Petition to Partition, Flavored Tobacco, and The Respect for Marriage Act

This week on The Outlaw Lawyer, Josh, Joe, and Cassandra discuss the law and how it affects everything around us. And as always here at The Outlaw Lawyer, our attorneys tackle all the day's most urgent burning legal questions such as what is a petition to partition and when is it helpful?

What are your favorite types of flavored tobacco? And what is the Respect for Marriage Act? That's all coming up on this week's edition of The Outlaw Lawyer. Welcome in to The Outlaw Lawyer, Morgan Patrick, your consumer advocate, and we are joined as always by our hosts, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. Also along for the ride this week, Cassandra Nicklaus, an attorney at Whitaker and Hamer. And just a reminder, Whitaker and Hamer has offices conveniently located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, Gastonia, and now in Morehead City. If you have a legal situation that you're facing right now, you're going to have to go to the law firm.

If you're facing you've got questions, you need some answers. 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.

And you can always email your questions to the show questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. Josh and Joe, take it away. Joseph, we haven't been in the studio in a long time.

That's right, man. We haven't done we've not not even not been in the studio. We haven't even remoted into the studio. We hadn't done any radio and we podcasting. No, we've we've taken that we took a couple of weeks off for Thanksgiving.

And I want to get a couple a couple of shows in before Christmas time because Christmas it's coming fast. That's right, man. That's right. I missed it. But it was good. It was good for my spirit to recharge my podcast batteries by not doing it. Anything anything on your schedules, guys, to kind of recharge those batteries that you can tell us about that was pretty cool or just hanging out with the family.

What were you doing? We're here. We do.

We've been here since Thanksgiving. No. Oh, wow. We did that. Yeah, I did that with my I love my family. I was I was with them.

I don't know about you, Josh. Yeah. Yeah, I did. I sat down with I sat down with the family. We had a good Thanksgiving.

Cassandra, would you guys do? I had family here like all of November, so some of it was recharging. It was a long time. It was it was it was happy to have them here. That's right.

One hundred percent. No, I went to I went to the state Carolina game in Carolina State won that game. I don't know if you remember that game. I remember it since then.

See, we it's throwing me off, right? Because we've not done this since then, but I've seen you since that's right. So we've talked about this extensively, but that's such a happy memory, man. We could we could definitely do that again. We could talk about that again. Like it like we're just now we have to do it.

Go ahead. That was a good game, man. It was. I'm sure it was fun for you, man. You had a really good time.

You were behind enemy lines. Yeah, I had been in Chapel Hill in a long first time I've been in Chapel Hill since definitely since the pandemic. And you certainly enjoyed it.

I did. I didn't know which way it was going to go in a real bad time ended up being a pretty good time. I had this T shirt I got for when I go to see state play away. Oh boy.

All right. So I got this T shirt and it says, I hope both teams had fun. So I got a red T shirt with white letters that says, I hope both teams had fun. And I find that other fans of other teams really like that shirt. I end up talking to a lot of people. It's a very friendly like we don't have to be enemies. You I get that some places, but Chapel Hill, man, you didn't wear a go to hell Carolina shirt.

No, no. I wore my really nice shirt. And a lot of older fans talk to me about about the good the day about the game. But it was it was good to get out there. I'm trying to think of what else we've done since then. We've done something. Um, we did that. We did a Thanksgiving thing. Thanksgiving. And then it became December. I remember that part at the rate you're going.

Did you open an office anywhere? We didn't do that. We didn't do that.

Um, what else would we do? We we've done some. We've seen some hurricanes games.

That's the thing. Hurricanes doing pretty well. I think they're on a. You know, not a super long winning streak. They've they've lost in overtime recently, but scoring a lot of points, man doing very well.

Just in general, not as well as New Jersey and Boston, but they're doing okay. Who's keeping track, man? Yeah, that, um. I went to my first flotilla. That's right.

Cassandra. You're trying host for Morehead City. No, no sports with us after just imagine lots of bars, lots of live music, lots of there are so many parades in this area. They really do it up with. So it was a winter time flotilla. Yes, all the boats were decorated as with lights and everything, and they were voted on. The winning one was like a flying pig.

The whole boat was decorated like flying pig and it went flat. It was pretty cool. It's way cooler than what anything we did. We didn't know we didn't make it. You know, they had the Raleigh parade, and there was there was an incident there.

But, uh, yeah. Oh, I guess all the local parades have probably happened by now. We're that close to Chris Clayton parade last weekend.

I attended the Clayton parade. A lot of grinches, man. A lot of grinches. I remember about like the eighth Grinch. I was like, it's a lot of grinches, and then it was like six grinches after that. And so in Joe and Joe, were you alarmed that people were coming up to you and say, Hey, can we get a picture? Yeah, it was a time where the new outlaw lawyer episodes at. I was like, It's Christmas, man.

Calm down. Um, but a lot of a lot of grinches in the last like the last two grinches. Probably the best grinches in terms of like Grinch costume. But you'd seen so many.

You were like, Come on, man. By that point, it was a good it was a good parade, though. Two Grinch boats.

Nice represented there, too. Uh, we've watched the Grinch. That's all I can. That's all I think that they've released these some some new Grinch masks. That's all I can think, right?

Because that that's the only explanation for why there were so many of them, but a very popular mask. Even though, uh, even though we're in holidays, we're in full holiday season swing, right? We've got through Thanksgiving. Christmas is coming up the 14th of December. I know it's crazy. That is crazy.

Christmas is coming up. The law never stops, Joseph. That's right.

