Listener Questions!

This week on Outlaw Lawyer, wall-to-wall listener questions.

Joe and I will answer your questions next. And now, the Supreme Court has said, unanimously, this was wrong, fact-based. Your belief at the time doesn't necessarily jive with what the actual law is.

It's reasonable, informative. Now, if you take in facts and you think about them and you don't jump to an instant opinion, you're the outlaw. And now, Outlaw Lawyer with Josh Whitaker. Welcome in to the Outlaw Lawyers. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts. You can find them at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, 46 combined years experience. And folks, offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, and they are helping clients with real estate closings, estate planning and administration, personal injury, criminal and traffic, and family law.

The list goes on and on and on. If you've got legal issues, these guys, they're the ticket. I'm Morgan Patrick, producer, big voice, and man on the street. Guys, welcome in. Hope you had a great week. Hey, thank you, Morgan.

It's nice to be here in the office. I know we've got, this is our second show where me and our friend Joseph were remote. And today, it's a sad reason. Last week, it was a good reason why we were remote because our friend Joseph was at the beach. This week, it's kind of a sadder reason because our friend Joseph has tested positive for COVID. But Joe is feeling better. He's on the mend and he's here with us today. Joe, how are you feeling? Hey, man.

I'm here. That was a fantastic intro by Morgan, by the way. It made me feel inadequate.

We always talk about having good energy on the radio and I feel like I failed. Well, the most important thing, Joe, is that you're feeling better and you've had this before, so it's your second time around. And just kind of walk us through that. What was that like? Yeah, so it sucked pretty bad.

We talk a lot about my large family, my several kids, my wife. So, yeah, tested positive. I started feeling bad Friday night. We actually were on vacation.

Last, the previous show, if you will recall, we were on vacation. And it actually hit me that night. The night before we left, I couldn't sleep. Started getting the chills. And as soon as I got the chills, it's like I knew immediately. I knew it was the COVID.

I could feel it in my bones. So, I had to figure out how to safely get everybody home. So, we masked up. And so, we masked up and had to make a long six-hour drive, feeling pretty crappy.

Came, immediately got tested and tested positive. And yeah, no fun, man. It really takes a toll on you. It's a very strange, it's a strange illness. And it's hard to find much comfort because every person that gets it seems to have such widely varying experiences. And you hear people who have their symptoms change every day and they have some of the strangest symptoms. And for me, it's really just feeling like I got run over by a truck. No energy, aches, chills, fever. But luckily, no real respiratory symptoms.

I guess relatively mild, all things considered. Sadly, it seems like the rest of my family is now getting it. But we should have some crazy immunity, man.

This is our second time around. So, at some point, we're going to just be bulletproof from everything, I feel like. Joe, do you have any of the brain fog that you hear people talk about? I do have the brain fog. I still have the brain fog.

So, that will be something that affects this show heavily, I'm sure. I've just been forgetting everything, man. I'm quarantined.

We like to paint the picture right. So, I'm quarantined in my daughter's room. I'm leaned up against her very beautiful pink sheets right now. I've got my setup on her bed.

But I've been trying to go outside and get some vitamin D and get some sunlight. So, I've got a mask. And I forget where it is. Every time I take it off, I'll forget where it is. It'll take me a solid 45 minutes to find it.

And this room's not very big. So, definitely experiencing the brain fog. Really hopeful I'm on the mend. I want to get several days away from work now. I had the vacation. Now, I haven't been back because of this.

And I'll be out for a while. And man, I miss it. I was on the Twitter and I saw somebody had a... I don't even know what... You never know if it's real or not. But somebody had that little video of the COVID-19 virus infecting brain cells in a bat. Did you see that? I didn't see that, man. But that makes me feel real good about what's going on right now. It was very disturbing. But who knows?

I don't know who posted it or whatever. But anyway, so we are remote. But we're here and we had a lot of feedback last week. We just did... We took some listener questions that had been piling up while we talked about some other topics a couple of weeks before.

And we had a good response to that. So, we want to go ahead and approach some other listener questions that we've had. And so, we're going to spend some time talking about a couple of things. And again, like almost every other show we've had since we got this thing started, we're going to be talking about COVID. And specifically, the Pfizer vaccine, the day we're recording this, just recently here, the Pfizer vaccine got full FDA approval. And that's going to start...

I think we're going to start seeing... We already are seeing some mandates where your employer or somebody is going to make you have a vaccine to participate in things or to work. And so, there's been a couple of those. And we thought that would be something that's probably worth talking about. And so, that'll be... We have a listener question that concerned it and got us talking about it. So, that'll be our first listener question that we talk about today. And I care about our listeners. And we care about the research so much. And we talk about COVID so much that I just went and got COVID to have that firsthand experience. So, we could really know what we're talking about and make sure we're given the most accurate information. And then a question we get at the law firm and just in general at church or at the barbershop, you get a speeding ticket.

You hear a lot of people tell you, just pay it off. Don't worry about going to the courthouse. And so, we're going to give you a speeding ticket primer as an answer to one of our listener questions, because that comes up.

If you're an attorney of any kind, it doesn't matter what your practice area is. If you go out in public and people know you're an attorney, you're getting speeding ticket questions. Usually from your close personal friends that want you to magically get rid of it. That have lead feet. There's no magical solution to it. And they all have the lead foot.

