anyone around that young woman who may have. It enabled her to have this procedure, which from a legal perspective is is crazy.

I can't even think of anything else to compare it to, but they're allowing people, anybody, me, Joseph Morgan. You know, we could we could we if we had a young lady that we knew who was who was having an abortion, we could, in theory, sue the person who took her to the clinic, sue the doctor who performed it. You could sue, even though you have not been personally harmed. That's usually a big tenet of law.

You can't recover damages unless you can show some actual harm. And just giving standing to anybody off the street and enacting civil penalties. It when I read the statute, I was just shocked.

I didn't really when it first came on the news, I didn't get a chance to really look at it. And so since then, it's just nuts. It is nuts.

And you said it best. It's a truly, truly novel approach. If nothing else, you know, without getting into the ethics of it or siding either way with the pro-life or pro-choice aspect of the argument, it is a truly novel approach to legislation. And like you said, it's unique.

It's something that you don't generally see. And like you said, you know, there is a constitutional right there for the ability for a female to get an abortion. And so what Texas does, they take out that state act requirement. So they're not restricting it, but they do kind of empower the average citizen. And it is very, very unique the way that this is done. Very interesting. And it's going to be very interesting to see how this plays out because you're effectively deputizing citizens.

And and it will it could potentially lead to some some very interesting scenarios playing out. Yeah, I think as soon as this gets in, there was an emergency petition to get before the Supreme Court. There was five for Supreme Court wasn't going to hear the quick way to say is it wasn't ripe.

No one had been harmed just yet. But as soon as somebody tries to act under this, I know the Department of Justice has kind of stepped in. My opinion is, again, whether you support Roe v. Wade or not, it is the law. And a state legislature can't, I would think, can't circumvent it in this manner. And as soon as this has a right challenge, I can't imagine this goes much further. But it's the approach is the interesting part for attorneys, again, whether you believe it or not, believe in abortion or if you're for or against it. This approach of taking the state out of it, trying to make the citizens do the do the dirty work.

I can't imagine that flies. Yeah. And it's like you said, it's a slippery slope. We say that a lot.

But how many other things, how many other constitutional rights could you potentially circumvent if you just create an enforcement mechanism by which ordinary citizens can kind of police and do this? And it's going to be very for some reason, I just popped into my head, like the worst reality show ever. It's like Dog the Bounty Hunter. But it's some idiot Texas that's just chasing people, getting abortions all around.

Well, we talk about how things get reported and we talk about how news stories get picked up. And so this when when the Supreme Court had that five four to vote to not touch it yet, you know, it was it was almost reported like Roe v. Wade's over. This this right's gone. And, you know, Supreme Court's going to overturn settled law. And none of that was true.

Right. I mean, the Supreme Court just didn't think this was right yet. The Supreme Court didn't rubber stamp it and say, yep, Texas figured it out. They got their way around it.

None of that's happened. Texas has advanced this kind of kooky way of trying to get to where they wanted to get. But trust me, just like Biden's mandate will be challenged, this will be challenged a million ways to Sunday. And I think if we were to make one of our famous the outlaw lawyer predictions, this is going to be gone.

So I'm down practically. I mean, play it out for me in practice, like who's who's suing in these cases generally? I mean, you're talking about fairly early pregnancy in a lot of these cases.

I'm just interested to know. And from a practical perspective, who is going to be filing these lawsuits? And so I'm assuming it's going to be a family member of the person. And you've got to assume a lot of times this is going to be you're going to have situations. You can have a scenario where you've got a younger kid who has this happen to them. They decide to do it. I guess what do they get sued by their own parent? And then they're out ten thousand dollars.

Like, I don't understand how it plays out in practice. When I when I first heard the law, the way I the way I thought about it, that I didn't think about it that way. But I think that's I thought about activists, you know, someone just sitting outside. Yeah, they sit outside of a clinic. That seems like a that doesn't seem like that would cause any conflict or have a potential to incite violence whatsoever.

Yeah. And I think this was meant to attack the people who are performing them. And, you know, there's only so many of those people at any given geographic area. And that's kind of what I had in my mind when they that's what I think that's what they were thinking. But yeah, if the family disagrees or knows about it or like I said, me or you or Morgan, it seems like there's no anybody has standing. Because I'm with you on your on your like playing your again, practically speaking, playing out your hypothetical. You got someone sitting outside a clinic waiting for someone to come up.

How do they get any information on this person to file a lawsuit against them? Like, you know what I mean? Like, there's just there's so many questions that I have about it. And I would almost be interested to see. I agree with you.

It gets shut down pretty quickly. But assuming that it wasn't the how it practically actually plays out and who who uses this and how much this is actually resorted to. God be very interested to see that. But I don't think that will it will come to that. I'm gonna make a bold another bold prediction that this this wraps up before we can even talk about it again. I think something's going to happen.

This is going to this is not even to be. Oh, that's but that's why we'll talk about it again. We'll we will talk about it again because we're very we love to revisit these topics and give these updates. So it's one of our favorite things to do to come back and rehash something that we've dived into. Well, gentlemen, let's let's put a bow on this segment.