Never. That's right. It's everywhere. I had a my law school dean when I was at Campbell. He had this speech he would give, and he would say the law is a I don't know if these were his words or he was quoting. He's probably quoting somebody that I should know.

I don't know. But he would say the law is a jealous mistress. That's what he would say. That's definitely a quote. Yeah, I don't know where that came from.

Probably somebody I should know. But anyway, the law never stops. Stuff keeps coming in the office. People have legal problems. People have legal issues. People have legal things they need to tackle, even though it's the holidays.

That is true. So we see we get a lot of calls of, you know, kind of family law stuff kind of kind of comes up a lot during the holidays with child custody, visitation, divorce. You see a lot of that. You see, unfortunately, you see a lot of the traffic stuff, right?

The DUIs, the speeding, a lot of people on that eggnog out there in the streets, man. This is the time of year where we get a lot of calls about estate planning, right? And this is, you know, it's about to be New Year's into the year. A lot of folks haven't done their will, don't have their power of attorneys in place. This is a we get that call a lot like, hey, this is this is the year we're going to sit down and and get our estate planning done.

So definitely at the end of the year, we don't slow down too much. No, no, no, we don't, man. And the law never stops. Right. And so and with the theme of the show, you know, we talk we do a lot of law. Right. But we like to talk about the law as it as it permeates everything, every every aspect of society, the popular news items. So that's that's the case here as well. We got we got plenty of things to talk about legal wise. Yeah.

There's a couple of things I want to hit and I want us to spend time with everybody. One, I've gotten a lot of calls lately, a lot of calls about a process in North Carolina called a petition to partition. And so we'll talk more about that. But that's that's a process that exists in the North Carolina statute. So if you co-own real estate, real property with someone and you want to sell it and they don't, there's a there's a mechanism. You're not stuck. It's not a you know, it's not a you guys don't have to come to necessarily an agreement.

There's a process where if you're the co-owner of a piece of property and you want it sold, you can you can file a petition to partition. And so we get a lot of calls. We get a lot of questions about that. I figured that'd be a good topic because that's not something everybody knows about. So I thought that'd be nice to talk about. Nice.

It would be nice. Yeah. And you said it. We get a lot of calls about it. And a lot of folks, you know, plenty of people probably have never heard petition to partition the phrase. But we get a lot of calls from people who don't understand that's what they need. They call with a problem.

And then the solution to that problem is the petition to partition. And then I wanted to the Supreme Court, they've kind of slowed down with the holiday. So the US Supreme Court's in session. They I don't think they've handed down a decision yet from this this session, but they're still having oral arguments. They're still taking cases and talking about cases. And so recently it was R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company versus Bonta. But this was the case that came before the Supreme Court challenging some laws. The laws that want to ban flavored tobacco. Right.

So the Supreme Court heard an attempt to block it. And I was going to talk about that because that one I had some questions about that because I enjoy some flavored tobacco. Yeah, I was looking. You've done you do a great job of preparing these notes and your dedication.

Everybody appreciates it across the board. But you had you in your notes, you literally you literally wrote flavored tobacco. That's exactly what it says. I can almost smell it.

Yeah. I got so distracted reading about this case. And then I had my Simpsons flashback.

So that's what I thought. That's what I felt like Homer would say. It was so your big flavored tobacco got in and we got the respect for Mary Jack passed the Senate and the House and was getting signed by Biden. And so especially in light of some of the Supreme Court cases we had last last session, I thought that would be a good thing to spend some time on and kind of talk about that. But those are the big those are the big legal topics. I also want to spend some time just talking about, again, it's the end of the year. We get that estate planning call a lot. This is a perfect time for folks to finally sit down and do that.

I always tell people I graduated from law school in oh. Three or four. Not quite sure. Yes. And the diploma on the wall.

Yeah. And somebody can fact check that for me. But in the early 2000s, I graduated from law school and it took me three or four years to actually do my own estate plan. I don't have to go talk to anybody. I didn't need to seek legal advice.

I didn't have to pay for it. I could do it. And it still took me several years to do it. So I know how hard it is to sit down and really think about your estate plan. But it's important to do in the end of the year, beginning of the year. It's a big trigger for a lot of folks to start talking about that. So we'll spend some time talking about estate planning.

All right. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, where you can find the managing partners. They're also practicing attorneys here in North Carolina and joining us from Moorhead City. We have Cassandra Nicholas, also an attorney at Whitaker and Hamer offices, conveniently located.

Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and the aforementioned Moorhead City. We talk the legal topics each and every week. And if you've got a legal situation you're facing and you've got questions, you can always call Whitaker and Hamer, 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information 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 show questions at the outlawlawyer.com.

We're back. We're going to talk more about petition to partition. Also the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company versus Bonta and Respect for Marriage Act. And if we have time, we'll get into estate planning. That's all coming up next on The Outlaw Lawyer. Welcome back in to The Outlaw Lawyers. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, your hosts and the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm.

Offices conveniently located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and Moorhead City. Also joining us from that Moorhead City office, Cassandra Nicholas, an attorney at Whitaker and Hamer. Gentlemen, we've got a lot to get to and I think you're going to start off with petition to partition.

Yeah, we're going to get there. But before we get there, Cassandra, I had a thought. So Cassandra, you're down there. You're running our Moorhead City office down in Moorhead City. And and you're remoting in because we're we're in studio here in Wake County. So you're not making the drive down here.

Have you since it's been since it's been cold. I don't live at the beach. I live I live down here in Raleigh. Do you go to the beach when it's cold? I go near the beach. I go, you know, to the bars and restaurants on the Intracoastal Waterway so I can see water. But I'm not walking the beach when there's frost.

