Stand Your Ground Laws Making Headlines and We're Diving in.

Well, howdy, y'all. This is Morgan Patrick, and I'm here to tell you about a brand new radio show.

It's not quite brand new. We've been at it a while. It's on the airwaves in North Carolina. It's called The Outlaw Lawyer. Let me tell you, folks, this show is gonna be an absolute doozy. Now, what is The Outlaw Lawyer, you might ask? Well, it's a radio show where three of North Carolina's top attorneys, Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, and Cassandra Nicholas, will be answering legal questions from callers just like you. And let me tell you, these folks know their stuff. They've been fighting the good fight for years, and they're ready to take on whatever legal conundrums come their way.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Legal talk ain't exactly my cup of tea, but let me tell you this, friend, this show is gonna be something special. The hosts are gonna be breaking down legal issues in a way that even folks who ain't lawyers can understand.

And with me as the moderator, you know things are gonna be running smoothly, or at least as smooth as possible. So if you've got a legal question that's been nagging you, or if you just wanna hear some top-notch attorneys talking shop, then tune in. The Outlaw Lawyer on your local radio station right here in North Carolina. Josh, Joe, Cassandra, they are ready to saddle up and take on whatever comes their way.

And who knows? They might even throw in a little Waylon Jennings for good measure. We're back with The Outlaw Lawyer right after this. Welcome in to The Outlaw Lawyers. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer.

Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, where you can find them. Offices conveniently located. Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, Gastonia, and Moorhead City, which is where Cassandra Nicholas is joining us from. And folks, you heard the open, a little Waylon Jennings lead in, just a good old boys, two modern-day Robin Hoods, right?

And we also got to say two good old boys and one good old gal, because we got Cassandra on from Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. You know, each and every week we hit the legal topics. We give you an opportunity to chime in, as well as, you know, get on the calendar with Whitaker and Hamer. If you have a legal question of your own, you can always call the firm 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. And to really get involved with the show, you can email your questions. Questions at The OutlawLawyer.org. We'll answer those on a future program. We're going to get to some questions later in this show.

We're going to get to some questions later in the show. You didn't miss it. No, that was good TV. That was high entertainment value.

Morgan, I think you have a career in radio. I think when I was coming along, it was already in reruns. I was watching it like on TBS or somewhere like that, but it's good stuff. The Dukes of Hazzard. You talking about Johnny Knoxville and Stifler from American Pie? That's the Dukes of Hazzard, right? And I've never, I've never seen the remakes.

Are they any good? Yeah, it's all right. It's that same type of movie they made around that time. Like every movie around that time, like every comedy movie around that time was kind of the same. Wasn't Jessica Simpson?

Yeah, Jessica Simpson was Daisy Duke. Yep, yep, yep. Wasn't Burt Reynolds? Burt Reynolds? Am I thinking something different? No, I think you're right. I think that was Boss Hog. He was Boss Hog, right?

Oh, yeah. I didn't see that. You didn't see it. You like Burt Reynolds.

I do like Burt Reynolds. I didn't see it. It's pretty good. 2005. Cassandra Dukes of Hazzard.

The year of our Lord. Is it Dukes of Hazzard? Is that something you grew up with?

No, not really. I vaguely remember the Jessica Simpson version. Vaguely. What were you in 2004? You were eight back then? What year? 2005. Fourteen.

That's not that bad. Yeah. It's a, it's been It's just not that long. Sean William Scott. Oh, yeah. One of the great actors of our time. Stifler.

Yeah, Stifler. Well, you know, the Dukes of Hazzard, I'm not going to watch it. I'm not going to watch the movie. Yeah, don't ruin the series.

The series was actually pretty good. But lots of legal stuff to discuss today. So one of the things I noticed last week, it seems like there was 89 stories about people getting shot at people's doors, people's driveways. I don't know. I always wonder about that, right?

You don't hear about something like that happening forever and then all of a sudden you hear about it happening like five, six times in a row. But did you see that, Joseph? I saw. Yes, I saw. Which one are you talking about?

One of the 89? Yeah, it's everywhere, man. It's bad. You don't want to get desensitized to those things. But it's like it's hard not to because it's everywhere. So you get confused, right? Like you see one and you're like, is that that one from the other day again?

And it's a new it's just nuts, man. Yeah, there was there was a couple of them. So there's the one where the what a basketball rolled into a neighbor's yard. He came out shooting. There was the one where the basketball yard you had pulling into the wrong driveway.

He had ring doorbells. Yeah, there's been like several, man. And like you said, you wonder, like, is that stuff that happens frequently?

Yeah. And you just don't hear about it. Or are we in like an anomaly period of just crazy shooting events? Oh, I think if you listen to the news, it's like it's it's you know, we're on the verge of all shooting each other, you know, the way they it gets presented and reported. But obviously, no matter what, a disturbing trend. But I thought it was a good opportunity.

I saw some local news agencies kind of did this. But we're all attorneys here except for Morgan. No offense to him. He's basically an attorney. Yeah, he's the closest thing to it. He's honestly better than an attorney. Yeah, you're right. The he's absorbed so much wisdom.

Yeah. And sitting at the helm of this show. He's a sponge.

