Weekly Docket
Panera's Caffeine Controversy, Free Lawyers, TikTok Vs. Government, and Solar Panel Lawsuits
Join Phil Silberman and Austin Black in Episode 17 of the ‘Weekly Docket’ as they tackle the controversy surrounding Panera Bread's caffeinated lemonade, learn when you are entitled to a free lawyer, and are solar panels a good deal or a legal nightmare. Don't miss this illuminating episode packed with legal insights, expert analyses, and valuable discussions!
Join Phil Silberman and Austin Black in Episode 17 of the ‘Weekly Docket’ as they tackle the controversy surrounding Panera Bread's caffeinated lemonade, learn when you are entitled to a free lawyer, and are solar panels a good deal or a legal nightmare. Don't miss this illuminating episode packed with legal insights, expert analyses, and valuable discussions!
Welcome to Silberman Law Firm's Weekly Docket, Episode 17, where we talk legal news and practical law. Today is May 10th, 2024. I'm Phil Silberman, owner of the firm, your host, and I'm joined by my co host, Austin Black, who works in our Dallas office. How are you doing today, Austin?
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:I'm doing fine. We finally got some sun here in Dallas, while we were threatened with tornadoes last evening, so it's always good to see.
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:Sunshine is a good thing. what's on our docket today, Austin?
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:So we are going to first be moving through our legal news section as per usual, focusing on TikTok suing to stop the ban or forced sale of TikTok. They are going a first amendment route. and then we'll be touching on Panera Bread removing its charged lemonade after a plethora of wrongful death lawsuits related to said lemonade. and then we'll be moving on to our legal questions section. answering The question of when you are entitled to a free lawyer. It is not when you think you are. and then we will talk about panel. a lot of our potential clients call us, when they are wrapped up in a solar contract and don't really understand exactly what they got themselves into. it's always best to call us before you get into those contracts, but we can help you sort out and figure out exactly what you're dealing with. If you're already in one, and then we'll be moving on to our rent and rave section talking about, the junk fee prevention. Act and the outrageous fees that are associated with that.
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:it sounds like we've got an action packed show, let's get started with our legal news section. And the first thing we're talking about is TikTok is suing the government to stop the ban on TikTok and stop them from being prohibited from being hosted on servers and in app stores. our listeners may remember that Biden signed a law That requires ByteDance to divest TikTok in about nine months because of national security concerns. As expected, TikTok has filed a lawsuit in the U. S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia, against the government, claiming that this ban on TikTok is unconstitutional. The crux of their argument is that the ban violates First Amendment rights, free speech rights of the 170 million users. that TikTok has. But significantly and interestingly, TikTok is also arguing that their First Amendment rights are violated. So let's first talk about commercial speech and whether corporations like TikTok have First Amendment rights. Austin, what do we think about that?
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:Yes, they have first amendment rights. You have to be able to speak as a corporation. there were some Supreme court rulings in the 1970s that sort of this current trend of, companies having first amendment rights.
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:Yeah. So we're not going to bore you with all of the details, but suffice to say, Sometime in the 70s, the U. S. Supreme Court decided that corporations do have free speech First Amendment rights, as protected commercial speech. TikTok is actually arguing in their petition, and we've got a quote here, TikTok Inc. arguing in their petition uses the TikTok platform to create and share its own content about issues and current events, including, for example, it's support for small businesses, Earth Day and literacy and education. When TikTok does it is engaging in core speech protected by the first amendment. So TikTok needs to be careful. with this argument, right? Because they're saying, Hey, we're a corporation. We exercise our free speech. they need to be careful because we have this little thing that social media companies like to hide behind, which is called Section 230 of the CDA or the Communications Decency Act. And for years, this act, Section 230 of the CDA has been used to protect big internet companies like Google. And the idea is, hey, Google's a platform, TikTok's a platform, Instagram's a platform. These big tech companies are not responsible for the content on this platform because all of that is peer generated. They're just the medium. So don't sue us. You're not allowed to sue us. So if someone does a TikTok post about making a firearm, out of plastic parts and then someone does it, learns how to do that on the post, goes and shoots up a school or a church. TikTok says, don't sue us because we're protected under section 230 of the CDA, Communications Decency Act. I think that's a horrible law. I think that act needs to be rewritten, But TikTok's on dangerous ground. They're trying to talk out of both sides of their mouth, like lawyers tend to do. Which is, oh, we have free speech rights because we wish people a happy Earth Day and we want people to be able to read, on, on literacy and education.