I see. I've always wondered about folks who who maybe live down at the coast. You know, I'm a I'm a beach guy in the summer.

I don't think I've ever been. I don't think I've ever been to the beach. Not in June or August. Right.

I think or July. I think those are the only times I've ever gone to the beach growing up. I always wonder about that because you'll see somebody put that on Facebook or something and it'll just be bundled up walking down the beach. Not as crowded.

Wendy though. I'm a big off season person. I love the the lack of crowds, although it's still a novelty for me. Are you already one of those people? Tourists. These tourists. Exactly. I mean, at this point, they can still consider me a tourist. But a couple of years from now, I'm sure the novelty of the beach will have worn off. No, I'll just be hungry down in my backyard.

No, no, no. I got one of those fancy. Yeah, those like outdoor heaters that they use at restaurants and stuff.

I got one for my back porch. So that's been great. Yeah.

The stood out there and watched the meteors last night. God, you've been doing a lot of cool stuff. Yeah, I know. What have we been doing?

It's almost like you don't have any kids. Yeah. Just rub it in. Yeah. All right. Petition to partition.

Me and Joe. I've been getting a lot of these lately, too. Yeah. Yeah. It's a call. I think I got a consult later today.

I think I got one tomorrow. So this is this is something that comes up quite a bit. And basically, there's all kinds of fact patterns. Right. So me and Joe, if we own a piece of property, just me and Joseph and we get in a disagreement. Joe wants to sell.

I want to hold on to it. Well, that's the fact pattern, right? That's that's how it always starts. That's right. It starts with me and you not getting along. Yeah.

Yeah. But but if I want to say if I wanted to sell, Joe won't sell. Obviously, I can't we can't I can't make him like between me and him. We can't fight it out. You can ask me very, very forcefully and you can you can beg me. But yeah, you can't you cannot come. You by yourself cannot compel me to do anything. So but what I can do, you can be compelled. That's true.

That's right. What what a person can do is I can I can file a petition to partition. It's a statute.

I think it's Chapter 46 A. I didn't write that down, but I think it's Chapter 46 A. But that is the petition to partition statute. I can file an action against Joseph and I can ask the court and say, look, we own this piece of property. We don't agree with how it needs to be managed. I think we need to sell it.

He thinks we need to hold on to it. And you can ask the court for a couple of things, right? So if me and Joe own 50 acres, I can ask the court and say, hey, I want to split the 50 acres into 225 acres. So the court can actually partition the property if it's feasible.

But if, say, me and Joe, we own a commercial townhouse, right, like a little townhouse office, you can't really split that up. Right. A judge can't partition that. And so in that case, I would be asking the court like, hey, we can't agree.

I want to I want to sell it. Right. And the court can order a sale of the property, even though Joe doesn't want to listen to me and he he wants to hold on to it. So the court can still order that. And there's a lot of different ways that can go after that.

But that is the Cassandra, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's like the basic procedure. That's what that's what you're looking at. Yeah. And the court does favor the partition in kind where they're actually splitting the property, but obviously where it's not possible, they they have to force the sale.

I see it a lot. You know, another way that it really comes up is like, you know, someone passes away, maybe they haven't done a good job estate planning. Right. So someone passes away and then their heirs, their children all inherit a piece of property and they can't agree on what to do with the property. Someone to sell, someone to hold, someone to rent out, maybe maybe one of the kids want to buy it and live there.

Right. There's all this disagreement on what to do with it. And a lot of times that becomes a petition to partition action. A lot of times, you know, one of the one of the kids who now own like a one eighth will will file a petition to partition to kind of force the sale. And you mentioned something there, the that's the drawback to joint ownership, right? Like you have eight owners.

It takes one person that does not want to cooperate with you to completely jack up the process for everybody else. And that's it. You know, we get that question a lot. Right. We've got this one.

So we've got this one sibling that just doesn't want to play ball. Seven people in agreement. This one person does not agree. And they're like, what do you do?

And what do you do? You petition to partition. That's at the end of the day. Yeah. We've you also see it where maybe like five or six kids have inherited this property and they're now co-owners or joint owners of this this real property.

And and you don't know where one of the kids is like no one's heard from them for 10 years. They've inherited one six. And so the petition to partition, you can also take care of that. Right.

So if it's just it's not even someone maybe being disagreeable. Right. And it's also if you can't locate heirs, we see plenty of these where we got a bunch of unknown heirs. The court has a process for trying to discover heirs, protect unknown heirs, but still let you move forward. Because that holds up a lot of things, too, is when that happens, because, you know, we see some of these properties where the last deeded owner was from the 50s and that owner has died, left it to their children. Their children have died and it's gone to like, you know, grandkids. That's definitely where I see it the most, where where the folks that actually inherited it just didn't do anything with it. So now it's a much larger pool at the next generation and gets so much more complicated.

And you can do all the due diligence in the world. And it can be such a complex web of people and entities that have taken property by inheritance or otherwise that you can literally exhaust every avenue and have no clue who certain heirs are that have an ownership interest in the property. And that's the kind of problem that kind of compounds over time. Like every year you don't take care of something like that.

It just gets worse and worse and worse. And you're dealing with a new generation and and these kids these days, man. And then you got spouses, right? Because, you know, we know in North Carolina, even though my kids may inherit what I've left them one day, if it's real property and they want to sell it, their spouses have to be involved, even if, you know, the marital interest in North Carolina kind of confuses some folks, right? So even if a spouse doesn't have any ownership claims to a piece of property, they still have this marital interest that has to be signed away.

