Nirvana Album & Child Pornography and What Is A Special Master?

This week on The Outlaw Lawyer, Josh and Joe remote in to discuss the law and how it affects everything around us. And as always, here on The Outlaw Lawyer, our attorneys tackle all the urgent burning legal questions such as, what is special master? Did the band Nirvana create child pornography?

And did NC State get lucky in football for a change? That's all coming up next on The Outlaw Lawyer. Now, Outlaw Lawyer. Welcome in to The Outlaw Lawyers, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. Managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm offices conveniently located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and now Moorhead City. They are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, and we talk legalese each and every week.

I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. If you've got a legal situation that you are facing and you have questions, I've got a phone number for you. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact info, briefly what the call is about, and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. You can always email your questions to the program, questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. And please check out that website. It is a good one, theoutlawlawyer.com. What's on your mind right now? Well, Morgan, you know, here at The Outlaw Lawyer, we like to talk about the law. That's what we're here for. We're talking about legal news, legal items, answering listener questions about the law.

We're lawyers, but we never seem to start out talking about the law when we do these shows. There seems like there's something that we always have to get to. And this week, we had college football come back. So, we had college football. We had all the local teams in action. That state game, that wasn't a lot of fun for me.

That was a tough state game to watch. I don't know if you guys saw that. Oh, I saw it. I got to see a little bit of it. And tell me how brave I was, all right? I met my son.

He's 22. Carolina fan, like his dad. And we went to the Brick House. It is on Hillsboro Street, right across from Meredith College in the old Wonder Bread factory. Beautiful sports bar location. It's owned by, believe it or not, some Ohio State alums, and the big booster club for the Buckeyes meets there, but they're also a state bar. So, we get there. It's a noon kick for both games.

UNC at Appalachian, and NC State is down in Greenville taking on the Pirates. So, we get there, and the place is almost full. Everybody's wearing their gear. I walk in with a Carolina blue golf shirt on.

I'm the only one in there not wearing red, white, or a neutral color. I sit at the bar with my son. We have two TVs, and he's like, whatever you do, Dad, don't ask the bartender manager to put the Carolina game on.

I'm like, what are you talking about? I go, we're in a sports bar. He goes, Dad, this is a state bar. I mean, all these people want to watch state. I go, well, believe it or not, I guarantee you, everybody in this bar would love to at least have a couple of TVs on the Carolina games. So, they can watch Carolina lose.

The manager looked at me and heard me say that, and he goes, you're right. Which TV would you like it on? We had state on our TV to the left, and we had Carolina and app on our TV to the right. We had a wonderful time. To be in a bar that is that packed and that focused not only on the state game, but also the Carolina game, it was like being at the football game. I mean, they were absolutely raucous. It was a great atmosphere. Anyway, I digress.

Oh, that's awesome. I was at the lake, so I was watching it with the boys, and I gave up on it, man. I had to go outside, fish a little, and take my mind off of it. So, my boys continued to watch the state game, and they came out to tell me what had happened, which I was just crazy. I just knew that game was lost.

But yeah, that was a tough one. Joe, you said you watched the state game? Oh, Josh, I did see the state game. I actually did see the state game, and I tell you, I thought it was hilarious. It was a competitive game. All the credit in the world to the fans in Greenville.

Fantastic atmosphere. Fun game to watch, but really down the stretch, a true comedy of errors. There were great plays, but they were offset by terrible plays. It just seemed like state wanted to lose this game, man, and it seemed like they were well on their way to stating it up and having one of those classic NC State moments, man. And all I could hear in my head as I'm watching this game, and like you, I thought state was going to lose it.

Just some terrible clock management down the stretch, just some real head scratching type of decisions. And all I could hear is your voice in my head. Hey, Joe, wasn't Duke picked last by the media in the ACC preseason poll? And it just was echoing in my head. And, you know, I reminded you at that point, like, hey, Josh, you need to be careful, man, because these high expectations for your beloved NC State Wolfpack, you know, we've seen they have a way of crushing your hopes and dreams. And that's kind of where I thought things were going. Yeah, well, I think I think I went on record saying we don't always trust, you know, NC State fans.

We don't trust ourselves. And I knew that would be exhibit a this game, this game. But yeah, kudos to to ECU, man, that that team. I'm interested to see what that team does, because I definitely think we played down. But that is a that's going to be a fun team to watch. I hope they I hope they do well and I feel bad for that kicker.

You know, anytime you see a kicker do that, that's always I hope he bounces back and and has a great year. I did not see that Carolina game. I heard about the Carolina game, but didn't. That's another one.

And that's another one with some head scratching decisions. You know, I watched that game. I kind of kept an eye on both state game ended with enough time to catch the end of the the Carolina game. And so, you know, I tell you, I was watching that game.

And if you didn't see it, Josh, it was nuts. I think there was there was I think app state alone scored was like six touchdowns in the fourth quarter. Forty points. Just insanity.