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:I disagree with that assertion that they promote literacy and education.
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:Yeah, exactly. Watch a bunch of our 60 second videos, which make people more stupid than intelligent. But TikTok saying, hey, we exercise our free speech on these very benign topics. Because they know that they want to avail themselves of all these protections under Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act. So be careful with that argument, Tick Tock, because if you win this battle, you may lose the war. Supreme Court could say, great, later on in another case, hey, you argued that you were out there putting speech out, putting original thoughts out there that your commercial speech is protected. So guess what? All this commercial speech that the users post, you're now no longer protected under the CDA. So be careful with that argument. So what's the government strategy here? We've talked about TikTok's argument. Hey, 170 million users out there. You're going to crush their speech, their free speech rights. If you force ByteDance to sell and TikTok, we also as a corporation have protected commercial speech. The government has an argument and the government really wants to make this more about, restrictions on foreign investment than they do content. The government's going to say, this isn't about content. This isn't about first amendment. This is about our longstanding history and power to restrict foreign investment in certain industries to protect our national security. And there are a whole lot of industries out there that have restricted what they call FDI, Foreign Direct Investment Limitations. What are some of those industries out there, Austin, that the government has restrictions on from foreigners, investing too much money in?
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:appropriately, there's nuclear power. Makes sense. oil and gas, transportation, financial services, so like banks. control technologies such as like lasers, other nuclear materials, aside from just nuclear power generation chemicals, and some advanced computer chips for AI processing, companies like Nvidia are working on, and then radio communications
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:Yeah. there are some very sound reasons why we don't want a lot of foreign investors in these key industries. So in the event of a war, we want to be able to protect our resources or just general competitive advantage as a country. We want to protect. our infrastructure. I live in Houston based out of Houston. Oil and gas is very much on this list. We have a lot of refining capabilities and capacity here in Houston. We don't want foreign countries to control all of the ability. for us to refine oil in the event of war, we then we have no diesel or gasoline to power our jet fuel to power our equipment. So that's an example of some important reasons now tick tock is going to point out. That when the government makes its argument that it has the power, the longstanding power to restrict foreign investors, Tick Tock's going to point out there is no specific law that bans foreign ownership in media companies and they're correct. Okay. The FCC did have a rule that banned over 25 percent ownership in media companies, but that was voted down, relaxed significantly. voted five to nothing. FCC said, Hey, in 2013, we're going to relax that rule. We're not so concerned about media companies being owned by significantly by foreign investment by foreigners. guess what? Tick tock was not around in 2013. And at that time. The FCC was mostly concerned with Grupo Televisa, who's a Mexican company, taking a larger stake in Univision so that Univision could show more Latin soap operas to Hispanic people. That was the concern. Not a high national security risk, Oscar.
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:wait, but why specifically Hispanic people? Why can't white
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:Okay. Okay.
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:our Latin soap operas?
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:Hey, if you're out there watching, is it a telenovela? I don't know. if you're out there watching telenovelas, more power to you. I'm going to go out on a limb, and say that Univision's predominant audience is Hispanic. Okay. this play out? This is eventually going to go up to the U S Supreme court. here's my opinion. I don't think we've gotten one wrong yet. Okay. so we're going to try to keep that streak alive. The reasoning has been wrong. sometimes we get it right, but the rationale that the Supreme Court comes up with has been wrong. But I'm going to go out on a limb again, and I'm going to say, despite all, maybe these very amazing first amendment arguments that TikTok is going to make, our conservative U. S. Supreme Court is not going to hand our country over to the Chinese. Based on first amendment arguments. And I think the Chinese know that this suit is really just a way to kick the can down the road, procrastinate it. So
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:actually think this will be a 9 0 decision.