We squeeze him. His legal knowledge just oozes. Anywho, we felt like it'd probably be a good thing to sit and then just talk about standard ground laws in general in North Carolina and kind of apply the rules of that law to kind of these things that we're seeing happen in the media. So we're going to we're going to spend some time talking about that today. I always say an interesting or fascinating Supreme Court case coming up before the U.S. Supreme Court this week. The United States Supreme Court is going to hear a case where in Minneapolis, I suppose on the books, they have a statute where if you get more than five years behind on taxes, they can foreclose on you.

Right. That can happen anywhere you get far enough behind on your property taxes. The the local county or city government is going to foreclose on you and sell the property.

And so they sell it for one hundred thousand. You owe fifty thousand in back taxes. They get their back taxes and expenses. And then the rest in theory would go to you here in North Carolina. But in Minneapolis, they have a law where they seize the whole asset. They seize the whole piece of property and you don't get any money. And that's made it all the way up to the Supreme Court on whether that is legal or not.

So that's that's going to be an interesting oral arguments. Remus, but I thought we taxes tax time. Right.

Just passed, I guess. Yes. Our favorite time.

Right. One of the great you know, you get excited for like the NCAA tournament and playoffs, but tax time. That's what does it for me, man. I love paying taxes. My civic duty. When you're self-employed, if you're a business owner and your self-employed tax time is even worse than normal.

I love it, man. I like to pay extra. I like to put like, you know, you tip waiters. I like to tip the government, you know, do that. Let me let me ask you this. Do you guys prepare your own taxes or do you have somebody?

No, man. Then there's no sweat. You know, I'm right now.

Your CPA does it. Yeah, but it still hurts. Still hurts my body myself on one of those fun websites.

And it hasn't gone wrong yet websites. Yeah. Yeah. Our our our accountant just shows up and in with the bills. He's like, here is what you have out of thin air, baby. Out of thin air.

Pay, pay the government your money. I saved you this year. That guy is. And then our last segment, I think we're going to we've got some listener questions. We got some questions.

Chat GPT are unofficial. Co-host has generated for us. So I think we're talking some listener questions. But, Joe, are you tired? We had a we had a hurricanes game last night. Oh, yeah.

It isn't that late. But it was. But it did hurt. It was a painful one.

The whole series. I mean, the Islanders just have hate those guys. They're putting guys on the shelf right and left. Yeah, I'm not going to I would you can't say they're a dirty team, but clearly they're a dirty team. Obviously, you can't say it, but you can't say it.

But I'm saying it on record and it's official now. Man, you know, I thought the hurricanes played well last night. Honestly, all things considered, a couple of bad breaks, fluky stuff. They're very hurt.

They're very beat up. But yeah, man, frustrating game, frustrating game. You fell asleep. I did. I did. It's your fault. Whoa, whoa, whoa. You fell asleep at the game. No, no, no. Not at the game.

I haven't reached that. Maybe our fault for not going. I remember I remember I saw this was NC State basketball a couple of years ago, three or four years back when we were as probably pre pandemic. But I remember somebody had snapped a picture.

They were at a basketball, a state basketball game state had been losing for a while. And there was a guy like down low in the seats and he he had his like Volvo. I guess he had a Volvo and his owner's manual. So he brought his owner's manual into the game, was sitting lower level and was like reading his owner's manual to his Volvo. You like books, man. And I know you're a books guy, but have you checked out that Volvo owner's manual? It's page turner. So we're saying that the Volvo owner's manual more exciting, more vigor rating than NC State basketball. When you get like halfway through the plot twist in that thing, blow your mind, man. The guy who took the picture was the guy behind him. And he was like, he was like, this is how bad this is.

I don't remember who it was, but it was funny. But state state basketball next year, man, it's going to be something. A lot of lot of that portal, man. It's crazy.

I think Keats is working in about as well as anybody. And you've got to do that. Right. But it is nuts.

Like it's who are these people? Right. I just saw I just saw coming in a Carolina defensive back and entered the portal and committed to Penn State in January. And he's back in the portal. Wow. That's nuts.

Double portal. I think they'll change it. I think they'll they'll make some revisions to it. But it's a nutty time for that right now. And why would you why would you sign a player? It's great that players, you know, have some control over there. Right.

Everybody, you know, it's different. You don't have to. You don't have to sit out a year if you're transferring academically to another college. Right. Like, isn't that one of the arguments that people make? Right. But in that a red flag, like if you if you're a coach and you've got someone who left a team, transfer to another team and then left the team before you even started playing for sure.

For sure. Unless there's something like that's the nature of it. Right. Like that's how it is right now. You got to I think you're leveraging I think if you're a coach, you almost have to look at everybody is like, I'm getting a year out of this person. Right. Like I'm getting a year.

It's great if I get more. But you just got to be you got to kind of adapt on the fly, man. That's what you got to do.

And you also got to think about this. And there are so many old school coaches now that are leaving the game. And this is part of it because you're not only recruiting players for any sport to get them to your school.

Now you have to basically keep recruiting them to keep them. Yeah. I mean, it's true.

It's it's it's just a different way it's done. Cassandra, you have any deep beliefs in the NCAA transfer portal? You watching the transfer portal, Cassandra?