And so, you know, this this goes generation to generation. There's always going to be like a, you know, seems like there's always one couple where a spouse won't cooperate for whatever reason. You know, but just just looking at it from the point of getting the property sold, it can be very it can be very difficult. A petition to partition kind of solves a lot of these problems. And I think a lot of people just don't even know it's a process that exists, but it's it's a pretty good statute.

It makes a lot of sense. It's been litigated a lot, so it's pretty fleshed out. So most attorneys who are familiar with it know what you can do and you can't do it.

Can't solve every problem. I do want to mention you did just bring up spouses and spousal interests. That's one more situation where this is really common is after divorces.

If if marital property wasn't split through equitable, equitable division during the divorce, then this is a potential solution as well. Yeah, and that's that's a good things where it can't be used, right? It's not normally used like if you have a corporation where you're a shareholder, you got an LLC where you're a member and you got multiple members.

You can't you can't use that. This is in a way that you would make like if you and me and Joe owned a real property LLC and we were having the same dispute over a piece of property owned by the LLC. This really isn't the way you would go about fixing a dispute between us on to sell a piece of property. So so if it's if it's owned in a corporate entity or if it's owned in a trust, the real property, this really isn't the best way to go about it. And then, like you said, you know, if you're a married couple, like if I own something with my own real property with my spouse, a petition to partition is not the way to handle it. Unless, like you said, Cassandra, we were we were to be divorced and then we kind of own it a different way under the law. And then a petition to partition may be the way the way to go if it wasn't already taken care of.

Yeah. And I think it's also important to state just from a practical standpoint, you know, it's the petition to partition is is a it's a way to get this done. But I think also we are going to advise generally that you you try every other avenue to get it done prior to resorting to this, because, again, you lose a lot of the elements of control that you would otherwise have. So you you try to negotiate a fix. And there's some situations it's just not possible. But if you're dealing with a person that you can talk and communicate to, that's just not cooperating. I think we're going to try everything we can prior to resorting to this, because, again, you're putting this into the hands of the court. And, you know, that that that's not always going to get get the best result for for you or give you an optimal result necessarily.

There's some degree of control that you lose. Yeah, these things are always a negotiation, too. So even even after it's filed, you know, you'll see parties negotiate and just like any other lawsuit.

Right. You know, if you were in a car accident and you had to sue the other driver to get compensated for your injuries, there's always negotiation between the parties and the insurance company. So just like any other type of litigation, negotiation will always be a part of it. But that's a that's a that's a quick couple of minutes about petition to partition. So so hopefully, you know, our goal in the show is always to just talk about things that we get questions about in our in our in our law office, in our daily practice.

And so this is something we've we've seen a lot more lately for whatever reason, but definitely find that people aren't aware that it's a process that exists. So, God, glad we got a chance to talk about it. Coming up next on The Outlaw Lawyer is going to talk about Flavored Bakke.

That's right. Stay tuned. The Outlaw Lawyer is Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm offices located Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. Cassandra Nicholas also joining us from the Morehead City office today. Also an attorney at Whitaker and Hamer.

If you are facing a situation, maybe it's a situation where it's petition to partition and you need some consultation. You can always call Whitaker and Hamer, 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

And leave your contact information briefly what the call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can always email your questions to the show. We'll answer them on a future broadcast. Questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. And when we come back, we'll talk R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company versus Bonta.

Yes, it's about flavored tobacco. Welcome back into the Outlaw Lawyer. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm.

They're your hosts. And again, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Also joining us from Whitaker and Hamer, Cassandra Nicholas. She is in the Morehead City office. And speaking of offices, they're pretty much everywhere. Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuqua, Verina, Gastonia. And again, as mentioned, Morehead City.

Convenient locations for you. If you've got a legal situation you're facing and you've got questions, you can always call the firm. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact information briefly what the call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can always email your questions to the show.

Questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate and sometimes referee. Our next subject, we're going to talk about tobacco. R.J. Reynolds company versus Bonta. Josh? So, you know, when I first started seeing the stories a year or two ago where people were, you know, I'm not a big vape guy, the kids today with the vaping.

I'm not a big vape guy. Kids these days. Yeah, these kids, man. But, you know, I saw that, you know, there's a lot about, was it Juul? You know, there's a lot of legislation about that. I don't really pay too much attention to that because that doesn't affect my day-to-day life. But when I saw that they were trying to lump flavored tobacco in with it, that bothered me. Yeah, they're different things. There's a distinction there. You'd be a good Juul guy, man.

You know, because you see the kids, but you, just clouds of smoke tufting out of you. Well, now, Juul, correct me if I'm wrong, is done. They are no longer in existence. Oh, well, too late for that then, man. I mean, the company went under, had to pay a lot of damages. Well, give me another, give us a comparable brand. What do you got? I'm not a vaper. I don't know anything about it.

Sandra, you seem, you're our last hope. Yeah, you're one of these kids these days. I mean, Juul is the cute little dainty one.

I don't know the names of the beefier ones, but those might be more distinguished. Chef Boyardee, the vape. So this made me think of, when I was writing this down, when I was like thinking about what we talk about, one of the things that came up to me, which I thought was a good question that I've never really asked anybody, but how old were you?

This is for everybody here. How old were you the first time you smoked any tobacco product? Third grade. Tobacco? So third grade? I tried a cigarette, third grade.

Was it an older brother? Those were the days. No, elementary school up in the mountains, North Carolina, tobacco everywhere. It's everywhere, man.