So, yeah, I can see that. I think those were the first questions I ever got out of law school, speeding ticket questions and how do you get out of jury duty. And there's no good way to get out of jury duty unless you're breastfeed them. There's no secret to either of those things. There's no magical, I'm going to get you out of your ticket.

It doesn't work like that. So, don't ask us, loyal listeners. Another question that we get a lot is we hear from folks who have a non-compete, they've signed a non-compete agreement with their employer. And we're just going to kind of, as part of answering this listener question, talk about what non-competes are, just give you the general breakdown. When can those be enforced?

What does the court think about them? Things like that. But that's something we see a whole lot, these non-competes.

That's right. And we'll talk about that. And then our last question, we're going to talk a little bit about kind of in the same vein as the non-compete question.

We got a question regarding the fact that North Carolina is an at-will employment state and what that means as far as what being an at-will employee entails and basically how that affects what you can be fired for and kind of your rights as an employee. Now, Joe, this is your second time with the COVID, right? So yes. Undiagnosed the first time, it was super early, super duper early in the process before anyone really believed that COVID was around. It was February where I really got hit and was bedridden for seven to 10 days.

Felt exactly the same as this, 100% identical to this. So then the family got it in October and everybody in the house got it. I never tested positive my wife never tested positive, but I had no symptoms. But again, everyone had it.

I don't understand how we wouldn't have had it then. So I don't know if I had it early and had some kind of immunity to it the second time it came around our household and that has waned and now the Delta variant is just destroying me. I don't know exactly what happened, but I know it's not fun, man. And I know I haven't enjoyed it. And I know that I basically hate COVID as most of us do, I'm sure. But yeah, it sucks, man.

It's stupid. You let me know that you had it. And I got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and there's some debate on how effective that is. And I got it way back in April. So I called my doctor and I was like, hey, can you give me a booster? Can I just get another one? Just double me up.

Just come around, come over to my house and I'll just do a couple of face coughs on you. That's your booster. We'll crank those antibodies right up, man. I think Johnson & Johnson has been doing good against the Delta. I think it's been, I think it's had pretty positive results, man. So I think you're good. And you're a healthy fellow.

Right. Well, I was reading this week, I was reading about, what is it, the Lambda, the one that's coming up through South America right now. Everybody's worried about the Lambda. What'd you find out about it?

I'd be curious because I'm sure I'll get that one as well. Well, it wasn't, Joseph, it wasn't good. It wasn't good. So it's worse? I think that it says worse.

It doesn't care about vaccination, younger kids getting sick, that kind of thing. But I think if I, what I was reading was saying it was coming out of Peru. It was like the dominant one in Peru or something.

I don't remember. That's not good, man. It's counterintuitive because you think about it, a virus should want to evolve to be less lethal so it can survive and spread more easily. And it does not, it seems like that's been not the case here. It's gotten more aggressive. It's gotten, anyways, it sucks, man. It's, I long for the day that we don't have to talk about it anymore. And I also hope that I don't have some kind of, I really fear the long COVID, you know, you hear a lot of people who have the long lasting long-term effects and I hope we conduct that, man.

I really do. When Joseph doesn't have COVID and he's in the office with me, we are the managing members of the law firm of Whitaker and Hamer. If you need to contact the show, the Outlaw Lawyer, or you want to get ahold of me and Joe over here at Whitaker and Hamer, Morgan, what's the best way for everybody to contact us? All right, Josh, let me tell you the Outlaw Lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. You can get them at 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. You can also email questions to the show at questions at the outlawlawyer.com.

And these questions will be answered and may be used on an upcoming episode. The website, the outlawlawyer.com. Again, the outlawlawyer.com.

Check it out. We'll be right back right after this. Coming up next, the Pfizer vaccine has full FDA approval. Who can make you get that vaccine? You're locked in to the Outlaw Lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, 46 combined years experience in offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, and Fuquay-Varina. We're going to talk all things legal. Real estate closings, estate planning and administration, personal injury, criminal and traffic, family law.

And then a lot of subjects just come right up and hit us in the face. We're going to talk about it each and every week. If you've got any questions about what's going on legally in your life or anything, any subject we talk about, you can always call 800-659-1186. 800-659-1186. They have an army of lawyers that will get back in touch with you and certainly have those discussions.

You can always go online, the outlawlawyer.com. Check us out there. And if you've got a question and you want to email it into the show, questions at the outlawlawyer.com.

Fellas. All right, Morgan. Our first listener question this week comes from a Jim over in Apex. And so his question boils down to can my employer make me get a COVID vaccine? And that's a good question. Fantastic question, Jim. Fantastic question, Josh.

Don't undersell Jim's question because it's a great question and it's one that everybody's asking. Well, it's really going to start coming up a lot. You know, it's everything has been kind of voluntary at this point up until this point. But I think it's probably pretty big news by now that Pfizer's has been received the full FDA approval. And that's going to kind of change a lot of things because before it was, of course, experimental.

And it's hard to find legal precedent where you can force someone to get experimental treatment. But now that it's full approval, that's a game changer. It is, Josh. And we we talked a lot about it. You know, we talked about the fact that previously these vaccines only had the emergency use approval and the fact that once that full approval came, which it did come quickly. But once it came, that was that was the thing that a lot of people were clinging to. A lot of people who are vaccine hesitant were using that that non full approved status as the reason why they shouldn't get it.

And now that's gone. Like you said, that's that's a big hurdle. That's something that a lot of people were clinging to. And we speculated at the time and I think we're going to see we were correct. The mandates are going to flow like crazy from here.