I'm just trying to navigate what the world portal is. Maybe they had a legitimate reason for switching a second time. Maybe they were waitlisted academically for the one they wanted. These folks are I don't think I don't think most of these portal kids were worried about the academics out very closely. I think I like how Cassandra gives them the benefit of the doubt. Yeah.

All right. The outlaw lawyers. We've got a lot on the program coming up. We'll talk about stand your ground and then we'll get into a Supreme Court case about tax forfeitures. And we've got some listener questions as well for Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer and Cassandra Nicholas. The outlaw lawyers will continue on the other side.

If you've got a situation you're facing, you've got a legal question, you need some answers. You can always call Whitaker and Hamer the power behind this program. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. And leave your contact information briefly what that call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can always email your questions to the show. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com will answer those questions on a future program.

We're back right after this. Welcome back in the outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They're the managing partners. They're practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. Also joining us from Whitaker and Hamer's Moorhead City office, Cassandra Nicholas.

And we are talking legal topics. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. There are offices located for Whitaker and Hamer practically everywhere. Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia.

And as we mentioned, Cassandra joining us from Moorhead City. Now, if you've got a legal situation you're facing, you can always call the firm. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six will get you in touch with Whitaker and Hamer. Leave your contact information briefly what the call is about. And again, an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch.

That number again, eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. And you can always email a question to the show. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com will answer them on a future broadcast.

Josh. All right. So we were talking about how the media exploded with accounts of folks being shot, murdered, hurt, you know, accidentally ending up on someone's property. And so that got us talking about stand your ground laws. And these are real controversial.

I mean, a lot of states already had them. But I remember a couple of years back, the Florida one came up, you know, you know, that kind of thing. Cassandra, what do you what are some of the ones you've seen, some of the incidents that came up in the media? So the one you mentioned previously about the basketball rolling into a neighbor's yard, it was a six year old that was shot and lived. But that one hit closer to home because it's a North Carolina case. And then the gentleman was gentleman was on the run. They did catch him in Florida, though, frankly. That's the one I've been watching.

He honestly doesn't sound that gentle, Cassandra, to me. Right. Yeah.

The one the two that got nice, like really national coverage was the young African-American man who went to the wrong house to pick up a sister and he was shot through the door. I can't I don't remember what state was in New York. I can't remember what state that was now. That's the thing. That's the crazy thing, man.

It starts blending together. The New York one was the was the what? The two cheerleaders who were out in the country and they pulled up in the wrong driveway and didn't get out of the car. Missouri was Ralph Yarrow was Missouri. That was Missouri.

Yes. Ralph Yarrow was Missouri. And there was another there was there was definitely four that were kind of floating around in the cheerleaders were Texas.

OK. Yeah. There was one in rural New York where they just pulled into the driveway and they got that was the kids party. That was the kids in the party. And they pulled into the driveway and because he shot them from his house. Yep.

Into the car. That's right. That's right. So, yeah. And so I think everybody survived except that last one. I think she passed and she was dead. Yeah.

passenger shot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So, you know, all these as far as stand your ground like these these are such anomalies because I I don't see how any of these would fall into a state's stand your ground law. Yeah, I don't I don't. You know, the media brought that. And it's important we're talking like we're talking about we're kind of applying North Carolina's version of that to these other states. Right.

So but yeah, I think by virtue and how else what all the framework do you talk about them in. Right. Well, I think everybody I think I haven't followed up, but I know I think everybody has been charged. Right. All the all the folks who've done the shooting so far have been charged in the stand your ground law comes in as like a self-defense claim.

Right. So you it's a it's a defense to a charge of assault or murder or whatever, you know, whatever you got charged with in your respective state. And to give listeners a little bit of groundwork, I know a lot of people are really common or familiar with stand your ground as a concept.

But North Carolina. So it's a defense that allows use of force in defense of self or others, if reasonable. So that's that's pretty wishy washy as far as like a defense goes. Yeah. Reasonable is always going to be, you know, when you when you get into these situations, the law, the average reasonable person, your response has to be reasonable to the threat that you're perceiving. Right. It can't be an unreasonable.

And all of these, I think if we go through them are unreasonable uses of force. You know, the one the one the media seems to be paying the most attention to is the young man, the young African-American male. And I guess it was Missouri. Is that what you said? Yeah.

Missouri. Yeah. So he came to the door. No words were exchanged. I mean, the early you know, we'll get more facts as we get deeper into this. But the early the early reports are like no words are really exchanged.

This young man was just ringing the doorbell. He was at the wrong house and the guy shot him twice through the door. And if those are the facts that we that we get, you know, I'm sure this was an 87 year old man. It sounds like maybe race played a factor from the early reports.

I'm sure he in his mind, he was very scared. But was that reasonable? It would seem that that's not reasonable at all. Yeah, it's yes. And that's one. Yes. Unreasonable.

The longest to charge to because they weren't sure. Well, there are all these things bad. Right. Like, I don't think any of this is reasonable, but there still aren't like, you know, you talk about the the individual who shot the cheerleaders. I mean, that's that's probably the most cut and dry. Not saying that all of these aren't cut and dry, but that's like, I mean, that was she. I think the girl got into the wrong car, realized that, got out, immediately went off, tried to get away.