And yeah, tried it, did not like it. Growing right outside my door growing up. How about you, Joseph? Oh, man, it had been late for me. It would have been, I was probably 22 years old, somewhere around college.

Yeah, I would imbibe the spirits around that time. And I just, I never really loved it, man. It was never really my favorite, even still not my favorite thing. Cassandra, I know you like to have a nice flavored tobacco cigar down again. I mean, I'm a weenie with asthma. I was definitely in my 20s, but the smell of grape swisher sweets definitely brings me back to high school. High school you go to. That's exactly right.

North Dakota, we have no rules. For a long time now, you know, I've got, I try to buy some nice cigars, you know, and have them around. But every now and again, man. Yeah, swisher sweet or black and mild. Black and mild is delicious. You know, like we've been doing these vanilla backwoods.

They're pretty good too, man. But why can't we? Just use the people. Okay. When you visit Swanboro, there's a really cool cigar lounge. It's got like an indoor lounge and an outdoor lounge in my cute little downtown area.

You'll have to check it out. Well, there's a couple in Raleigh, too, you know, and you go in and you have a cigar. Delicious, man. Which I just, I was surprised that we were going to, as a society, we were coming down this hard on flavored tobacco products. Because even like I think in some of the states, menthols included, right?

Which I don't, I won't consider menthol. I guess it is a flavored tobacco, but I don't really consider it to be personally. But anyway, the Supreme Court and Cassandra, you were reading about this, but the Supreme Court got asked to review a case where R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, a local company, was looking to block passage of this, or I guess it already passed, but enforcement of this bill, this law in California that would ban flavored tobacco.

Yeah. So the law is, well, now going to go into effect sometime in the next week. But R.J. Reynolds had filed an emergency application for writ of injunction. And that's what the Supreme Court turned that down. They are not going to injunct this law. So no more Swisher Sweets in California.

That's crazy. You can still smoke all the weed you want, though. And think about the flavors involved there that they have available in various edible products.

How are those? Yeah, edibles and then non-edibles. Less child-marketed, less child-friendly than flavored tobacco. I don't know. It's a weird line to draw. The logic does kind of fall apart. I don't like it.

I don't like it. And the problem, I guess, if you think this is good or you think this is bad, when California makes these kind of decisions, their state economy is so large, a lot of these retailers, it drives, even if North Carolina is all for flavored tobacco, it drives how these things will get produced and it changes what's profitable and not profitable. So when California bans something, a lot of times we see the effects kind of dribble down here. I think there's going to be a lot of people running around desperately looking for flavored tobacco. It's interesting, man, because they're talking about what prompted the law. They're saying there's a drastic uptick in tobacco use in young people.

But I don't know, man. I guess that's strictly tobacco use. We're not talking about nicotine vapes. We're talking about strictly tobacco. I don't see it, man.

I guess I don't spend a lot of time hanging out with many teenage children other than my kids who aren't teens yet. This does apply to vaping products as well. Ah, so that makes more sense. I think it's the vaping that was the bad guy.

Yeah, that's got to be it then. Because I was going to say, I don't... And they're just lumping in our swisher sweets. I don't think these teens are smashing vanilla backwoods like it's going out of style. I think vaping, we just got lumped in with the bad kid.

Vaping is the bad kid and we were just around. Yeah, I don't want any of that popcorn along. I heard that's bad for you. Ah, it sounds terrible. I don't even know what it is. I don't want it though. I will eat popcorn, but popcorn along though.

No, thank you. But anyway, so in California, flavored tobacco is falling out of favor. Joseph, your favorite tobacco product of all time. Tobacco product, period? Yeah.

Have you heard of these things, these cigarettes they make? Nah, I don't know, man. I don't know that I've got a favorite.

If I have, okay, I got to pick a favorite. Come back to me. In law school we'd have, in law school when we were trying to stay up to study, man, we had the Lucky Strikes, the unfiltered Lucky Strikes. They get you going.

A lot of nicotine. Come back to me. Come back to me at the end. Morgan, do you ever do anything? Yes. Don't laugh like that. This is the way you said yes.

It's like you could taste it. So my story is this. My first broadcasting job was in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, right out of University of North Carolina. Spent about six years down there working for a rock radio station. And the first week I was there, I was the news and sports director and sidekick on the morning show. And a guy comes in and they say, hey, you're the sports guy.

You've got to do this golf minute thing. And they had a pro come in. And the pro's like, where do you play? And I go, I haven't picked up the game yet.

And I was 23. And he said, dude, I'm going to bring you an old set of our practice clubs and just start talking about on the morning show. And I guarantee you're going to start playing. And sure enough, all the pros listen to the rock station, got the invites. But I found out very quickly in the summer, if you go play golf, the bugs are horrible.

Right. And I got a tip from a golf pro. He says, dude, if you take a cigar with you and just light it up when you start, they're not going to hang around you at all. And I started not really smoking the cigar, but I had the cigar burning. And, you know, eventually I got into swapping cigars with my college roommate and cigar aficionado and, you know, following those things.

And, you know, every now and then partake, but nothing that I would call, you know, a routine. Man, I'm sitting here listening to that. And it's, I'm addicted to cigars now, just from hearing that story. I'm going to go buy some. When I get home tonight, I am definitely going to have a cigar. What's your favorite? And then Cassandra and then me, I like, I like the, I like the cheap cigars.

Like I like a good, nice cigar, but the cheap ones like the Swisher Sweets, the backwoods, the black and mild. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, those, you know. Yeah.