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:nine zero decision that the government wins.
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:Yes,
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:Okay. that's a bold call. we're going to, see how that plays out. Let's see who's right. I don't think it's going to be nine zero. I think there's some liberal justices that are going to, Side with TikTok. I think we've got some communist justices on the bench. Okay,
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:I don't think any of the justices are communists.
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:they're secretly communist. Yeah, The main thing the Chinese are concerned about is their proprietary technology on the logarithm. And you'll hear a lot of talk about this logarithm and they want to protect that because they think TikTok, ByteDance, the Chinese communist party have this amazing technology, which is in a logarithm to influence foreign elections and to manipulate. American minds and that's what they want to protect. And we're going to see that logarithm pop up again in some other platform. And what the U S companies, if there's a hedge funds out there, or whoever's looking at buying this thing, they're going to have to re engineer, recreate a logarithm to make TikTok work. I've heard some experts. that are interested in buying TikTok from ByteDance. And they've done the research. They don't think it's going to be that big a deal to get in a logarithm that's going to continue TikTok's prosperity and profitability. But the Chinese are going to keep their proprietary logarithm is where this is going to come out. All right, let's move on to our next legal story that we're charged up about. Panera bread removes caffeinated lemonade after several wrongful death lawsuits.
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:Okay, do you like Panera Bread?
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:boy. Okay. So I do a lot of traveling in the summertime, this summer, I'm going to be driving, up to Massachusetts and I'm a health nut. There are only so many places I can eat at on the road and Panera bread is not one of them. Panera bread is a wolf in sheep's clothing when it comes to healthy eating. Okay. this is my opinion on it.
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:from healthy eating though, right? Panera Bread, they cook all their stuff in the microwave, right? They only have ovens back there.
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:well taken. So, they're phasing out the Charged Lemonade. Maybe they've already taken it out off the menu. I don't know. But what that is a highly caffeinated beverage. That has been blamed for at least two deaths in lawsuits. Now we're not doctors. Okay. So let's start with the lawyer stuff first, and then we'll get to some of the, where we play doctor. Okay. But one lawsuit was filed by a 21 year old Sarah Katz, University of Pennsylvania student with a heart condition who died after drinking a charged lemonade. So that's one wrongful death lawsuit. Another lawsuit. Dennis Brown, Florida man, chromosome disorder who died after drinking a charge lemonade. And then there's another one filed by a 28 year old Rhode Island woman who claims that the charge lemonade gave her permanent. Cardiac issues. So are these drinks dangerous? Panera says these drinks have as much caffeine as our dark roast coffee is a quote from Panera Bread. According to healthline. com on average, an eight ounce coffee has about a hundred milligrams of caffeine. Now, Panera's nutrition information, they say that a charged lemonade with 30 ounces has about 300 milligrams of caffeine. Now, that's three times the amount of caffeine in a dark roast coffee, but it's also more than three times the quantity, right? 30 ounces in a charged lemonade, eight ounces in a typical dark roast cup of coffee. So, bottom line is there's a lot of caffeine if you guzzle these quickly. And a cold drink. goes down a lot smoother and quicker. Then if you're sipping a very hot cup of coffee, right?
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:Yes, you probably would burn something.
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:now the FDA, the food drug administration says that healthy adults can drink about 400 milligrams a day. That's how you get to the four cups of coffee. So I generally have about two cups in the morning and I don't drink any of the rest of the day. So these people drinking like these, I guess these big ice drinks they're getting pretty close to their total caffeine allotment. In a very short period of time. So take Red Bull I've never had one. The kids are really into them. I looked at the ingredients of Red Bull. 111 milligrams of caffeine. So about the same as a regular couple. Now it also has 27 grams of sugar, which is If you're a woman, that's your total daily allotment of sugar that you're supposed to have. So if you're drinking Red Bull, it's predominantly caffeine and sugar. There may also be some B12 supplements or vitamins. I don't know, but I think the jazzed up effect of the Red Bull comes from the sugar and the caffeine. Even a Red Bull. has about one third the amount of caffeine that these charged lemonades have at Panera Bread. So it sounds like a lot, sounds like a lot of caffeine. Now, Panera has since put a warning on the label that says, Hey, it's not recommended for children, people sensitive to caffeine or pregnant or nursing women. Those labels tend to scare me. but they put the label on there, phased it out, took it out. I guess it's got a lot of caffeine in it. I don't know that I recommend it just like Panera Bread. if you're in those categories on the label, is there a legal analysis here, Austin? Is there anything we can say legally about this to tie this in since this is a legal podcast?