And the guy like literally pursued them to the car, started shooting at him. So I think that's on a sliding scale of unreasonableness. I think that one goes, you know, the most unreasonable.

But these others. You're right, man. Like, what do you is that? How is it a reasonable response? How can you say that you were met with a threat of? Because, again, we talked about self-defense, right? And we talked about the force, the amount of force being reasonable and shooting someone like that deadly force. There's a there's an even higher bar for that to be permissible or for that to be something that you can, you know, shoot someone and then make that defense.

And and it's it's it's kind of an equivalent force, right? Like an imminent threat of like death or bodily harm there. And I just how do you make the argument that someone just being at your door, not posing any threat, ringing the doorbell? How can you say it rises to that level?

I don't think you can. Exactly. Yeah. I think some states have a presumption, like when someone's in your house, you can presume as long as they're not law enforcement or like a bell.

As long as it's not somebody who has the authority to be there or even you can get to trickier, murkier areas where someone's maybe they're not in your house, but they're trying to force entry into your house. Like there are situations and it it's not like it's always an easy thing, right? It's not like always a cut and dry thing. And I don't envy some of the you know, some of the folks that have to own these closer ones, not saying that any of these are close, but there are ones that that are close that are difficult to call. And we come we always come back to that balance, right?

Like the balance of your need to protect yourself. Like there's there's just it's tough to land on what is truly reasonable in those close calls sometimes. The one the one in New York where the girl was shot in the car in the driveway, that guy didn't come out of his house at all. So, I mean, I don't remember, you know, I remember he called his attorney and the cops were there.

Yeah, I want to say I'm not super overly familiar with that, but I want to say that. And again, not that it makes it this isn't like a sufficient defense by any means, but I think his his defense in quotes was they were like revving the car. They were outside revenue. It wasn't like they just came up, realized it was wrong and pulled out. They were out there like revving the car. They may have been honking again. It's not like, hey, shoot me type of activity. But I think that they're kind of in a remote area. Right.

And I think he was again. It sucks, man. It's terrible. It's a tragedy for these folks. No one should should expect for that to happen to them just for pulling into the wrong place like these kids. They're obviously not. Again, we don't know 100 percent as a fact, but from everything we've heard, they're not they're just trying to intimidate some poor old man. They think they're somewhere else for a party and they're just cutting up, man. They're just being kids.

And well, you know, you always have the cases where someone's intoxicated and then they try to go in like the wrong house and they get in. Right. And they get that. I've seen that happen a lot.

Just the national news. They get shot and killed and there's no charges because they've gotten in the house. Yeah. And then that's again, that's one of those where like you get like you can get that right. Like you can understand that. But, you know, I think the facts change, too.

You know, if I if I told Joseph like I intend to kill you and then I pull up in his driveway, that's different. Right. Yeah. I've announced my intentions to murder him and now I'm at his house.

Yes, for sure. So, you know, stand your ground law is, you know, like Cassandra said, it's it's a it's a self-defense. You plead it against charges. And I think all these folks will get charged unless some like crazy facts come up. I just you mentioned that you mentioned that fact pattern where you threatened to kill me, which is we can all see that. Right.

We can see you doing that. But you had the kid in New Jersey, Zachary Latham. That was a he's actually been tried and found not guilty. And that was that situation where that guy was. He was an influencer. I don't know if you guys saw this one in the neighbors. They had a dispute that was like this long dispute and they pulled up on him and he filmed the whole the whole encounters filmed.

And they come out aggressively and like clearly there to like try to cause harm. And I believe he stabbed one or more of them and ended up in one of them, one of them dying. He got charged with second degree manslaughter, but he got off on the self-defense charge and they had the film. They had the film. Yeah, they had the film of it. So I don't know how I didn't hear about that one.

I saw that one because it's I think it popped up on the old tick tock. The edited video of the folks play and it's clear like they pull in that level of people in a truck and get out and like they obviously mean business. And they got they're telling them several times, like, don't come on my property, get it like certain.

They're they're about like it's it's going down right. Like I'm not a I'm not a I'm doing air quotes here. I'm not a tough guy by any stretch of the imagination.

I don't know, man. I think you're interested in how tough some of the guys are out there. But if you stab me, I'm going to I'm going to finish the job. Yeah. I'm not going to let you stab me if you get one stab in. Like, it's not like, oh, you stabbed me. OK. All right.

You win. Let me get out of here. You read about that. Like London and somebody will go on like a stabbing spree and kill like seven people.

I always wonder how that happened. You know, I think I think, man, I don't know, man. I'm not going to do a trial run stabbing of you so we can test this theory. If you stab me in the back, I think you get stabbed and it messes with you. I've heard that it'll mess with you.

It's not fun. I would throw you off a little bit. It'll knock you back. Well, I mean, I would imagine there's a fear for life. There's adrenaline. And yeah, I can I can see how you could have plenty of energy to think like if someone stabs me.

I'm going to Chuck Norris roundhouse kick this person in the face. But I don't know, man. You never know. I've always assumed from birth you get one roundhouse kick. It's just to you like when you like you like you said, when the adrenaline starts pumping like that, you've got one.

And I haven't used it yet. Practice it. I think, you know, at your house, practice. I think you don't want to have to go bad on you.