You gave like three. And Cassandra, Cassandra, she said she's not a big, never been a big smoker, but she's done it. So, so my, my sidestep of the question a little bit, my most recent attempted endeavor into the nicotine world was those, the little nicotine packets you put in your mouth.

Well, they'll make it, they'll make you dizzy. Yeah, for sure. And those are flavored. I wonder if those are included in this. I haven't seen anything to indicate their flavor, their nicotine. Yeah.

I didn't even think about chewing tobacco. That's, that's one of your products too, isn't it? One of you two. I found a stash in the sweet one day.

You got me. I used to, I used to, again, when I had to stay up very late and study like Levi, I had some Levi Garrett I would keep around, you know, just for. You ever heard of big league chew?

That's what I used to do. I think I was cool. Other than that, no chewing tobacco. I was going to say that's straight bubble gum. My tobacco use has been very, if I, if I've got, if you put a gun to my head right now, you said you got to pick, I'm going to go black and mild too. Just cause I got fond memories of like friends who would smoke black and mild.

Not because I cared that much about it myself. Were you chewing tobacco? One bad experience, probably around third grade. First day of school up in the mountains of North Carolina, we had just moved in from, I want to say Kentucky and had not had any tobacco exposure. A kid came in and he had a pack of big red, red man, sorry, red man tobacco. And he said, you want to, you want to chaw? And he took out this big wad and he handed it to me and I, and I'm like, I don't know what to do with it. So I swallowed it. It got severely sick. Morgan, when you tell a story, it makes me want to do that.

You don't want to do that. I got real quick. This is my why I don't like tobacco smoking story.

I never got into it. My mom smoked and I love my mom. She smoked all the time. So she like picked me up from school smoking constantly and she would Ash, uh, in, uh, cans, like you used to have cans. So I love Sunkist, right? So I drink a Sunkist and it was sitting up front and she had been ashing in it for like, however long. And I got in the car after school one day and I was like, I'm so thirsty, like give me the Sunkist. And I just took a, a throat full of ashes down. And so from that point on, I was like, you know what? I don't think I like smoking that much. Well, I feel like we all need a smoke break right now, so we'll go ahead and take a break.

All right. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, also on the program today, Cassandra Nicholas in the office at Morehead city. And speaking of convenience, they have offices located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Farina, and Gastonia, as well as Morehead city. So if you have a situation you're facing, a legal situation, you've got questions, you can always call the firm 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. And you can leave your contact information briefly, what the call is about and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can always email your questions to the show. We'll answer them on a future program. And that's questions at the outlawlawyer.com.

When we come back, we'll get into this respect for marriage act. That's all coming up next on the outlaw lawyer. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm, offices located Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Farina, Gastonia, and Morehead city. Joining us from the Morehead city office is Cassandra Nicholas, also an attorney at Whitaker and Hamer. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. We get into the legalese each and every week. If you're facing a situation and you need questions answered, you can always contact Whitaker and Hamer by calling 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information briefly, what the call is about and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can always email your questions to the show, questions at the outlawlawyer.com.

We'll answer those on a future program. Next up, Josh. You know, the, the last session of the U S Supreme court, we had a lot of, uh, how would you, Cassandra, how would you describe the last session of the U S Supreme court? I was going to say it was, um, controversial.

Maybe, maybe that's the right word. Eventful at least. Eventful.

That's right. Um, and again, we never really delve into politics and we never really delve into conservative versus liberal. We just like to talk about what the court did and the legal things behind it. And so during the last session, there were, there were a couple of big cases that were decided.

We talked, uh, uh, we talked a lot about, uh, Roe V. Wade, uh, being of, I guess, fundamentally overturned and kind of left to the States. Um, and that was a big, I think that was a big shock, uh, to the, to the system. It was a shock to the folks who cover, uh, I think even we, I don't think we predicted that. I don't think we did either.

I think we predicted maybe some limitations or something like that. But so anyway, so that's something the world, you know, the U S got, we got this decision where abortion was no longer a constitutionally protected right, according to the Supreme court. So that means it went back to the States.

Right. And a lot of these States had laws on the books where they would, where they would go ahead and ban abortion if, if this ever happened. And so, uh, of course that's, uh, been a big talking point, especially going through the midterm elections. And a lot of people have looked at that case and looked at how the Supreme court, you know, abortion was kind of protected.

And we've talked about it before. It was kind of protected under this, um, uh, this right to privacy. That's kind of over, over the years been read into the constitution by some of the Supreme court, those decisions, uh, but this constitutional right to privacy. And, and, and so abortion now, now being not constitutional no longer has that, that protection.

I think there's been a concern on what else could that affect, right? Yes. That was a good summary. That was a really good, um, and one of those items that that's kind of just recently been protected, right. Is same sex marriage. All right. So you may be personally against that.

You may be personally, uh, for that. That's a, that's a big issue on both sides right now that has the protection according to the Supreme court. That's a constitutional protection, but it's based on the same theories that the protection, uh, extended to abortion was based on.

Right? So the theory being, if abortion can be found to not be constitutional, what is this next, right? Is, is, is the Supreme court going to, uh, look at the same sex marriage again? The Supreme court, I think in the abortion decision, when Roe V Wade got overturned, they explicitly said they don't intend to do that, but still, um, if that is something that, that you support, that's a big concern. And so the, uh, the, the federal government Congress acted and they created what they called a respect for marriage act.