We'll come back and we'll wrap up the program in the following segment. You're listening to the outlaw lawyers, Josh Whittaker and Joe Hamer. You can find them at Whittaker and Hamer law firm with offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro and Fuqua, Verina, real estate closings, estate planning and administration, personal injury, criminal and traffic, family law. If it's a legal question, they can answer it for you.

Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six, eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. You can also email questions to the show. We'll use them on an upcoming episode. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com and check them out on the web.

The outlaw lawyer dot com. We got to take a short break. We'll come back. We'll wrap it up right after this. Up next, Joe and I revisit some old topics. Back on the outlaw lawyers, Josh Whittaker and Joe Hamer, your host, you can find them at Whittaker and Hamer law firm offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro and Fuqua, Verina. Forty six combined years experience. And folks, we talk legal each and every week here on the outlaw lawyer. Real estate closings, estate planning and administration, personal injury, criminal and traffic, family law.

We get into the topics of the day. If you've got questions on the legal side for yourself, you can get answers. Here's the number. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. If you want your question read on the air in an upcoming episode, you can go questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. That's questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com and the website, the outlaw lawyer dot com.

Gentlemen, wrap it up. Well, Morgan, there's a few things I want to revisit, things that we've talked about in the past. I know I saw a couple of things pop up in the news in the big one. We talked about the dangerous dog statute, North Carolina.

We had a couple of incidents kind of a few months back. One of the incidents was a young lady, a young girl and her mom were killed in a very unfortunate situation. Neighbors, I don't remember that.

I think it was a pit bull, but I won't say that because I don't remember exactly what type of dog it was. But they were attacked and they lost you know, they lost their lives. They lost their their little girl. And that's been going on because the people who own the dogs, of course, the dogs were taken. They've been held by the town of Garner since then. And those folks have relocated a couple of times, hired an attorney, made a filing. We're trying to get the dogs back. And so that's a story that local media has been following. And this past week, the dog's owners kind of made their last plea. But for the first time, we saw a lot from them.

Joe, I think there was a YouTube video they put out. Seemed like they were trying to kind of blame the deceased little girl and her mom, which was which was kind of wild. But the judge wasn't having any of that. It's very good judge that presided over that matter and wasn't having it. Yeah, that's the very definition of a bold strategy to to make a YouTube video in any manner, disparaging a child that lost their life.

You know, to the head, to the to your dog. I can't. It's hard to even comment on it, man. It defies it defies logic in my brain. I did not see the video. I did hear about it. You told me about it.

But yeah, man, you're not getting those dogs back. We've got a we've got a you know, I live down to 76. I live down south of Raleigh, two, seven, six or three way in between Garner and Fuqua. So I bounced between our rally.

Garner Fuqua offices and down here in Garner, we have a really good police chief who's who's retiring. But he's been in a critical part of this story. And I didn't double check. But the last I heard, once the judge ruled against the dog owners, those dogs are going to be euthanized on Monday, which is nothing to joke about or make light about either. But it kind of seems like, you know, finally there's you know, there's some justice in that matter. Yeah. And like you said, we're not we're not going to disparage the dogs or dogs.

It's there. It's hard to be angry with a dog for for its nature, you know. But at the same time, if the animal is a danger to the general public, you know, this is it's something that you got to take care of. And it gives them some finality. And like you said, a sense of justice to the family.

So I'm sure that's going to be a comfort to them. And then maybe I can we can put this one to bed. And I still think we'll see the legislature that one of the things the dog owners pointed out is that statute.

And I think we pointed out the same thing. It's it's kind of unclear, you know, what what kind of happens is kind of left up to towns. And, you know, that that statute probably needs to be ironed out. So it's it's kind of a kind of open and shut.

You don't have this this problem. But, you know, we also saw we talked we spent a good part of an episode talking about the Leandro case, the case where the 20 year case that talks about education and funding and that every kid has a constitutional right to a public education. And we talked about how some of the counties that don't have as much population don't have as much tax money, have poorer schools. And, you know, in Leandro, the judge is trying to even this all out and the legislators don't necessarily agree. And we don't have time to dove into that one.

But that one's back in the news again. And I'm telling you, I think until the day I leave this earth, we'll be we'll be talking about Leandro. I'm going to be really honest with you, Josh. I was looking you prepared these these great notes for our show today.

I was looking at those. I thought that said Leonardo. We were going to talk about the Ninja Turtles. Very disappointed right now to find out that I was wrong. That's the that's again, the covid brain coming back into play.

Blame it on the covid brain. Josh and Joe, I got to tell you, man, time has flown by the outlaw lawyer about to go into the garage for the week. But a lot of interesting topics, maybe some closing thoughts as we head on out. No, I hope everybody has a good week. Again, a lot of interesting topics this week in the news cycle.

Hopefully we'll see we'll see something else come up that'll be good feed for our next episode. The outlaw lawyer episode is in the books. Josh Whittaker and Joe Hamer, your host, you can find them at Whittaker and Hamer Law Firm. Forty six combined years experience again, offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro and Fuquay-Varina. And if you've got questions about real estate closings, estate planning and administration, personal injury, criminal and traffic, family law, they can answer it for you. The number to call is eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. You can also email questions to the show. We'll use them in an upcoming episode. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. That's questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com.

And you can go online and look at the Web site and have some fun there. The outlaw lawyer dot com. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate.

We'll have more outlaw liar coming up next. 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.