But I tell you what I knew. So app state they score. I think there's like a minute left. They score. They can kick the field goal to tie it or they can go for two. They go for two guys wide, literally wide open. So as wide open as you can be and quarterback, not really under pressure, throws on the ball over his head, whiffs on it, misses it. Heartbreaking moment for app state.

So they come out. They're down one less than a minute to go. They kick the onside kick and doesn't go quite 10 yards. Guy from Carolina scoops it and no timeouts at this point. All they really have to do is he takes a knee. He falls down in bounds and are out of it.

It doesn't matter. It's it's it's new downs. They could they could need the clock out. The game's over. He instead runs it all the way in, starts kind of showboating, celebrates. They get an unsportsmanlike penalty and they go up by eight, but they get this penalty.

So as soon as this happens, man, I knew I was like, that's this game. They're going to score again. Like they haven't been able to stop them. They're going to score again. And it's funny because the announcers, the announcers, it took them a while. You know, once the extra point was kicked, one of the announcers was like, yeah, that's the game. It's a two score game. And then he realized he was like, oh, wait, no, it's only eight points. Well, if you were listening, if you were listening to the UNC broadcast, which you probably weren't, you could hear the just I mean, just the the worry in the tone of Jones Angel and the entire booth. They're like, what is going on? I mean, it's like the game should be over and there's going to be an opportunity for Appalachian State to to get the victory.

And I tell you, just absolutely. It was offensively just a freak show defensively. There are a lot of question marks on both sides of the ball, but it was it was it was 63 to 61. Fellas, there were there were 62 points between the two teams in the fourth quarter, which I was surprised to find out. That's one shy of tying the record.

I don't know the record. But the fact that there's there's more points in the fourth quarter in Division one history is amazing to me. But we left where we were watching the game probably early third quarter thinking, you know what? This is going to be this is going to be pretty much done.

Carolina is going to go on to win. And then Appalachian just came all the way back. So kudos not only to App State, but to the town of Boone. They did an amazing job hosting forty five thousand football fans on Labor Day weekend. Congratulations.

That's crazy. And I didn't what it do. I didn't actually this isn't this isn't meant to be a jab, Joseph. I just didn't see what was the Duke.

Yes. So I did watch that Duke game, Josh, not knowing what to expect as a Duke fan. A lot of disappointment in my in my lifetime of watching Duke football, some recent happy moments. But, you know, Duke, new coach Coach Elko, highly touted, a lot of positive buzz around the program.

I've liked what I've seen. But again, you never really know until you see the game. And they play Temple, who's not like a true power five opponent.

So, again, temper the expectations. But I think all things considered, went about as well as it could. The defense looked fantastic. They have a shutout for the first time in a long time against a power five opponent. Quarterback went, I think, 15 for 15 to start the game. They scored 24 points in the first half. Again, they record the shutout second half, you know, kind of take their foot off the gas. Don't don't, you know, have the same success, but very difficult to complain about really anything in the opener other than the crowd. We always complain, you know, the crowd. And it's hard to blame, you know, the true Duke fans who have seen so many disappointing and tough moments. But hopefully there will be some sustained success. You know, Duke plays Northwest Northwestern this weekend who had a win over Nebraska. Hard to say how impressive that win was because it's difficult to say how good Nebraska really is.

But that'll be a much more interesting test and a much more interesting barometer of where Duke is. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, where you can find them. They're the managing partners. They have offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and Moorhead City.

They are practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. Guys, we're going to get into a lot of different topics today. We have some fun at the open of almost every single show when it comes to non-legal topics and we're all college sports fans. So we usually start there. But I had a question for you and you both can chime in. Why do you do the outlaw lawyer?

You know, that's a good question, Morgan. We started this about I guess it's been about a year ago now, maybe a year and a half that we've been doing this. But we we thought it'd be a good vehicle for the firm to really discuss like legal news of the day in a non-political way.

Right. So we you know, we and Joe and everybody that appears on the show, we have our political leanings. But I think we in this day and age, it's really helpful to have, you know, lawyers, attorneys kind of take a look at some of this stuff in the legal news and kind of comment on.

I mean, for lack of a better word, the legality of it, what's actually happening, you know? And that's what we try to do. We also try to answer some basic listener questions to help, you know, people answer maybe some common legal questions that that they encounter. But that's the that's kind of the purpose of our show.

I was out in the general public. Somebody was talking to me about the show and I don't think they've made it through the whole show before. They're like, what do you what do you as a sports talk? I was like, no, that's not what we're trying to do. We got to ease into the legal.

You can't you can't just jump into the legal. You got to ease into the tough. I mean, you got you guys have personalities outside the office. And I think that that lends to just the entire, you know, the feel of this show. I mean, you're you're a state fan, Josh, and you're a Duke fan, Joe. I mean, and I went to Carolina.