And this actually came together pretty quick because Sandra, I don't know how closely you've been following it. Well, the vote came together quickly, but the respect for marriage act was first introduced in 2009 and never came to the formal vote. Um, so it's been around for a while before the Obergefell decision in 2015, um, protecting the right to same sex marriage under the privacy right.

Um, the other thing I do want to mention is loving versus Virginia. That's a 1967 case in front of the Supreme court that, uh, the decision protects the right to interracial marriage under the same reasoning and the right to privacy. Right. So that was also a concern at front of mind for a lot of people. Um, so that right to, or respect for marriage act that's had a version around for 13 years, finally did come together really quickly for a vote, uh, through the house in July and then finally through the Senate now in November.

Yeah. So that's, uh, they got, as they say, they got a lot of bipartisan support and that got on the book. So the way I was listening to a legal commentator talk about it, but the way I understand it is the way that act would operate is, you know, if, if the Supreme court was ever to say, reverse course, go against precedent and say, Hey, interracial same sex marriage is no longer constitutionally protected. It goes back to the States and a state could still make it illegal. Uh, but the, the federal law means they'd have to respect full faith, honor credit, any, any same sex marriage from another state. So you can't invalidate other States, other States rulings essentially. Yeah.

So, so that got, you know, and I think, I think, you know, I think that's not a bad thing, right? I mean, the U S Supreme court, you know, made a decision that kind of made everybody look at, you know, what, what is in, what can they do? What's in their realm to protect and what's, what's really left up to the courts. And so here, uh, the Congress really, you know, took that notion and ran with it and said, well, here's what we can do.

Here's what we can protect. And man, they never, you know, both sides never really worked together on anything. And I really do feel like this came together. And it wiped out a longstanding, um, act, the defensive marriage act, which, which basically defined marriage as between a man and a woman. So that that's essentially replaced. And I think, you know, that's probably something that had a lot of bipartisan support at the time. I think it just shows kind of an evolution in general of views. Cause like, even you look like you look at president Biden who really touted the success of this and how quickly it was done. And he's somebody that originally voted for the defensive marriage act back. And Clinton signed that into law in 1996.

Exactly. And I think it, it, it just, again, it just shows the changing of, it's just an, it's just an evolving of just general societal views across the board. Really, you know, um, and some people may disagree with, with it being a, whether, whether that's a positive or a negative thing for anybody individually, you can't dispute the, the, the consensus, I believe, which is evidenced by the fact that you've got bipartisan support from politicians on both sides voting for this has really shifted. And I want to say not a long time, but I mean, 96 is that's pretty long time ago. Now, man, it was, it was like yesterday.

96 was a good year, man. Yeah. The, uh, no, no, I think, I think you're right. I think anytime, anytime, anything, any, anytime, anything is bipartisan support and passes, like, I don't even care what it is. It's just like a good warm Christmas feeling Christmasy feeling that we had bipartisan support to, to put anything, put anything through, you know, everything. So contentious, but, uh, but not just that, like codifying anything is, is a good idea and important thing. Like that's, that's how Congress is supposed to be functioning that the, a lot of these interpretations, these nuances should in theory be going through Congress.

It shouldn't just be left open-ended. Exactly. Uh, forcing the court to make decisions that can then be reversed as well. So this formalizes things.

Yeah. And that's a good point. A lot of this stuff shouldn't necessarily, it goes to the Supreme Court cause there's a lack of direction, right? That's how you end up at the Supreme Court.

Cause you've got a, you've got a novel or very important issue that, that, that needs their, their intervention. And, and some of these things really should be legislated, right? We shouldn't, um, He wants your, your individual legislation, the person that you have voted into power, right? Like in theory, you voted this person into power because you trust them. And yeah, as opposed to just a, a court of individuals that you don't have that much say so over who they are in theory. I feel like so many of the court decisions kind of shade Congress too. They say like, this should be legislated, this should be codified, but as long as we're stuck with it, here's the decision.

That's what I feel like when I'm picking up after my kids, like I shouldn't have to be doing this. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. Also joining us from the Moorhead city office, Cassandra Nicholas on the program today.

And we've talked about a lot of subjects, got one more to go. I want to remind you two offices are conveniently located for Whitaker and Hamer in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, Gastonia, and of course, Moorhead city. If you've got a legal situation you're facing, you've got questions, you need some answers. You can always call the firm 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information briefly, what the call is about and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can always email your questions to the show questions at the outlawlawyer.com and we'll answer those on a future program. When we come back, well, we're going to talk about some estate planning and of course the firm Whitaker and Hamer. That's all next on the outlaw lawyers. Back on the outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm are your hosts. They have offices located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, Gastonia, and Moorhead city.

And also Cassandra Nicholas joining us from the Moorhead city office on the program today with us. If you've got a legal situation you're facing, again, call the firm 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. And leave your contact information briefly, what the call is about and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can always email your questions to the show questions at the outlawlawyer.com Josh. All right.

I wanted to take a minute. We opened up the show. We talked about how one of the biggest, one of the most numerous calls that we get, the call that we get the most is about estate planning. It's either about estate planning, sitting down with us, getting your affairs in order, getting your will done, getting a trust done, getting your powers of attorneys done.

So it's either that call or it's a call from heirs where they're like, Hey, so-and-so just passed away. We can't find a will. We don't know what to do. We don't know what we can pay.

The bank won't let us into the account, you know, names on a car, names on a piece of property. So those are, those are two of the calls we get the most right. Either planning. So that doesn't happen or the frantic call after the fact where there hasn't been an estate plan done. And, and we're helping your heirs kind of clean it up, get everything to the next generation.