God gives you one from day one. You're born with your I don't want to test my roundhouse flex like my reflex to do that. I just don't want to stab.

I'm going to go. I'm going to not try to not get stabbed when I guarantee you. If I try to roundhouse kick someone like I'm going down, that's that'll do more damage than the stabbing. Don't start laughing.

I'm not going to kill this guy with a very, very serious note. Make sure you stretch before you do that roundhouse kick. Make sure you're ready. Can you stop stabbing me long enough to do some lunges about the roundhouse kick in the face? I'm going around.

All right. The outlaw lawyers roundhouse kicking into the break. Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firm managing partners. They are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

Sandra Nicholas, also an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer, joining us from the Moorhead City office. Again, if you've got a legal situation that you are facing and you've got questions, you can get your answers from Whitaker and Hamer. Call 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 and you can always e-mail your questions to the program. Questions at the outlawlawyer.com and we'll answer those on a future broadcast. Taking a short break.

Back right after this. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They're the managing partners. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Also joining us from the Moorhead City office, Cassandra Nicholas, an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer. Offices conveniently located around the state.

Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and as we mentioned, Moorhead City where Cassandra is joining us. If you've got a legal situation, you can always call the firm and get your questions answered. 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 e-mail us your questions to the show.

Questions at the outlawlawyer.com. We've got a question and answer coming up later on the program. We'll answer your questions on a future program. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate, and away we go. And I think we're stopping with the Supreme Court. Yeah, we're going to get there, Morgan.

But first, I'm going to finish up. We were talking about roundhouse kicks going into break there. I saw you stretching during the break. I mean, I was getting ready, but Cassandra, have you ever roundhouse kicked anybody? Not in a while. Are you going to ask me?

Are you going to ask me? When was your last time, Joe? I have roundhouse kicked several people.

I think I was like six or seven. I did the Tae Kwon Do. I got some good videos, man. That was my thing, the roundhouse kick. If you want to watch them sometime, we can get together.

We can get together. I was very effective. The Law Law Lawyer YouTube page. I was very effective, man. I took Judo growing up, so it wasn't a lot of... That's pretty awesome, too. That sounds awesome.

Do you remember any of it? You're not going to use your Judo when you get stabbed? You're just going to straight roundhouse kick? Well, if I get stabbed in the back, I don't know how effective the Judo is. You get stabbed from the front. If you get stabbed in the back, I don't know how effective the anything is.

I think you're just getting stabbed in that case, brother. I always forget Cassandra has a wrestling background. I always forget that. Really? No way. Seriously? No way. Like WWE?

Let her tell you what her experience is. Like public school wrestling. I'm changing our next segment.

Go ahead. Were you like a prolific wrestler? North Dakota, the wrestling is big up there, right? Yeah, but once it got to high school level, I dropped out. What was your record? Oh, wow.

I have no idea. It was good. You're wrestling everybody, right? Yeah, it was coed. I love that. I think an ad campaign for the Morehead City office, you know, Cassandra. Just her and a singler. The crappler. Let me headlock the competition.

I'll dig that, man. Alright, next up, we've got a US Supreme Court case that's set for oral arguments this week. I don't think they've started yet. I think it starts this week. We're always in studio on Wednesday morning, so we're about halfway through the week.

I don't think they've begun, but there is a case. We've got an, I would say, an elderly lady. It was a lady, I think. She was in her late 80s, early 90s. She had a condo in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And she moved into a, what do you call, like a retirement. Assisted living.

Yeah, like an assisted living. She didn't pay that for whatever reason. We're not privy to it, but she stopped paying her taxes, right? So I guess she owned her condo free and clear.

There's no mortgage or anything. Her only lien was the annual property tax bill that no one really looks forward to getting. And she didn't pay it for five years. And it turns out in Minneapolis, there's a, I don't know if it's a law or an ordinance or whatever, but anyway, there's some governing law that says after five years, the city or whoever can foreclose on you and sell the residence at public auction and they can satisfy, they can use whatever money they need to satisfy what they're actually owed. But the twist here, that's the same thing that can happen in North Carolina.

It doesn't have to be five years. But the twist here is in Minneapolis, whatever equity you have in the property after the sale. So they've been made whole. They've paid all your back taxes, all the cost, fees of the sale, and they still have money. That money is supposed to go to the person who owned the property in North Carolina. In Minneapolis, the state, county, whatever, takes it and uses it, gives it to the schools, gives it to whatever public use they deem worthy. And so this lady, probably buying through her power of attorney or kids or whatever, said, hey, you can't keep it.

They owed her 25, 30 grand of money. And so now it's gone all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. I'm interested to see what the Supreme Court does here. I feel that's kind of, I mean, I'm never a pro-tax guy. As we were talking about taxes earlier. Speak for yourself, man. I know Joseph is. Love it.

I love it. I remember growing up and not really understanding, you know, that's the good thing about being a kid, right? You don't have to understand taxes. But I came from a family where my dad was self-employed. And so self-employment taxes, you know, I always knew about those. And I remember every year property taxes would go up. And it's always, you know, the way they phrase it is like what a penny per hundred dollars of tax value or whatever.