Well, I think we've talked about it before. We kind of doubled down on live entertainment this year. So we got tickets to collegiate, you know, football, basketball, hockey, every concert that me and the wife can go to.

We've got tickets and we're going one way or the other. And you're starting to see I think Live Nation was one of the first ones, but you're starting to see where they're going to require a vaccine and they're still doing the or. Right.

So you can have a negative test within the past. I don't know what it is. Seventy two hours. It's 72 hours or a vaccine.

But, you know, Live Nation's kind of already called it and they don't I'm not I don't think I have any tickets to any Live Nation stuff right now. But but yeah, I think, you know, you're going to see a lot of it. What was the the federal mandate for if you work in the long term care facilities, you can't get any federal money unless your staff's completely vaccinated by a certain date. I think I saw that the other day. Yeah, there there there is going to be that, you know, for a long time there was the vaccine again wasn't fully approved and there was an effort to kind of incentivize getting it, which you could make the argument. I mean, anybody should want to get it for public health and for their own health. But there was, you know, they tried to kind of incentivize it. And I think now you're going to see I don't want to say they're going to be penalizing not having it, but it's going to like you said, it's going to be mandatory and there's going to be your there's going to be penalties, especially, you know, if you do work for the federal government.

If you do work for health care, you're going to see people basically having to have it and it's not going to be an optional thing. Well, there was a recent case that was kind of making its way to the Supreme Court or at least applied to the Supreme Court for kind of emergency review status. But it was I think it was like eight students.

I guess the University of Indiana and I haven't read any of their literature. I haven't read this case. But from what I understand, University of Indiana was is requiring students to prove they're vaccinated. And so eight students took umbrage with that. And there was a lawsuit to kind of say, hey, is this mandate illegal? And at that time, Pfizer wasn't even approved, right?

So at that time, we we still had this experimental, this emergency use status. And so that was the lawsuit. And, you know, the Supreme Court just rejected it, meaning they didn't find on it. They didn't argue. They didn't hear arguments. They just decided they were not going to grant it emergency review, which seems to indicate that, you know, the Supreme Court is at least, you know, even though they didn't say this, it kind of says they they're not going to to intervene in a case like this where you got a government institution.

Of course, you don't have to go to the University of Indiana. But if you are, you kind of got to play ball by their rules. So they didn't even and you never know why they didn't look at it. We didn't read the we didn't read the petition. We don't know what kind of law the attorneys relied on. So there may have been something else defective with it.

It may not have. We might be reading too much into it. But that's what we do as attorneys.

We we kind of want to try to figure this out. So I have to pull that up and read it. We love reading into things.

That's one of our favorite pastimes for sure. But I don't think it's reading in too much to anything. You know, the assumption that there's going to be mandates. You know, you mentioned we've doubled down on doing the entertainment. We've been going to the we've been going to the PNC arena to the shows and the events that they're doing there. And prior to very recently, everything we've done there, there's, you know, they haven't asked about vaccine status.

They haven't mentioned it whatsoever. And then we got our first email the other day saying that, you know, for an upcoming show, like you said, they're going to have to either have your proof of vaccination or you're going to have to have a negative test within 72 hours. So it's it's common. We're going to see it. I'm telling you, man, my vaccine card is the most rickety dinky thing. I'm scared to take it out of the house.

I took a picture of it the other day because I was afraid I was going to lose it. What I'm going to do is I'm going to take I'm going to take a USB drive of this show where I have COVID and headphones and I'm going to let the people listen to it and say, look at this. I was sick already. I have natural immunity.

Let me in your show. My plan when I got my card, it wasn't even filled. I like they filled out like the batch and the when I got it. But like my name and social, they just gave it to me blank. And they're like, hey, you fill all this in. All right. But I don't know.

I don't know what kind of evidence of I get what everybody's trying to do. And you feel like you got to do something right. You got to if you're you're you're having a concert, you don't want any liability. You don't want to get sued. We're in the middle of a pandemic. You don't want to get shut down.

So I understand you're going to require a mask requiring proof of vaccination or a negative test. And basically you're doing all you can you can do. So I get it. But it seems like there's a negative. But one thing that doesn't that doesn't make a ton of sense to me, you know, this is putting aside the the health benefits of the vaccine and the fact that, you know, I think a big goal of it is, you know, reducing the severity of the illness, especially for at risk populations, keeping people out of the hospital, all fantastic goals. But while it seems that the evidence shows, you know, the vaccine, if you're vaccinated, it may keep you from being as contagious, spreading it as long. People are still getting it. People are still transmitted it as as vaccinated people. So I don't I don't know how much that necessarily is going to curb transmission so much. I mean, I think showing up with a negative test result.

Absolutely. You know, that's going to that's foolproof evidence that you should be OK. You're not going to be transmitting, but just proof of vaccination. You know, I think the conventional wisdom at one point or the hope, at least from folks was, you know, there's not going to be a lot of breakthrough cases. You know, you're going to get vaccinated and it's going to essentially make you immune. And that does not necessarily seem to be the case. I when when when the when the pandemic kind of got cranked up, when it finally when it kind of started, I talked to somebody who worked in that industry for a long time. And he had basically said that, you know, the coronavirus is just like the cold. And if you could have a good vaccine, we would have a vaccine for the cold. You know, it's just it's just in the nature. I mean, whatever whatever the vaccine is going to be, it's it's you're going to have to get it a couple of times a year.