I'm a Carolina fan. So there's there's just this, you know, it's a trifecta of, you know, the players that are on the air every single week. But when it gets down to the legalese, I mean, that's why you're here. So we talk about movies and television.

Yeah, we mix it up. That's my promise to our listener. If you hang in there with us, we will eventually talk about the law.

Yeah, exactly, man. Well, let's eventually get to it and let's take a break. We'll be back on the other side. And I believe we're going to talk about one of the greatest rock bands, Nirvana. They're not in any kind of hot water, but it's an interesting question that is posed.

We'll talk about that coming up on the other side. The outlaw liars, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, your hosts. They are the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They are practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina.

They have offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and now in Morehead City. If you have a legal situation you're facing and you have questions, you can always call the firm. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Leave your contact information briefly what that calls about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. You can always email your questions to the show. We'll answer them on a future program.

We'll leave your name out of it, but you can get the answer that way. You can email questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. We'll have more legalese discussion coming up on the other side. Welcome back in to the outlaw lawyers, your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm.

Practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, offices conveniently located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and now in Morehead City. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. We talk legalese each and every week. We also have some fun. But, you know, we get into the serious topics as well. And the first one up, we all remember Nirvana. Their first album that really went big had a picture on the cover, and apparently we're going to talk about it. Nirvana and naked babies, gentlemen. Yes, that's what I that's what I titled this segment. And so this has come up a time or two before. But the story the story right now is the baby on that Nirvana. So I remember that.

So 91. That was like early high school for me. I remember when that came out, because up until then, you know, a lot of a lot of hair metal out there, you know, and then Nirvana kind of changed that kind of brought the grunge on. So that was a big album. I think I saw they've sold over 30 million copies. Everybody's familiar with the Nevermind album from Nirvana in 1991. Joe, you familiar with that? You know about that Nirvana?

Is that a Hindu band? Yeah, no, I'm your man. Well, familiar. I don't know how you can be my age or you know, I don't know how you could not be familiar with that. So you'll you'll recall that album covers kind of an iconic album cover. And it's got a yes, it's got a baby. I can't remember how it's a it's a baby, right?

It's a little underwater. And you the genitals of the baby you you can see, right? I guess that's it's it's a naked baby front and center.

You're not hiding anything. Yeah, baby boy, baby boy. Correct, baby boy.

Let's be clear. It is a baby boy. And and so Spencer Eldon, that's the name of that baby. And he's now 31 years old, which is which is hard to process that that that baby could be 31 years old. But he has sued Nirvana or the surviving members of Nirvana Cobain's estate.

He's done this once or twice. There's been a couple of lawsuits pertaining to this, but the most recent effort was under a law that I was not super familiar with. But Masha's law, I can't be I might be pronouncing that it's named after a victim of child pornography. So it was it's a federal law that is giving victims of child pornography a way to sue the folks who created the pornography or trafficked it or distributed it for civil damages. And so that's a big news story. He filed against Nirvana saying like, hey, you know, I was this was child pornography.

It was distributed 30 million times and it's changed. I've suffered damages and what have you. But, Joe, have you seen this story? This is this is not one I kind of kind of delved into it yesterday because I wasn't super familiar with this law, this federal law. I wanted to know more about it, but it's kind of a crazy story. Well, Josh, you know, I haven't seen this story. Not ashamed to say my social media algorithm doesn't pick up the hot words, child pornography. All right.

Not not saying that's how I came up on yours, man, but no, I haven't seen anything about this very relatable story because I actually was a naked swimming baby boy at one point in my life. So, you know, I can and it's here's the thing, man. At the time, you know that, like you said, iconic album cover, I don't really recall that giving me pause at the time, like seeing it at the time in the context. But like you think about today and like. So you've got a random naked baby, like a picture on your phone, like that's a substantial issue for you. Right. But you're talking about a CD that you said purchased by millions of people. So it's an interesting thing, man, and I think it's a it's interesting to look at the changes in societal norms and things like that. So just to give you some background again, and I've said this before, but there's a way to mispronounce your name.

I'm going to find it. So if I ever mispronounce your name, know that I've done it to a million people before you. But but Masha's law as a federal law from 2005, it was named after a five year old orphan who was adopted. It was a Russian orphan who was adopted by an American man who got convicted for producing sexually explicit images of her. And what it allows the victim to do is to sue the person responsible. They don't want there doesn't have to be a criminal conviction, but but they would have to prove in a court of law that this was done. And this person was responsible if there's no conviction, but it has a statute of limitations. And that's 10 years after the victim turns 18 or 10 years after it's discovered the violation or the injury. So whatever happened in 10 years after it should reasonably be discovered and. Looks like Mr. Eldon's lawsuit was kicked out of federal court because the statute of limitations had had passed because he should have reasonably known about it when he was 18. There's a 10 year statute of limitations after he turned 28.