And it sounds so small. And I remember my dad getting like real, not real mad, but like annoyed, right? That was like, hey, taxes are going up again. I was like, it's only a penny per hundred, you know, whatever.

And now you're your dad. Yeah. I'm like shaking my fist in the air because taxes never go down. They don't. They never go down.

They only go up usually. There's a TikTok I saw this week of a family playing Monopoly. And a 10 year old boy is just like bawling. And his mom is asking him why. And he says it's because of the taxes. Yeah, the taxes. Yeah, the taxes will get you, man. You know, at the firm, we always know when real property tax bills come out.

They're always in July or August. But we know when those bills come out because people call us and let us know they got a property tax bill. But anyway, so, you know, in North Carolina, we're all, you know, me and Joe and Cassandra, we're all North Carolina attorneys here in North Carolina. Certainly you get behind on your property tax. That's something the county can do down here is they can foreclose on you and sell the property at auction. But any excess money has to go back to you. And there's a there's a way that that happens. There's a surplus surplus funds action.

And that happens if, you know, if a lender, your mortgage lender forecloses on you and sells at auction and there's extra money that's supposed to go back to you. But we'll see what the U.S. Supreme Court thinks about this. It's a seizure, right? This is a constitutional issue, a seizure issue. So we're supposed to be protected from unlawful seizures in theory.

Yeah, the arguments are interesting. Apparently, there are 13 states in addition to Minnesota that allow this full seizure where they keep the excess in this case, just to give like some more context. She owed fifteen thousand in property taxes and they ended up auctioning her condo for forty thousand.

So they kept twenty five thousand extra. But the county's argument, I don't know how it'll be interesting to see the numbers. They said far from a windfall, this tax forfeiture doesn't break even. You don't see that just in legal things.

Yeah, because in North Carolina you can get you know, you can I don't know about the county on a tax foreclosure, but I don't see it. I really don't see that argument at all. I'm usually pro individual, right?

I'm usually pro any constitutional right there that we have and believe those need to be fiercely defended because once they're gone, you don't you don't get them back. But yeah, I don't I don't I don't understand that either. I think I read the same thing, Cassandra, and I don't I don't get the reasoning there. I don't get that rationale. They're going to have to back that up in oral arguments with real numbers like how does this not break even? How can you justify just taking this ninety four year olds twenty five thousand dollars? It's about time we had a heartwarming story, man. One about the government getting more of our money. I feel like these the guy the school children.

Yeah, I'm not I'm less enthusiastic. I feel like I feel like the government officials in Minneapolis are like the old school bad guy, like a top hat and a big long mustache. Anderson, they're twirling their mustaches, waiting to get up for the Supreme Court.

Yep. The other part of their argument is really like this is the wrong context, but like victim blaming against this elderly woman saying that she refused her other option to recoup the equity. She refused to sell it, refinance it or sign up for a tenured tax payment plan.

Like she was already in assisted living late 80s when this happened. Like, did she refuse or not have the resources to like pursue those options? Yeah, that's going to be I doubt she just refused.

I doubt she just refused. Like, no, take take my property. But it'll be it'll be a good test case because I mean, I in North Carolina, I think people would would not I would hope we have a kind of a different mentality than some of the states where that is that is legal. But I know here we have people who will call up and they'll make a will and they really don't have anybody to leave stuff to. But they just want to make sure it doesn't go to the government. Right. They're like, I don't want it to go to the government. I don't care who it goes to as long as it's not the government.

But we got a little different mentality down here about stuff like that. But anyway, oral arguments will will revisit that one, especially if something interesting comes out or we get more facts or we we figure out we figure out something else. All right. Tax forfeiture. Supreme Court.

We just got through with that. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, along with Cassandra Nicholas, also an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer. You are listening to the outlaw lawyers again. Want to remind you that Josh and Joe are the managing partners of the firm.

Practicing attorneys here in North Carolina and conveniently located offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and Morehead City. If you have a legal situation and you've got questions and you need answers, here's a phone number for you. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. 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 show. Matter of fact, we're going to get to some listener questions coming up on the other side. Just some legal questions to throw at the attorneys. And you can do that yourself by emailing us questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com.

We're back right after this. Welcome back into the outlaw lawyers. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. Managing partners Whitaker and Hamer law firm. Practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. We're also joined by attorney Cassandra Nicholas. She's out of the Morehead City office. And speaking of offices, you can find Whitaker and Hamer almost everywhere.

Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and again in Morehead City. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. If you have a legal situation you're facing and you need some answers, you can always call Whitaker and Hamer. Here's the number. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave your contact information briefly what the call is about. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can email your questions to the show questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com and we'll answer those on a future program. And speaking of questions, we've compiled a number of these routine questions that come into the firm, Whitaker and Hamer. And we are going to go over those questions.

So, Josh, start us off. Yeah, we take these questions from a lot of different places. So we have I don't know, I think there's ten of us these days that we've got we've got we've got a fleet. What do you call a group of attorneys? Pat, a horde. We can't say the word on the radio.