I mean, just down the road, like I don't see any way around it. And but no, it's, you know. Yeah.

But even still, I think there's been I think there's been cases of folks who are double vax recently that still, you know, they're still contracting it. And I think that comes back to the mutation and the variants and things like that. And and I think we're all doing the best we can. And none of this is to say, like, don't get vaccinated.

That's not the you know, I don't make that point to say that whatsoever. I'm just, you know, questioning how safe that's going to really make everybody that's their field necessarily. You know what I mean? Well, I'm showing up at different drugstores trying to get vaccines like every day of the week. Like, I'm just going to try to like I'm gonna get them all and then just, you know, get extra protection. That's a fantastic plan.

And I think that is exactly what you should do. The the I don't think let me cough on you. Also, that's going to say all joking aside, right? The I don't think we've actually answered Jim's question, which was can my employer make me get a COVID vaccine? I think the answer at least right now is most likely. Yes, I think a private employer in an at will employment state, which we'll talk about what that means a little bit later.

I think you're you're if they decide that they want you to get vaccinated, I think they can. I don't know if you have any different theory on that, Joseph. No, my my thinking is in line with you, Josh. And we said that we said that before full approval. I think we speculated that if your employer asked you to get the vaccine, want to get it, want to get it, then, you know, they're you're likely to lose your job and there's really not going to be any consequence for them. So I agree with you, Josh. I think it can be mandated and required.

And, you know, with the government really pushing private businesses to implement those requirements, I think we are going to see more and more of that as we move forward through the pandemic. Goal on the show is to help educate, inform and to help if you've got any questions about what we've been talking about. Easy to get in touch with Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, the outlaw lawyers at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That number again, eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. You can email questions to the show and they may be used in an upcoming episode. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. If you want to kick the tires online, go to the website, the outlaw lawyer dot com. You got a speeding ticket. The police officer was very nice and told you you could mail in a check instead of going to court.

Should you do that? The outlaw lawyers on the air, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, the power behind the outlaw lawyers, forty six combined years experience in offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina. If you've got a legal question, they have the answer. You can always call eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. You can also pose your questions online at questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com and check out the website, the outlaw lawyer dot com. A lot of information there for you as well. But if you're thinking real estate closings, estate planning and administration, personal injury, criminal and traffic, which we're going to get into in this segment, also family law, all of that within the scope of the outlaw lawyer and Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer.

Again, you can find him at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. The guys were speeding through the program and now we're going to get into speeding tickets. Morgan, this is one question you get the day. Hopefully you make it to your law school graduation before you get this question. But someone in your family, someone in your friends, your circle of friends, your sphere of influence, they're going to get a speeding ticket. They're going to know you just graduated from law school. It's the first call you get. I guarantee it's the first call you get as a graduating law student. I think I got this call 18 times before I graduated law school and count literally countless times after that.

People I don't even know that well. It's all they ask. You know, they they've got a ticket.

They want you to help them with it. And and that's that's what you get, man. That's what that's what I think. That's what a lot of people think lawyers do, just handle tickets constantly. That's right.

All day long, every day. Just and some do. There's some attorneys. That's the focus of their practice is kind of usually see criminal and traffic, the district court, Superior Court. You know, we have several attorneys at our office that spend all day long and in district and Superior Court helping folks in with traffic situations, criminal situations. But today we have a listener question that kind of spurred this debate and gave me those those bad memories getting asked these questions right out of the gate. But we've got a Deborah from Pittsburgh down in Chatham County who has asked us basically, I got a speeding ticket going 15 over the speed limit. The officer was very nice and told me I could just pay the ticket if I didn't want to go to court.

Should I? So that's Deborah's question. And I think any attorney who's ever practiced in the state of North Carolina is going to say, no, don't don't just don't just pay your ticket. First off, Deborah, we care about you personally, like we care personally about each and every one of our listeners. And we want you to drive safe and take good care of yourself.

That's what I'd like to start with. But also because we care about you personally, don't just pay that ticket by mail, Deborah. Yeah. So when in North Carolina, there's you know, there's kind of you'll hear attorneys talk about it, insurance agents talk about it. There's kind of a points system, you know, associated with your driver's license. And every time you get dinged for a speeding ticket or, you know, certain moving violations, you're going to accumulate a certain number of points on your license.

And we kind of attorneys kind of, you know, think about those in two different situations, you know, your insurance, what your insurance premium is, and then your license. And so you get a certain number of points, you're going to be suspended, you're not going to be able to drive. And if you get a certain number of points, your insurance is going to continue to go up, go up.

And at some point, you'll, you know, if you continue to accumulate them, you'll be an uninsurable driver. And so, you know, if you're if you're like me, and I guess, I guess, Joe, you know, we don't at this, you know, when I was a younger man, and I had a Mustang, I accumulated some tickets. But now in my old age, I often don't, I don't get any tickets. I'm assuming that's the same for you, Joseph, man, I tell you what, I don't want to jinx it. But I've been doing great.

I've been doing so good, man. I have not had a ticket. The last ticket that I got, I was at the beach, one of our fine North Carolina coastal beaches. And I got a seatbelt ticket as a passenger in a car. And we were moving the car, like 25 feet up the block. And a state trooper pulled us over and so kindly ticketed me as a passenger.