You don't even get to the merits anymore, right? When a lawyer when a lawyer sues under something like this under a statute, the statute kind of lays out what you have to prove. You know, if you don't even get to the basic elements of something, statute of limitations just just kicks you out.

So it got thrown out. He's appealing it. His attorneys are arguing the statute of limitations is unfair. And maybe I think their example was, you know, somebody had created this kind of pornography. They could just wait out the statute of limitations and then, you know, not have any civil liability.

Of course, there's still be criminal liability, but civil liability for it. So it's a again, it's an interesting, interesting statute I was not very familiar with until this came up. But but yeah, that's interesting, Joe, because I remember when it came out, like I do remember thinking it was kind of like it was odd, but it did not.

It did not shock me. Like if that if that were to come out today, that would that would be a pick. It wouldn't come out, I guess is the point today. You can rate it immediately. That's not I can't recommend if you have a band, if you're one of our listeners and you got a band, you're putting out your first album. I'm going to go ahead and official legal advice.

Don't put a naked child on the cover. That's a that's going to be my advice to you. But like you said, they didn't consider the merits because of the statute of limitations issue. And I know you mentioned the potential criticism of folks saying, like, you could just wait this out. But but it's important to remember the statute of limitations here.

It's it's from it. The person has to have not you have to know about this thing happening. They have to have knowledge of it.

So that's I think there would be a protection from someone just like you said, filming this or taking this and then waiting it out. In this case, they didn't get to the merits. But if you look at the merits, you know, the the law requires personal injury or some type of damage in that sense. And I think the the lawyers for Nirvana, they were trying to argue that the lawsuit's basically a money grab and that rather than this being something that caused the individual Spencer Eldon damage, they're saying he actually embraced his part in the band's history. And, you know, you could say, well, how can they say that? You know, that's that's very speculative. How can you say that this guy really embraced his role as that?

And I think if you look, you look at the fact that he literally has the album title tattooed across his chest and he recreated the image for the band, the 25th anniversary of the album. You look at those two pieces and it's it's tough to say that, you know, he's really suffered lifelong damage as a result of this. Now, again, you don't ever want to speculate as to what someone's gone through, especially in a situation like this. But two very interesting tidbits that speak to the impact this has had on him.

I feel like Mr. Eldon to his parents. Yeah, his parents are the ones who signed off on this. Right. I would imagine like that. And there's the fact that, like, say, let's just say theoretically, Josh, you're you're a naked baby. You as a naked one year old, you're on an album cover and it comes out and millions see it. How how are they going to make that connection that it's even you in the first place?

You know, I couldn't pick you as a naked baby out of a lineup of a thousand naked babies, Josh. Right. I don't I don't know. You definitely don't want to you know, we don't want to make light of anybody who's who's you know, obviously this this law exists because there are a lot of victims out there. But yeah, I don't know if Spencer, I don't know if Mr. Eldon, he has kind of.

I always say turned into the skid. Right. So whatever, you know, this this may have caused him some emotional trauma or what have you.

But he he definitely did embrace it. And the statute of limitations thing is cut dry. Right. The statute of limitations, you know, I always use the example, Joe, you sell me a car. You know, I don't like it. It's a contract issue. I say you breached this contract. I've got three years to see you. And if I don't do it, then that's it.

I can't. There's not there's nothing else to do. And statute of limitations exist. You know, just just for that. And anyway, it's kind of you know, it's kind of an odd statute, you know, trying to help folks who have been victims of a crime and a very, very, you know, serious crime. And so it's admirable that exist. And, you know, I don't know, the statute of limitations is serving the purpose of the statute.

You know, I don't know what they're trying to to protect. They might have a good they might have a good argument as far as, you know, getting the statute of limitations changed or ruled unconstitutional. But then, yeah, then you still got to get down to the merits. And I think he's got a he's got an uphill battle for sure.

Yeah, I think he's going to have issues on the merits, even if you get past this issue. And with the, you know, the statute of limitations, you this is a situation where, you know, there was no this wasn't something that he didn't he didn't know about. He was he didn't have any knowledge of like, like you said, he he knew about this.

This is maybe what this might be the most famous naked baby image that I can think of in our time. Like, it's not it's not something that crept up on anyone or that was unheard of. He knew about it for this entire this entire period.

And rather than than making an issue of it at any point, he actually kind of, like you said, leaned into it. And so I think on the merits could be a tough sale, even if they they beat this statute of limitations issue. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. You can find them at all of their offices. They're everywhere. Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verita, Gastonia and Moorhead City.

They are the managing partners of the firm and they are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. So one topic down. Nirvana and naked babies.