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:Yeah. this would likely be a negligence suit. like most wrongful death suits are some form of negligence. and briefly walking through the. elements of a legal negligence suit. first there has to be a duty that was owed to the plaintiffs of the person bringing the lawsuit.
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:Okay, so when you go eat at a restaurant, the restaurant has a duty not to kill you with their food or drinks.
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:Generally, except maybe when you eat at the heart attack grill in Las Vegas, they let you eat free if you weigh over 400 pounds, and they cook all their food in lard.
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:I don't know if I agree with that. All right, next.
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:to sign a disclaimer to eat there, though.
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:All right,
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:sign a waiver, yeah.
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:what's our next element of negligence?
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:Next element of negligence is a breach of that duty to not kill you, okay?
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:Okay, so if the lemonade or the whatever you're eating kills you, maybe they've breached that duty. All right. Now,
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:and then Causation,
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:that's the hard one here. Causation is the hard one because you have to show that the charged lemonade actually caused the death. And that's where the, all the dispute is going to be. in this lawsuit and you've got monetary damages, which is the nasty one because you start valuing life.
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:Yeah,
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:So when someone dies and you look at the end, the potential income of that person, loss of consortium, things like that. what about the warning? What about the warning after these people died? When this case plays out and there is a negligence lawsuit going on in these wrongful death cases, can the plaintiff's attorney get up there and say, Hey, they took it off the menu and they put a warning on it. And they did that. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, they did that because they knew this was dangerous and it was killing people. Can the plaintiff's attorney do that?
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:very likely. No. because There's a federal rule of evidence that excludes that sort of thing. And then, also a Texas rule of evidence. basically what it says is if someone is mitigating, something, so for instance, like a more practical example, let's say like a child goes down a slide and gets injured because of some unsafe condition on said slide right in the public park the parents of the child sue and they fix that whatever was wrong with it while the lawsuit is going on, you can't admit evidence of them fixing that thing on the slide as evidence that there was something wrong with it because that would discourage anyone actually trying to fix anything that was wrong or potentially harmful. We don't want to discourage mitigation in the
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:Yeah, as a public policy standpoint, we want people to remedy things, fix things. And that's why we have rules where that kind of thing is not admissible. how about the fact that these plaintiffs had a preexisting condition? So you've got someone with a heart condition, a chromosome disorder, can Panera Bread say, those people were really messed up anyway, so you can't really blame us if our charged up lemonade put them over the edge. Are you familiar with the concept of the eggshell plaintiff? Do you remember that from law school at all, Austin? Yeah,
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:case where there was a big loud noise and someone like got drastically injured because of this noise is vibration. Yes, it would, which means you take the plaintiff as you find them like you, can't say, oh, because you have this special condition, we're not at all liable for anything that are potentially dangerous thing did to you. you have to assume that people like that exist. Unless it's a really crazy condition or something. That's probably not going to take you very far. So
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:so Panera Bread doesn't get to say, oh, heart condition, chromosome disorder. you take the plaintiff as you find them.
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:and now of course they could argue that whatever happened to these people was just attributable to that condition and not the lemonade, but that goes back to the causation. So
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:yeah. All right. who knows how these cases come out? you have some very sympathetic plaintiffs. You have big corporate defendant. you could get a result there. we don't know. we'll see if they settle or what happens.
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:Yeah. I'd be interested in seeing the jury charge for the.
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:oh man, you took that to the next level. Well done. Well done, Mr. Black. And I know you're not a father yet, but you'll make an excellent dad with those jokes.
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:that.