So yeah, that was pretty sweet. So the last, last ticket I got, I was in law school. So I went down, I think we've talked about this. I was in, I was at Campbell back when it was in Harnett County, right?

When you went back, you went down to Buies Creek for law school. But I was driving on the back roads and I believe it was a Dunn police officer. We were at a stop sign. It was my turn to go clear.

I mean, clear as a bell. And he just gunned it and he got me in the back. So it was, we had an accident or wasn't, wasn't my fault this time.

Right. You know, but he gave me a ticket because my registration had expired. So I was like, Oh man, the cop hit me. And then, and then gave me a ticket, which is his job.

You know, we give the law enforcement a hard time. I honestly thought you were better than that, Josh. How's your neck, how's your neck feeling, Josh? It hurts. It's still, it still hurts.

And that was, I think that was 2001. But, but anyway, it's, you know, a speeding ticket, it's points, right? So you're, the officer is pulling you over. They're usually just trying to be super helpful.

And that's why most folks who are in law enforcement get into law enforcement because they, they want to protect, they want to serve, they want to help. And a lot of times they'll, they'll just off the cuff, you know, if, if you're really upset or you're worried about the courthouse or where to go to court, they always like, well, you can just pay it online. You can just mail it in and they're not trying to do you any disservice. But an attorney would say, yeah, you never do that because as soon as you do that, you're, you're getting points because attorneys can, can, can do things for you. You know, attorneys can, if you go to court, you know, there's things that you can do that gets you less points than if you just pay it off.

Exactly. The reason you're hiring an attorney when you have a ticket is essentially to navigate the process and obtain the absolute optimal outcome for your particular circumstances to give you the lowest amount of points, the whatever the best result for you personally is. And if you just, if you pay that, you're essentially, you're pleading guilty to whatever the original offense was. And like Josh said, if it's a, if it's a speeding ticket, if it's a moving violation, you're going to start accumulating those points.

And you're going to have consequences, be it drastically raised premiums on your insurance, or be it points on your license, or be it something worse if it's, you know, you've had several offenses. So you never just want to pay that ticket. So Deborah's question, we, we don't have some information.

She's in Pittsburgh. So maybe that's Chatham County, but every county kind of has a different structure for what they'll allow. You know, you go in and you can ask, you guys have probably all heard this, but you can ask for a reduction in speed. So she got a ticket for going 15 over, but maybe if she shows up and she's got a clean record, an attorney or a, you know, an ADA and a sister's attorney would, would say, Hey, we'll reduce this to nine, um, not over, which means less points, right?

That's something that they can do for you that gets you less points. If you've got a, like I said, a clean driving record, um, you know, some counties, an attorney would tell you to go to a driving school, maybe do some community service, whatever that county requires. There's usually some things that they can do to reduce the speed. And so over 15 is kind of a big, uh, uh, you know, kind of a point where the points get more, you know, over 20, you know, there's certain speed limit, uh, that, that make more of a difference when we're talking about these points. And so if Deborah's clean, and I think Deborah being a listener of the outlaw lawyer probably keeps, uh, her driving record pretty clean obeys the law.

So if she's got this 15 and over, and she can get it down to nine, well, there's a law in North Carolina that every couple of years, you can get, uh, you know, a nine over or less, and it doesn't cause you points. It doesn't hurt you on your insurance. You know, it's kind of a, Hey, everybody's going to get a speeding ticket every now and again, kind of thing.

That's right. And, and, uh, another option. And again, we're telling you these options for informational purposes, but again, it's always important.

If you get a ticket, it's always a great idea to contact an attorney. Um, because, you know, it's very situational, but another thing that a lot of people have heard about is that prayer for judgment. Um, and you know, some people think of that as just kind of a freebie, throw it out there and it'll take care of the issue for you. But, you know, you really want, that's something that you're going to use strategically. Uh, and if there's a better result that, that can be negotiated for you by the attorney where that doesn't have to be used, and you can save that for later on down the line where it may be more necessary, then you want to do that.

You don't want to just assume because you've got that, that prayer for judgment that you just go and use it and, uh, have it done with, because again, you don't get an unlimited amount of those. Well, and Joe and I, and our, in our day-to-day practice, Joe and I are not the attorneys at our firm who spend a lot of time on, uh, traffic matters, but our attorneys that do, I I've seen them time and time again, somebody will come in and their driving record, I'll have a bunch of different things on it and they just kind of go through it, mark it up and really can figure it out. And so you've got a lot of, an attorney's got a lot of tools at their disposal. Um, and you know, I see people who have had their, their right to drive suspended because they didn't take care of a traffic ticket. They didn't do what they were supposed to do.

They just paid off a couple and got too many points. And they're really like magicians, you know, the, the attorneys, uh, here at the firm, they're like, uh, driving record magicians. And so they just kind of carve it up, figure out what needs to be done and what order kind of make a plan. And it's, uh, it's amazing when you live in this world, when you live in this traffic citation, criminal world, which you can, what these folks know how to do and figure out. And I'm, I am definitely no expert on it by any means, but I think the answer to Deborah's question is do not just mail in a payment. You're gonna, you're gonna, well, you know, it's public record when you get a ticket. So you're going to get all the attorney letters. You hear people talk about that, but attorneys, you know, once you get a ticket, it's a public record that a lot of attorneys, you know, will, will buy that information so they can send you a letter so they can market to you and let you know that what they can, they'll let you know what they can do for you and what it'll cost. But because of that, it's kind of an annoyance to get 10 attorney letters, right. When you get a ticket, but because of that, it's kind of capitalism at work, what it actually costs for an attorney to help you attorneys fees have really gone down as a result.