I just saw one of those weird ones the other day. A gaggle. We have a we have a veritable plethora of attorneys who occupy different spaces in the firm's deal in our firm and deal with different situations. And so we we know we have, I don't know, 40, 50, 60 consult initial consultations a week that, you know, estate planning, family law, personal injury in a real property, you know, just all kinds of issues that our attorneys are equipped to advise and handle for folks. And so I usually take a couple of questions from consults that we've had. You know, Chad GPT will chip in a question or two here or there. And then we have listener questions. So we have our listeners will call in and shoot us emails with, you know, have you seen this article? You know, just different interesting things.

And so we try to call. I used to do produce, right? You know, that's what I used to do when I was in college. Produce music? Produce beats? I like to imagine you as a producer, like a long chain bobbing your head. I would unload refrigerated trucks and coal. Every morning you had to come in and you had to call the produce department, throw away the waste.

You just eat it all. Right. So we'd call these questions. And so we try to get the most interesting ones. And on different shows, we talk about different things. And sometimes they can be repetitive.

Here's one that never gets old, though. And Cassandra, I'm going to oppose this one to you. But just just general considerations, you know, if you're looking to do an estate plan, if you're looking to have a a trust, you know, there's I follow these guys on. Well, I'm not on TikTok anymore. So whatever the other one is, what Instagram or but there's all these attorneys and there's one camera with his name's called. But basically all he does every every every reel he's got there is him talking about a different kind of trust. Right. Here's like an unlimited amount of trust because trust are designed to do certain things. The most common when you hear people talk about is a revocable a revocable trust for your life to for estate planning.

Right. And so, Cassandra, what are some of the considerations that kind of go in deciding if you're a person who can use a revocable trust as part of their estate plan? So when looking at any of the trust, you're looking at like you were saying, there are different purposes.

So you're looking at what the purpose is. So if you've got a trust that exists during your lifetime, a revocable trust, you can then title assets in the name of that trust. So the trust on your assets instead of you directly. So you could put your house into the trust. You could go as far as vehicles, bank accounts, things like that can go into a trust. When you're considering trusts and whenever you've got a trust, you're still going to have a will as well as part of a standard estate plan. The key considerations are really thinking about who in your life you want to end up with those assets. And then kind of as a separate but overlapping consideration, who in your life you trust to actually carry out those wishes. So the person you're assigning to be your trustee after you pass should be someone responsible and organized. And that may not be the same person that you're leaving the items to. That's right.

Yeah. So when you create a trust, the way it works is the trust is a document. There's a trust creation document and we usually call you the grantor or the settler of the trust for a revocable trust. Usually you're going to be the trustee, at least the initial trustee, and you're going to be the beneficiary for your life. And so this trust is... You wear a lot of hats where you've got that type of trust in your life.

Yeah. So the trust is just an alter ego of you. The good thing about trust, though, is they don't die. So when you're doing an estate plan, when you do a will, you're talking about, okay, at your death, this is what's going to happen.

This is who's in charge. And you can kind of do the same thing in a trust, but the trust won't die. So the trust doesn't have to go, in theory, doesn't have to go through probate.

You don't have to deal with the clerk's office. There's some tax, maybe tax incentives. We're not CPAs. We can't get too far down the rabbit hole with taxes, but there's some tax advantages.

But you're creating an alter ego of you. And when you pass away, you're going to have a backup trustee named. You're going to have the people who get the trust corpus. They're going to get whatever's in the trust according to your terms. So if you have underage children, maybe they get a little bit at 18, a little bit at 20, a little bit at 25. Maybe once they turn 30, they get the rest of it. In the meantime, a trustee who's not them manages the property, makes sure they get school paid for and medical and have a place to live.

You know, there's interests are a really important tool when there are minor children involved, because if you don't have those assets administered through a trust and your will just leaves everything to your underage children, that can get into a pretty big wormhole administratively with the clerk, because each of those children needs to have a guardian assigned through the through the courts. So the trust also allows you to avoid a lot of that. Yeah. When it comes down to whether you've got ten million dollars or you've got ten dollars.

Right. If you don't plan ahead, we all have the capability of sitting down with an attorney and making an estate plan. You know, getting everything in order. And it's it's a pain. No one wants to do it.

It's not fun. And once you get it done, that's only half the battle because you really need to revisit it. You know, they say every year that's that's almost impossible for some folks. But things change. Kids get older.

New kids show up, you know. But if you you can sit down right now and figure out everything that's going to happen after you die, whether you die tomorrow, whether you live to 98, you can determine exactly what's going to happen. You have 100 percent control until you die without an estate plan. And then you're going to have to rely on the statutes. Right. And everything is going to default to what the clerk's office wants to happen. Right. You know, if you have underage children, since you haven't appointed anybody in your in your trust, in your will to take care of them, they're going to have to get a guardian of the person appointed, possibly a guardian of their estate, you know, a court appointed person who's going to is going to do all this stuff.

Who may end up being who you maybe wanted it to be, but certainly doesn't have to be. And things are have to go through probate. Right. That's that can be a messy, long process. And, you know, if you've got everything in this nice, neat trust and you've got the right people in place to take care of everything, then everything is pretty smooth. Right. Everything is is pretty automated.

And it's it's again, it's something no one ever wants to do. But it needs to go ahead. Yeah. The goal of good estate planning is to make that as easy as possible for your loved ones after you pass as possible.