And of course that's, you know, that's the bad way, right? The, the, the estate administration call versus the estate planning call. You won't, you want to be the estate planning client who comes in. And I know Morgan always says it, but I always want you to know we've got offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Fuquay, Goldsboro, Gastonia. And of course, Cassandra's down there in our newest office in Moorhead city.

So we have a lot of physical locations across the state, right? So if you wanted to come in and sit down with one of our estate planning attorneys, we're, we're always happy to do that with you. We're always happy to schedule these by the phone. You're not always in a position where you can come in. So the phone is a, is a good way where we can at least start the process.

And then, you know, zoom or teams or whatever people use these days because of the pandemic. That's always been, that's been a nice, a new way that we, we meet with folks. And in some cases we'll, we'll even come to you to help you get your estate plan done and, and taking care of it.

But it starts by giving us a call. We have a lot of questions for you. We have to figure out what you have, what your concerns are, who your heirs are. So there's a lot of discussion that you'll have with us. And then we can advise, we can give you our legal advice on, on what maybe be a good thing to do as far as getting stuff to the next generation. But, but Joe estate planning, nobody wants to do it.

Super duper important. That's right, man. Spoiler alert, Josh, I got, I got bad news for you. You are going to die as is everybody listening to this show. And that sucks, right? That's not great, but it's a reality of everyone's situation. And let's make, Hey, who knows, man, maybe they come up with some really cool technology, but as of right now, yeah, it's going to happen to everybody.

And, and it's morbid, right? It's a bad thought to have, but at the same time, the scarier thought is what are you going to leave in your wake? And what are you going to leave for your, your, your, your descendants, your children, your heirs, you're going to leave them a mess that they're going to have to figure out. And that's going to cause conflict among your family members. Cause we've seen terrible situations come out of this. Josh, we see it all the time and it's so unfortunate.

You'd be amazed how many sturdy, loving families are just ripped to shreds in the wake of something like this happening. Because, you know, folks don't take the time to do what needs to be done. And it's, it's, it's not something that is, is going to cost you a fortune. It's just a matter of, of getting it done and, and, and consulting a professional to do that.

And we'd love to help out with that. It's a really intimidating message. It was like an ad for a horror movie or something there for a while. It is, man.

It's a horror movie. Your family will be ripped to shreds. Your family is done for. But it's, it's, I think that's the most... Not if you use us, not if you, or not if you get a comprehensive estate plan in place, you're going to be fine.

They're going to love each other forever. I, you know, I don't know, you know, in my, in my, in my old age, uh, I always feel much older this time of year. Cause I grew my beard out.

It's very gray. Yeah. I'm not trying to hide the grayness in my beard. Um, but the most adult I feel like, so I've got an estate plan in place. And then every year I review that estate plan. It makes you feel good. Right. It makes me feel like a very well put together.

You light a cigar, you light a cigar and you sit down. I get a pack of black and miles, but, but no, I review my estate plan. Right. And like I have young children, right? So I have children under 18. So part of my estate plan is who is their guardian.

If something happens to me and their mom, who's going to take care of them. Right. And that's a very remote thing that, that might, that might happen.

Hopefully it never happens. Right. But we see that happen like at least once or twice a year, we see an accident, um, where, you know, both parents are killed and, and, uh, you know, as an estate, that's the most important part of an estate plan. If you have underage kids, if you lose both parents, who is going to take care of those kids, you can appoint your guardian, right?

If you don't do it, then it's done for you. Right. So if you want them to go with a, a sister or a parents or a brother, um, after you're gone, no one knows that. Right. And so the court, a judge is going to decide based on arguments presented to the judge, who will take care of your minor children. Right. Who will have custody of your minor children.

Something that you can. And I think this is something that you've said before, Josh, that I always remember now and say to a lot of clients, if you don't go ahead and do your estate planning, it's not that you don't have an estate plan. It's, it's that your estate plan is the default estate plan assigned to everyone by the state. So if you want them to make your decisions for you, there's, there's a process for that. And that's going to be a problem, right?

Because you definitely love that one kid more than you love the other a hundred percent. Right. And you want to make that clear. You want to make that clear. Yeah, that's good.

Yeah. In the absence of an estate plan. So if you, if you leave this, if you leave this world without an estate plan, the laws of North Carolina are going to decide what happens to your stuff, your real property, your things, and, and your underage children. And again, you know, no one wants to do it.

It takes time. It does cost money. There are attorney fees, but, but doing your estate plan, getting it in place, deciding who's going to be guardian of minor children. You can have someone different who's in charge of assets, right? So we see that a lot, you know, trying to decide should the guardian and trustee of the trust that I'm going to put in place for my minor children. Should they be the same person? Should they be different people? Should my trustee be a financial professional, an attorney, you know, a professional.

So we, we run into that, but, um, very important, very important. And good estate planning also allows your heirs to avoid having to deal with the estate administration process entirely. Good estate planning lets everything kind of transfer automatically the way you intended it to, so you can not have to deal with the courts as much.

And that's a good point to finish on, Cassandra. You're, when you're alive, you're in complete control over how your estate's going to be administered, not administered, passed to the next generation. The moment you die without an estate plan, it's out of your hands.

You got no control and it's for your family to figure out and deal with. I'll tell you folks, get a plan. And if you've got any questions about the show today, you can always contact Whitaker and Hamer, 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact information, briefly what the call is about. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. You can always email the show, questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. We'll answer those questions on the future program. For Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer and hosts of this show, and also Cassandra Nicholas down in the Moorhead City office. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. Have a great week. We'll see on the radio next week. 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.