All right, guys, let me jump in just man on the street comment. I mean, having professional advice, once you receive a speeding ticket, just having that, I mean, it may, it may cost you some to work with a professional, a lawyer, to get you through your, your citation, but what that could save you in the long run, that's what you have to compute. That's what you have to kind of come up with as you are working on your case. I, we, we've had situations just in my own family where, you know, working with an attorney has saved us a lot of money down the road with insurance and just making sure that that person could continue to drive. So, you know, doing it now and being proactive certainly, you know, and working with an attorney seems to be a positive.

Yeah. That's a great point. And, and, you know, it's like Josh said with the, the amount of mailings and traffic mailings and attorneys who are really dedicated to the, the practice of taking care of speeding tickets. You're not talking about an astronomical cost for that. Now your court costs are going to be one element of that.

And you know, that's, you can't really do anything about that. They're going to be set by statute. They're going to be what they are, but you're not going to be paying an attorney substantial sums to take care of your speeding ticket. So it's, it's cost benefit wise, the benefit drastically outweighs the cost to, to get some help with that ticket.

Once again, the goal on the show is to help educate, inform anything that we've been talking about. If you've got questions coming up with your legal situation and you want those answers, here's the number to call 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. That will get you in touch with Josh Whittaker and Joe Hamer, Whittaker and Hamer law firm.

Again, 46 combined years experience, Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, offices at all of those nice towns. And again, the Outlaw Lawyers. We talk legal every single week. I'm Morgan Patrick again, man on the street, producer slash big voice. We're back right after this. Coming up next, I was fired from my job for no reason.

What can I do about it? The Outlaw Lawyers on the air. Josh Whittaker, Joe Hamer, Whittaker and Hamer law firm.

46 combined years experience between these two. Again, Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, offices there to help. Real estate closings, estate planning and administration, personal injury, criminal, traffic, family law. They have attorneys to handle it. If you've got questions, remember you can always call 800-659-1186, 800-659-1186 and someone will be in touch. If you've got a question for the program, email it in questions at theoutlawlawyer.com and we'll use it in a future show.

And again, check out the website, theoutlawlawyer.com. Guys, what's next? Joe, how you holding up? You making it through the show?

Hey man, I'm here. I've been secretly eating a piece of chicken during the show and it's been giving me the protein that I need to carry on. Can't taste it. Can't smell it.

I hope it's good. Can't smell anything, man. And it's weird, you know, if you've ever been congested before and you've got like congestion in your nose and it kind of dulls your sense of smell, it's kind of a strange sensation.

I don't have that. I can breathe. I can breathe perfectly fine through my nose.

So I'm breathing in, there's just no, nothing, literally no sense of anything. And it's pretty strange, man. I'll tell you that. Have, have you, uh, have you tested that out?

Like bourbon, mustard, like just nothing? I've tried. I mean, everything I've tried to smell prior to now, it's nothing. I literally, I've been, you know, I've been Lysol and everything.

I'm trying to keep, well, I was trying to keep my family, uh, from getting it. I think I failed, but, uh, I sprayed a bunch of Lysol and literally just walked through it. And, uh, it, there's just nothing, man. I can't sense anything whatsoever. So, um, hear a lot of people deal with that for extended periods of time.

I'm hoping I'm on the short end of that and can beat it back pretty quick. Cause I, now I can taste a little more than I can smell, but I can't smell anything. So, and I can taste like salty.

I can taste sweet. I just can't do much more than that. So it could be worse, man. All in all, I'm blessed. I can't complain.

Well, that's a, well, I'm glad you're, I'm glad you're on the men and you're, uh, you're making it through the show just fine. And, and, and so we've got two. So now we've got two lists. We're gonna, we got two listener questions that kind of play off each other.

So we're going to do this one first. So we've got another anonymous listener question, but basically, uh, our listener ask, I was fired for my job recently for basically no reason at all. I Googled what I could do about it and found out that North Carolina was an at will employment state. What does that even mean?

So, um, that is an important just to start it off the bat. So North Carolina is an at will employment state. So as long as, uh, you know, as long as there's not a statute, a federal or state statute that protects your employment, uh, and as long as your employer is not acting in a discriminatory fashion, uh, adverse to federal law, you can be fired for just about any reason or no reason at all. You know, I read that question, I see that basically no reason at all.

And I have to look at it with a little scrutiny and wonder basically no reason. Maybe there's, there's probably a reason, but, uh, you know, you said it, Josh at will employment, you know, like you said, unless there is a specific law to protect the employees or an employment contract that provides otherwise, then an employer can basically treat the employees however they see fit. Um, which, you know, that could even include the assignment of like demeaning tasks even. And there's really not so much they can, uh, that an employee can do about it.

And so it's important, you know, the federal federal law kind of comes in. So we have our kind of state laws and, and federal law preempts, uh, and kind of fills in the gaps to a lot of state laws, but, you know, federal law will not allow you to, to fire someone in discrimination, you know, so race, age, sex, religion, you know, all that stuff still protected. You can't be fired for that. Um, but your boss, if they come in and they have a bad day and they just fire you because you wore a red shirt and they can fire you because you wore a red shirt, you know, they can fire you for, of course, all the normal stuff missing. Like people think you have to get written up, right. You have to get written up a certain number of times, or you have to have a, a certain incident, but, but no, you can just be straight up terminated, no notice, nothing.