Again, the Spencer Eldon versus Nirvana case. Next up on the program, we're going to get into what is special master. That is, what is a special master? Reminder, if you've got a legal question of your own and you need an answer, you can get in touch with Whitaker and Hamer by calling 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact information briefly what that call is about. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can always email your questions to the program will answer them on a future show. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. Check out our Web site, the outlaw lawyer dot com. We're back with more outlaw lawyers right after this.

Welcome back into the outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. Whitaker and Hamer law firm managing partners are your hosts. They are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. They have offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verita, Gastonia.

And now in Moorhead City, I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. If you are facing a legal situation, if you have a question, you can always call Whitaker and Hamer. It's 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information briefly what that call is about. An attorney will be in touch from Whitaker and Hamer.

And you can always email your question to the program. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. All right.

What is a special master? Josh, take it away. So, Morgan, we haven't on the here on the outlaw lawyer. We, as we mentioned earlier in our in our opening segment, we don't like to politicize anything we talk about. You know, the law, the lawmaking process, the legal process, the court process needs to be unbiased.

Right. You know, anytime politics filters our way into the legal system, it's not good. And so when we discuss items on this show, they we know that they're politically charged. We know that, you know, if you're a far left Democrat or far right Republican, you may interpret the results.

You know, the like Supreme Court decision you did, the abortion, the Dodds case is a good example. We've talked about that a lot on the show. That's obviously got political implications. But we we took a look at the law and what the justices were saying and what they were relying on it, comparing it to prior decisions. Like that's that's kind of the purpose of this show.

And so I hadn't really wanted to talk about this on the show, but I figured we'd we'd bring it up because it's just so heavily featured in the news. But, you know, former President Donald Trump is his his residence or one of his residents, his main residence was the FBI got a warrant, of course, alleging that he had privileged information that he was holding there. And so they they got a warrant.

They searched for what they were supposed to search for, took stuff out of the home. And it's kind of unprecedented in a lot of ways. Right. FBI, to my knowledge, hasn't really done that to a former president. And so obviously this became a big story. And depending on your political leanings, you probably have a different interpretation of what's going on so far legally, besides being unprecedented, like the legal part of it makes sense. Right. It's not really the feds got a warrant, just like they would for me or you or Morgan.

And they went and they carried out their search. So the search itself is not fascinating for an attorney. I don't think it's fascinating that it's never happened to a president before. And it's fascinating on how it's being reported and how it's being received.

But I didn't want to spend a lot of time on that on the show. What what actually got me to finally want to talk about it is because I kept hearing the term special master. Right. It was driving me crazy. Joe, have you been following this? Have you have you you've seen this special master language?

Yeah. You know, you said a lot of words, man, and they were beautiful words. But I think to sum to sum up your point, you know, we we hear at the outlaw lawyer, we don't it's not about the politics for us, man. Like you said, this is an interesting it's very interesting from a political perspective, but we don't care about that. I don't care about the politics. I mean, I'm not on either side.

I'm for the people, the people who listen to this show. Like that's that's our side. We're super neutral.

You're not going to we're not going to go either way. So like you, man, I like I ignore in my personal life just to be a better a better embodiment of the ideals of the show. I ignore all things political, Josh.

So I was ignoring the story. But like you said, we love our interesting phrases and words and terms. And yes, like you, the special master, it caught my eye and I'm very, very intrigued. So I'm I'm very excited. I know you've done extensive research on what a special master actually is. And I greatly look forward to this deep dive on the terminology. Well, it's going to be it's going to be short and sweet. Joseph, I call a shallow dive dive into a shallow pool.

It's it's the the kids pool dive here. But I like to collect old history books. I like old legal books. Probably there's probably a lot of attorneys, a lot of lawyers out there who do the same thing.

But I like old books. I have a Black's legal dictionary. You know, if you're a lawyer, one of the first books you get in law school is you're you're you're you're Black's legal dictionary.

This just has different terms to find. It's kind of a starting point. You know, if you hear a term that you're not super familiar with and I went to I have a nineteen fifty one copy of that dictionary. That's what I like to hear.

It's a good year. Dictionaries. But to sum up its definition, it does it in one sentence. A special master is appointed by a court to carry out some sort of action on its behalf. Right. So that's that's the definition.

It goes into more detail. But a master, a special master's function is essentially investigative compiling evidence or documents to inform some future action by the court. But basically, the court can appoint sometimes it's called sometimes they will call him an arbitrator, a special master. But it's it's someone the court is appointing to do something that's not going to be done in open court.

Right. So for here, Trump, former President Trump wants a special master appointed to go through all the documents that the the feds, the FBI sees to see which ones are privileged, which ones they don't have a right to to review and so forth. And of course, on the other side, the feds are the FBI is very concerned because there's some national secrets of varying degrees alleged to be in this material.