Yeah. And you're and again, your level of assets will determine who your trustees are. You know, if you're not sitting on twenty five million dollars, maybe your best friend from high school can be your trustee or, you know, a spouse or a trusted, you know, some other trusted friend. But once you get high enough, maybe your trustees, an attorney, maybe your trustees, your CPA or an investment advisor.

You know, you'll have to determine what you feel comfortable with. You know, the thing people never want to do. Right. You don't want to give your 18 year old most 18 year olds.

You don't want to drop five million dollars on them because you because you died and they get it when they turn 18. That's not usually a recipe for success. But but yeah, that's a that's a that's a good question. Those are those are the type of things you think about.

Right. And we usually when you meet with us, we kind of have a system kind of ask you a bunch of these questions. So by the time you sit down with an attorney, we've we've already kind of fleshed out some of your goals, what's important to you, what's not important to you. And it's it's a lot easier process than it used to be. Thanks to thanks to AI, thanks to artificial intelligence and things like that.

All right. The ally is going to take a short break back to wrap up the program again. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners here at Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys in the state of North Carolina. Cassandra Nicholas, also joining us from that Moorhead City office and offices also located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina and Gastonia.

We'll take a short break and we'll wrap it up right after this. Welcome back in to the Outlaw Lawyer's final segment. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm are your hosts. They're practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina.

Sander Nicholas, also an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer, joining us from the Moorhead City office. Guys, short short runway. So we'll wrap it up. Yeah, we had one more. We had one more question we didn't get to.

And I know we don't have a ton of time, but the one that came up for me in a lot of different consults was trying to figure out. OK, somebody's breached a contract, right? You have a contract with someone to, I don't know, hardscape your driveway or you got a car.

You got a lease with somebody or you got a you got a contract to buy real property, but the other party has breached it. Right. And so you guys have written down your expectations.

Everybody signed off on them. Something's gone wrong. The other party has breached and trying to figure out when it's worth litigating. Right.

And so I've had I've had a discussion with a couple of people this week about damages. Right. And one of the things that I think people sometimes get confused on is the court only cares. In a normal contract, a normal, just very simple contract situation, the court only cares about your actual damages. Right. So if the contract doesn't call for interest, right, interest on any damages you've suffered, interest is not automatically something a judge is going to is going to give you unless it's talked about in the contract.

Right. Attorneys fees. And in North Carolina, the default is you pay your own attorney's fees unless there is a statute or something that that makes the other party pay your attorney's fees.

So in a normal breach situation where there's no fraud, there's no unfair and deceptive trade practices, just somebody didn't do what they agreed to do. You're going to bear your own attorney's fees and you and you can't say, well, this almost was worse. But luckily, you know, you know, luckily it wasn't. And you can't you can't. Well, I can't think of the word I'm trying to say. Cassandra, you can't you can't invent damages.

I could have been killed. That doesn't matter. Right.

No one cares. What are your actual damages? And so that's something that comes up a lot. And, you know, there are ways under the law someone commits fraud. There's punitive damages.

Right. There's an unfair and deceptive trade practices act that allows treble damages. There's different statutes that allow attorney's fees in the contract. And in the contract, you can make the breaching party pay your attorney's fees. But in a normal situation, your damages are your damages, the damages you can get in front of a judge and say, hey, I had to replace my car or I had to get another guy to rip up this work and redo it. Those are your those are your damages. And so that that comes up a lot for me. So I thought it'd be something worth mentioning.

Yes. A lot of folks asking about like emotional damages and stuff like that. That is very hard in small claims court. So, yeah, it's very hard in small claims. It's very hard in district court.

You know, you need to be diagnosed, you know, with with something. It's it's, you know, it just doesn't carry a lot of the direct cause is is the other party's actions. The but yeah. Yeah, that's that's something that I think a lot of people think, you know, litigation is is not cheap. It's it's it involves attorney's fees most most times. Most most attorneys aren't going to take most breach of contract cases on a contingency. So you're you're coming out of pocket. So what you can actually recover is always going to be very important. We're never sad. Right.

If you come consult with us and we decide you just don't have enough damages to justify attorney's fees, we don't want you to throw good money after bad money. You know, we want you to feel like, you know, if we do something for you, it's been worthwhile and successful. But, well, man, I think we just ran out of time. We had more questions, but I don't think we're going to be able to get there. I think we need to do just a full show of question and answer.

You guys do such a good job with it. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, Cassandra Nicholas joining us from that Moorhead City office. Another edition is in the books. If you've got a legal situation that you are facing and you need some answers, you can always call the firm. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. And leave your contact information briefly what that call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can always email your questions to the show. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com will answer those on a future program. Another edition of the outlaw lawyers in the books.

We'll see on the radio next week. Lawyer is hosted by an attorney licensed to practice law in North Carolina. Some of the guests appearing on the show may be licensed North Carolina attorneys. Discussion of the show is meant to be general in nature and in no way should the discussion be interpreted as legal advice. Legal advice can only be rendered once an attorney licensed in the state in which you live had the opportunity to discuss the facts of your case with you. The attorneys appearing on the show are speaking in generalities about the law in North Carolina and how these laws affect the average North Carolinian. If you have any questions about the content of the show contact us directly.