And that, that assumes, you know, we talk about the exception. So if you like, if you have an employment contract, now that's different, right? You're no longer at will, you've signed a contract, uh, to be an employee and your employer would have to terminate you according to whatever's required in that, in that contract.

That's right, Josh. So you, you, uh, you remove yourself from that at will status once you have the contract in place, and then the contract's going to dictate. So that's not to say you couldn't still be fired for no reason. It's just going to depend on what the con if the contract says, you can be fired for no reason. It's all going to be dictated and based by that contract. So you're going to be bound by the contract. And if it's not something that complies with the terms of the contract, uh, you can't be terminated for that. And if you were, you could just sue on that contract for breach of it to, to get some recourse there.

Yeah. And I would, I would encourage our listeners, if you have been terminated and you think it's for a reason, a discriminatory reason, then, you know, our, our recommendation is always, you call the, the equal employment opportunity commission, the EEOC, that's kind of where you always start. Um, you know, there's a process there, they issue a right to sue letter, but if you think you're, that's where, that's where you start. If you feel like you've been fired for an illegal reason, um, that that's an important, important number to have an important place to start.

Yeah. So if, if you are not employed pursuant to an employment contract, um, and again, there's, you know, it's, you, you would, you should know if you have a contract, it's not going to be something, you know, it's not going to be, you've, you've read the employee personnel handbook, you know, that's not necessarily what we're talking about here, but if you do not have employment pursuant to an actual employment contract, then you're going to be considered an at will employee. And again, you can be fired for any reason or no reason at all. So long as that reason doesn't, uh, is not based on certain protected categories.

Um, and again, those categories, they include race. Uh, you can't be fired because of your race. You can't be fired because of your age, your sex, your religion, uh, your national origin, your color, your disability, or for being pregnant. Those are all protected basis that you, you can't simply be fired for those reasons alone. And I would add Joseph, um, you know, there are, if you're, if you work for the state government, so if you work for the NC state government, there are statutes that protect how you're, if you're a certain class of employee, how you're terminated and, and, uh, there's a whole set of, another set of rules for that. And if you work for the federal government or federal laws that deal with how to terminate a federal employee of a certain class, you know, so, um, you're not, you're not, you're not technically at will. You've got some, some base protections that your employer, uh, has to follow. But I think most of us normal, normal guys, you're, you're at will. And, uh, and that, that's just how it is. It's, uh, down here, I have a lot of in-laws up north and, uh, you know, with the unions and things like that, it's, it's, it's, it's very different in some areas than it is here.

Um, but, but we are, we are at will. So to answer our listeners question, the fact that you were fired for basically no reason at all, unfortunately, there's really nothing you could do about it unless that reason was because of some protected category that you were a part of, whether it be because of race or age or sex, religion, or any of the things that we discussed and talked about. So if it wasn't based on one of those reasons, and if you did not have an employment contract, then unfortunately you are out of luck and there really are no great things that you can pursue to get you any kind of recourse. So Josh, have you ever been fired from a job?

Let me think. I don't, I don't think that I've ever been. I think I was usually a pretty good employee.

I liked, uh, I liked to work a lot when I was going through school. So I had some money, so I don't think I've ever been a juicy, a really juicy anecdotal story we could draw from, but, uh, no, no, we probably should have, we probably should have talked about that ahead of time. That's all right. I haven't been fired either. So I can't, I've worked so hard everywhere I went, man. So, well, I'm in the media business guys. I've been fired. So it happens. You get downsized, uh, companies going different directions. Uh, you know, I, I do have questions, especially in the next segment, uh, when we talk about non-competes because a lot, you hear that a lot in the media business. Uh, but certainly it applies to other, uh, you know, realms of the business, uh, world, but I can't wait to get into that discussion and that's coming up, right? Yep. Yep. Up next, we're going to talk about, uh, non-competes and what that means and how they can be enforced.

So this was a good, uh, a good segue into that. Morgan folks, if you have any questions about what we've been talking about and maybe there's a legal question that we haven't broached, uh, there's an opportunity to ask that question from Josh and Joe and to them, I should say 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. That'll get you in touch with the outlaw lawyers. Again, you can find Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They have offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, and Fuquay-Varina. And again, that group 46 combined years experience helping so many clients with real estate closings, estate planning and administration, personal injury, criminal and traffic, family law folks, if it's legal, most likely they're going to have an answer to your question. So remember the number 800-659-1186. If you've got questions for the show, you can do that at questions at the outlaw lawyer.com.

And if you want to check out the website, you can get in touch with the firm there too. It's the outlaw lawyer.com. Next up on the outlaw lawyer, can your employer enforce that non-compete?

The answer up next. The outlaw lawyer. We are on the air, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, the power behind the outlaw lawyers. And they have offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, and this group 46 combined years experience and helping clients with real estate closings, estate planning and administration. You've got personal injury, criminal and traffic, family law, a lot to be discussed.

We do it each and every week. If you've got any legal questions, a great number to call is 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. You can also email questions that we may get to use on upcoming shows.