And this special master is going to peruse all these. And so, of course, you got you got things on both sides here that are important. But as of today, I think the last thing I saw was that the judge had agreed to appoint a special master to do this, to make sure former President Trump's rights are not trampled on or what have you. But the judge that made the decision is one that Trump appointed. Right. So we're running into all kinds of like conflict on a grand scale here. And if anything in this order gets appealed, it goes to a court where I think Trump I might have these numbers wrong, but Trump appointed six of 11 judges, you know, that that would normally maybe be given this case if it were appealed. So just tons of conflict, tons of first. Right.

It's the first time this has kind of happened. And but anyway, a special master is just basically some of the court appoints to investigate something, review something, you know, for the court and to report back to the court, because obviously none of this is going to happen in like an open court. There has to be some secretive. It has to be taken very seriously and very secretively.

But that is what a special master is. Man, that was riveting. I think you did a great job of laying that out.

I want to come back and I want to come back and hit you with some follow up or some elaboration. But man, I feel like you covered you covered that topic so well. When I you know, when I started looking at this, I didn't think it was going to be that simple because I just was not familiar with that with that term.

It's not something I run into a lot in my day to day practice. And, you know, I thought a special master. Can you think of a more like I was trying to think of another title in the legal system that says, you know, it sounds like a G.I. Joe guy or like, you know, you know, some special, you know, military type designation. It sounds a lot like a term that that's that's out of favor.

And that I would think like with today's society, like we're going to de-emphasize the use of that term just because of the potential connotation. You know, what do you replace it with? What do you do? What do you replace something of the magnitude of special master with? Oh, man.

And inspector. I don't know. I'm not a word guy. I'm not the word.

I'm not the word policeman. I can't do that. That's leave that for the specialists. The special. We got to point a special master to.

Yeah, we got to go. Yeah, we're going to do a special master to figure out what we're going to call the special masters going forward. Well, Morgan, now, now, now everyone knows what a special master is. So I think we've all right. Done our our service for that for today.

The question, what is a special master? Now, you know, the outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, your hosts of the program. They are the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm offices, conveniently located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia.

And now Morehead City. And a reminder, both Josh and Joe pricing attorneys here in North Carolina. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate each and every week we get into the legalese, the topics you're going to have questions.

Maybe you're facing a legal situation of your own and you need some answers. I have a phone number for you to get in touch with Whitaker and Hamer. It's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Leave your contact information briefly what your call is about. And a attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch with you. You can also email your question to the program questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. That's questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com will answer those questions on a future program. We've got more in store for you on the outlaw lawyer. We have a listener question when we come up on the other side. This is the outlaw lawyers. Welcome back into the outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, your host of the managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm offices, conveniently located Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, Gastonia, and now in Morehead City. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate.

We get into legalese each and every week. If you've got a situation you're facing, you need some help. You've got to have some questions answered. I've got a phone number for you to get in touch with Whitaker and Hamer. It's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Leave your contact info briefly what that call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch.

You can always email your questions to the program questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. And that's exactly what we have in front of us now. Josh, we have a listener question. We do, Morgan.

This is this is my favorite part of the show. You know, we when we take listener questions and and we talk about them on the show and for our folks who may call in or for our folks who email us. You know, if you if you come to us with a with a legal issue, we'll certainly do everything we can to help you educate you, get you going in the right direction. But sometimes I keep seeing the same thing come up. So I assume a lot of people have that question. And when that happens, I like to take I like to take the situation, the legal situation. I'll create like kind of like a hypothetical, you know, so we never use anybody's names.

We never use anything that would identify a person. And for like today's question, I've seen this, you know, 10 to 15 times in the past couple of years. And so this is this hypothetical is kind of just a merger of kind of the same situation coming up over and over again. But this week's listener question is basically my attorney, in fact, or agent is not acting in my best interest.

What should I do? All right. So that's kind of a general question. And we talked about this a few weeks ago, but we talked about the legal document, a power of attorney. Right. So in a legal document, you can appoint someone to be your back in the day. We called it attorney. In fact, under the new statute, we call it an agent.

You'll hear those terms interchangeably. But I like to say attorney, in fact, because I'm older and I like the old terms better. But so in our situation, in our fact pattern, we have someone who has had a power of attorney drafted, signed and notarized and witnessed and all and what have you. And they've given somebody the power they've named someone their attorney, in fact, to handle their business affairs for them.

Right. And so in this situation that we see come up, the attorney, in fact, is not doing that. We know we talked about how that creates a fiduciary duty, which is a special relationship where you owe the attorney, in fact, owes the principal, the person who gave the power a special duty to act in their best interest. And so here we have maybe we have a attorney, in fact, that's paying their personal bills, using the account of the principal or selling property to benefit themselves.

But we see this happen. You know, you you hope when you name somebody attorney, in fact, it's someone you trust and someone that will act in your best interest. But there it does happen where that person can, you know, they're in a very powerful position and they have access to your assets.

And so they can take advantage of you if they if they so choose. Joe, I don't know if you see that as as much as we do down here in the Garner and Raleigh offices, but that's the thing that happens. Yeah, you do see it, man. And I want to go I want to go back.