Go to questions at the outlaw lawyer.com and you can check the website out, the outlaw lawyer.com. Guys, I know we've got kind of that cleanup hitter type of topic as we wrap up this show. We get this question a lot. This is a consult that we get a lot. It's another anonymous question. I always don't like it when we don't get a name and a location, but we've got an anonymous listener who basically says, I signed a non-compete at my job. Can my employer hold me to this agreement? And so, non-competes are a complicated topic. A lot of folks, I know when they start certain kinds of jobs, you see it a lot in sales, you see it a lot in construction, but there are certain types of jobs where you go to work for someone and you're going to get a lot of, we'll call it proprietary information, client list, trade secrets.

You're going to get access to a lot of these things. And so, before your employer takes you on to train you and kind of teach you their way, they might have you sign a non-compete. And a non-compete is just shorthand for a non-competition agreement. So, before they hire you, as part of a consideration for being employed, they may say, look, if you're fired or if you leave here, you can't do anything similar to what you're doing for me for 10 years in a 80 mile radius. They'll have some terms in there that you can't call on our clients, you can't use our customer list, you can't take trade secrets. And some of them even have liquidated damage penalties in there saying, hey, if you violate this, then you're going to owe us $25,000 for each time it happens or something like that. We call that liquidated damages in the law game.

But Jody, is this something you see a lot too? Yeah. So, to answer the question, I think the answer is, it depends. North Carolina law doesn't look favorably at non-compete agreements, but they are permitted. It's just that in order to be valid, they basically have to be designed to protect the legitimate business interest of the employer. And if you end up with something that's too broad to be considered a reasonable protection of the employer's business, it's not going to be enforced. So there's going to be some specific elements that have to be met. And in the event that they are met, then it's going to be a valid non-compete. And so one of the first things, and you mentioned this, Josh, we talked in our previous segment about at-will employment. Well, to have a non-compete that's going to be valid, you're not going to be an at-will employee because that non-compete has to be made a part of your contract for employment from the onset of your employment. And if it's not, Joe, you've got to receive some adequate consideration. So if your employer, let's say you start out on one level, but you kind of work your way up and you're working and your employer just comes out and puts a non-compete in front of you to sign, there's got to be consideration. There's got to be a raise.

There's got to be a promotion. Facts really matter in that scenario. But again, the courts, like Joe said, they disfavor these. So they kind of look for ways to maybe get around them or strictly construe them.

I know I had a consult not too long ago. This company operates all up and down the East Coast and they had someone who left their employment and they were trying to keep them working out of work in any state on the East Coast for a certain amount of years. And that's the kind of stuff courts don't like. Courts, they understand that your employer has an interest they need to protect, but they also want you to be able to work. So the court always talks about narrowly tailored, reasonable terms as to time and location.

So 30 days, six months, 25 mile radius. They want it to fit the employer's need and that it can't be excessive. And that's always a fact-based argument.

It makes perfect sense too, Josh. It makes perfect sense why the court would disfavor because you're talking about people's ability to earn a livelihood. This could be a career that someone has dedicated their entire lives to, put in substantial time and money into training. And so the court's always going to look with a ton of scrutiny at any kind of restriction of that person's ability to work and to earn a living. But again, it is allowed. So in addition to some of the things we've talked about, it's got to be in writing. It's got to be made a part of the contract for employment and based on good and valuable consideration. And then like you said, Josh, it's got to be reasonable both as to the time and the territory. And then it's also got to be not against public policy as well.

Yeah. So you'll never see a doctor or a lawyer sign a non-compete. There's kind of ethical rules and things that preempt basically said it's not going to be enforceable because that's bad.

You want as many doctors as you can get practicing. You don't want to train doctors sitting at home unable to work because of a non-compete. So there are some industries where non-competes are just, the court just doesn't allow them at all.

And we talked about that public policy piece. And when we say that they can't be against public policy, we're basically referring to the fact that that non-compete can't be used just to stifle competition. If it does that, then the court's going to look at it and deem that it's offensive to public policy because it basically promotes a monopoly at the public expense and that's not going to be enforced.

So like you said, if you had the physician in a small town that had a non-compete that would keep other physicians from practicing in the small town, that's going to be a public health concern and that's not going to be enforceable like you said. You know, when we do these consults, we're usually meeting with an employee. Sometimes we're meeting with an employer or meeting with an employee whose old employer is saying, hey, I'm going to enforce this. I'm going to sue you.

You can't do this, this or this. So your client's out of work, your client's in a bad way. So we're always very sympathetic to that, but there are attorney's fees involved in fighting this. And so it's really just a tough spot to be in. And so I think the kind of golden rule from our conversation is going to be, if you ever get one of these non-competes put in front of you, it's good to have an attorney look at it just so you know what you're up against if something happens. Maybe your employer won't give you a chance to really change anything. It's kind of a take it or leave it deal. But I mean, these really wreck people. And so it's something just, it's worth putting an eye on or having a trained eye review it for you just so you know what you're in for.

Because if it's severe enough, it may not be worth the job if you've got multiple options. Great opportunity to get on the phone. If you've got any questions about what we've been talking about today on The Outlaw Lawyers with Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, you can find them at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. Here's the number, 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. Please email questions to the show. We'll use them in the upcoming weeks. Questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. And again, these questions will be used on future shows.

And check out the website, theoutlawlawyer.com. We're back next week. Here's the number again, 800-659-1186. Guys, closing comments. Joe, I hope you get some sleep. I hope you get some rest. And we feel better at the firm soon. Thanks, guys. I hope I'll see you next week.

Have a good one. Outlaw 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.