You did a great job of setting that up and bringing us in, man. But you said this is your favorite, favorite part of the show. And really, man, more than talking about a special master like that's you're going to you're going to give this the crown over over that riveting discussion, man. I do.

I do, Joseph. I feel like I think the you know, if you have to rate our segments for excitement level, I think the special master. I thought we I thought we would have a higher level of excitement, but we really define special master. And that was it. Yeah, it was giving me it was tough, man.

It was tough. We're going to bring it back right here. We're getting in touch with the people. And and but I agree with you, man. Generally speaking, the listener question, getting in tune and answering questions for our listeners is is my favorite part as well.

It's the number one thing we do and it's the thing I enjoy the most. So, yes, I can say we deal with a lot of P.O.A.s here. We deal with a lot of attorney in fact situations. And unfortunately, it is the case. And I don't want to say it's the case more often than not.

I think it's a fairly rare occurrence. But but it is the case where there can be situations where that attorney, in fact, is kind of abusing the privilege and the responsibility that's given to them. And and they can they can overstep their bounds. And I think what it really comes comes down to and what we really need to encourage everybody, anyone who's considering having a P.O.A. or anyone who's already appointed their own attorney, in fact, to act on their behalf. It's very important to carefully consider, one, who you're going to give that authority to and the person that you're going to appoint, because, you know, this is they you're giving them a lot of power and you're giving them potentially a lot of a lot of ability to do things on your behalf, to act on your behalf. So carefully consider the individual. And then and then, too, I think it comes down to making sure that you're very careful in how you draft this power of attorney and make sure that you're consulting a professional that's fully explaining to you the ramifications of giving this power.

Because, you know, there's there's certain things that you may want to retain the ability to do. But but let's be clear, you give that attorney, in fact, the power to do something, you know, they're they're going to be able to do it. And third parties that the real the real effect of that is third parties are going to be able to rely on that document.

So you may be able to to sue and seek some kind of a seep, some kind of retribution for these actions being taken. But third parties are going to be relying on the document. And that's where you you're going to get into a situation where it may be difficult to undo something that's been done. So it's very tough to go back after the fact and correct something like that. So, again, carefully draft, make sure you understand the power you're giving away and make sure it's somebody that you're comfortable giving that power to.

Yeah, definitely. You know, if a third party relies on your power of attorney, that you're not really going to have any liability for a good faith third party who was relying on your power of attorney and dealing with your agent, your attorney. In fact, so the you know, the liability doesn't really lie there.

The liability is is a lot of the times and every every fact situation is different. Right. So, you know, we kind of have to look at the facts, but usually what you're going to see is your first step. If this is happening, your first step is to revoke your power of attorney.

Right. Just stop the damage, whatever whatever is already taking place. You can meet with an attorney and try to figure out how to how to maybe reverse that or recoup some some laws. But the first thing you got to do is you got to revoke your power of attorney.

You do that. An attorney would draft a revocation for you, and it's a document that you notarize and gets with much like the process you went through to get the power of attorney drafted. And you have to give you have to give notice to anyone that you know of that might have your power of attorney.

Right. So if your bank, a lot of times when we talk to people, we'll we'll record the power of attorney down at the register of deeds office. So if that's happened, you want to record your revocation. So if anyone finds your power of attorney, they're also find your revocation. If your bank has a copy, you're going to want to deliver a copy to your bank or your investment advisor or your CPA or anyone who you know may have a copy of that power of attorney. And then, you know, you're you're you're attorney.

In fact, your agent who's acted against your best interest, who has breached their fiduciary duty, of course, they have some civil liability. You know, if it came to that, if you needed to sue them to recover based on things that they did against your best interest, you know, that's that's, again, a conversation you have to have with an attorney that's very fact based and in fact specific. But step one, Joe, is is revoking the power of attorney. Step one, revoke the POA and and, you know, doing getting that revocation taken care of, like if things start to go south with your power of attorney and you feel that, you know, you say you have some kind of huge falling out in your relationship.

Like you said, step one, revoke it, get it, get it revoked. And again, that's a tricky that can be a potentially tricky concept because we're talking about third parties who are relying on that document. And, you know, if someone's got a valid POA and they go out and they they're doing all these things on your behalf. It's it's it's tough to know who all they've they've communicated with. So it's kind of a tricky situation.

But at the same time, the sooner that you can get that revocation, you can show that you gave notice to everyone that that you thought should have had notice, the better your situation is going to be if you have to go through some kind of litigation on the back end. But I think I think the main the main point here is you don't want to be in that position. You really got to think about, you know, making sure you have a lot of trust. You know, don't you don't appoint maybe if you're elderly, don't appoint just the person who's helping take care of you the most. Or, you know, you think think about it, you know, and if you have enough assets, if there's enough there to really be worried about it, maybe a professional, maybe a CPA, maybe an attorney, maybe your investment advisor, maybe there's someone professional who should be doing this for you. Again, assuming what your asset level is, you know, but something something to be wary of something that definitely happens. Hopefully it doesn't happen to anybody who's listening today.

But, Morgan, we see that a lot. So hopefully this has been helpful to some of our listeners. Again, folks, it's all about the legalese. Just got to ask the question and you can get answers. There's going to be an opportunity again for you to get answers to your questions. You can always call Whitaker and Hamer where you can find our managing partners and hosts of this program, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer and their staff of attorneys, which include Cassandra Nicholas and also Taylor Scruggs Smith and Ashley Penner, all part of the team at Whitaker and Hamer. You can always call this number 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information briefly what that call is about and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And as Josh and Joe have already said today, you can always email your questions to the program and they will be answered on air.

We'll leave names and certain situations out, but we'll talk about that issue for you. Questions at theoutlawlawyer.com is where you can send those questions. That's questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. We're back for a short wrap-up segment coming up next on the Outlaw Lawyers. Welcome back into the Outlaw Lawyers, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. They are the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, offices conveniently located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, Gastonia, and now in Morehead City.

They are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina and each and every week we get into legalese topics. You may have your own set of questions with the issue that you are facing. You can always call the firm 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information briefly what that call is about and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. You can always email your questions to the show.

Questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate, and we are here to wrap up the program for this week. Are we going back to the movies? Is that what we're doing? Well, you know, Joe, Morgan, have you guys been to the Red Hat Amphitheater in Raleigh?

Yes. I had never been before. I live 10 minutes away from the Red Hat Amphitheater and I had never been there before like two weekends ago. I went and watched the show there. That's a nice place to watch the show. Yes, it is, man.

Even in the heat, Josh. I will chime in. I think when you drive by it, you're like, man, it's not that big. Boy, you get in there. It's a nice size facility. They put on a great show.

Yeah, and it's good. I don't think you need a gigantic venue to enjoy a show and it's a good setup, man. It's not too big.

It's convenient. I am also a fan of the amphitheater, so I can agree with you on that, Josh. But it's, you know, the thing that struck me is it's, which is great, right? It's right in the heart of downtown Raleigh. It's very accessible. Parking, you know, you get what you get with parking right downtown, but it's a good venue. But what surprised me was like, you really could be anywhere within like a couple of blocks and enjoy the whole show without buying a ticket, right? Most of the amphitheater is kind of out of the way, right? You know, if you're there and you're in the parking lot, you can kind of hear what's going on. But I feel like I could have just like sat in a chair like a block away and probably really enjoyed the show. Is this your proposal to bootleg concerts at the Red Hat? Just pull up in a chair and just post up on the street? Well, we ended up parking in one of the decks that if you get high enough up, I mean, I think you can see right in to Red Hat and you can certainly, I mean, I don't think the acoustics would be great, but yeah, I mean, you could probably enjoy it if you just took a cooler and tailgated in the parking deck.

But yeah, I think they do a fantastic job there. The thing that always kind of shocks me when I go to concerts, not just Red Hat, just anywhere, it's just the cost of a beer. And I'm a beer guy. Well, that's how they get you. You're supposed to pregame real hard, Morgan. You're supposed to pregame real hard, so you only need to maintain while you're there. Spoken like a true pro.

This guy is what he's talking about. No, I enjoyed it. I can't believe it's taken me this long to get there. There's been a lot of shows that have been there, but we've either been at a football game or kids had something. So like there's been like 10 to 15 things that we would have gone to. And we couldn't. And like I said, finally got there. So I was pretty impressed by it.

There's nothing legal about that whatsoever. That's just an observation I wanted to share with Joseph and you, Morgan. Thank you for that. So no movies, huh? So we're just talking Red Hat. Josh doesn't. Josh isn't a movie guy and doesn't see them very often. We were pregaming. We were talking about scary moves.

I thought we were going there. Maybe one. Maybe we'll get him to watch some this week and he can come back prepared as we enter the spooky movie season. Watch, watch it, watch it and we'll see how you do. I've read. So I read the book like I've read it, but if I watch the movie, it I'm watching the TV series with Harry Anderson. That's the one I'm going to watch. I'm not going to watch the movie if I'm going to watch anything. All right.

Probably won't. All right, gentlemen. Well, we are wrapping up the program again. If you are facing a legal situation and you need some answers. I've got a phone number for you. 800-659-1186. That'll get you in touch with Whitaker and Hamer. Again, that's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact information and briefly what the call is about. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch and you can always email your questions to the program. Questions at the outlawlawyer.com and we will answer them on future shows. Another outlaw lawyer in the books. Josh and Joe, have a great week.

We'll talk to you next week right here on the radio. Now, while you're associated 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.