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:answer some legal questions. When are you entitled to a free lawyer? I had a call yesterday, Austin, and. The guy called in, he was involved in a civil suit and the case had been going on for a while and I was Suspicious and concerned that he wanted to hire us as a lawyer after all this time, because I don't know without counsel how he may have been prejudiced himself as a pro se party in that lawsuit.
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:course.
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:And he said, Oh no, don't worry, Mr. Silverman. I've had an attorney. I said, who's your attorneys? I can't remember his name. I've got the public pretender. And I said, what do you mean public pretender? and then it dawned on me that he was trying to say public defender. Okay. but it also occurred to me that the man I was on the phone with the potential new client was probably in fact, a public pretender, because you only get a right to counsel a free attorney in a criminal case. Not a civil case because you always hear down at the criminal courthouse, they argue over life and liberty. Down at the civil courthouse, they argue over money. So from a policy standpoint, our society believes that the right to assistance of counsel, and that's under the sixth amendment of the United States, of the U. S. Constitution, provides that in all criminal prosecutions. The accused shall have the assistance of counsel for his defense. Keywords being in all criminal prosecutions. So not for civil prosecutions.
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:that being said, But criminal defendants can waive their Sixth Amendment right to counsel that's the reason why judges in those cases are so careful to make sure they understand exactly what they're doing if they do that.
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:and another interesting point, the right to assistance of counsel was only given in a federal cases, federal prosecutions, up until a case called Gideon v. Wainwright. And that expanded the assistance of counsel for state prosecutions, felony prosecutions as well. The takeaway is only criminal cases get a free lawyer. Don't call up an attorney on a civil matter where you're fighting over money and expect a free lawyer. There are some attorneys out there that do some volunteer work pro bono. pro bono is a fancy word for doing it for free. And you may have some legal aid places, but it's very difficult to get accepted as a legal aid case. And as you can imagine, they're inundated with requests. good luck out there. If you even have a criminal case, good luck out there getting a really good public defender because a lot of the guys doing that work, may not be the sharpest knives in the drawer. So you may end up with a public pretender anyway, but be careful if you've been accused as a, of a crime. All right, next legal question. What do we have next,
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:We have people call us frequently, who, get on the phone and they say, Hello Mr. Black! I paid a bunch of money for solar panels and the salesman promised me that it would save me all this money, they don't save me money. In fact, I've been paying just as much just for electricity as I paid previously. Can I sue the solar panel company?
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:we even get calls where the salesman allegedly says, Oh, you're going to, you're going to sell electricity back on the grid. You're going to make money on these panels. full disclaimer, we're not engineers, but we're going to try to. Answer the question, are solar panels a good deal? Let's start off just basically before we even get into the law, are solar panels a good deal? We don't exactly know. We only get the calls from people that are upset and they're not working. so to us, it's a bit skewed, but they always call us with problems. So common things we get the salesman over promising, which we're talking about, which we've talked about roof leaks. they nail the panels or they screw the panels. They drill the panels into the roof. So they're cutting into the shingles and they don't caulk them back. So it creates a roof leak. Or just, I paid a deposit and I never got my panels. The installer never came out to install them or the panels are defective. installation was defective, manufacturer is defective, so a lot of those. Now, are they a good deal? If you happen to get some solar panels installed, and they're actually working semi well, are these things a good deal? Here's the math behind the solar panels. according to Forbes. com, the average payback period is around 6 to 10 years. what that means is if you install the panels with the money that you save on electricity, it's going to take you 6 to 10 years to recoup that cost from the electricity savings. You're going to get if you're in a state like Texas or Florida. Maybe there's a lot of sunshine that could be closer to 6 years. On average, you're going to have 10 years. If you're in a state like Washington, where there's a lot of vampires in Washington state, if you've ever seen twilight, it may take you 15 years for the solar panels to be paid back because the sun shines so little in Washington state. So the bad news is the average American moves every five to six years. So if you're the average American and you're moving a lot, You're probably not going to see that payback period, maybe at the tail end of your move, if you're going to stay in your house for a long time. If you're older, you may find that's a better deal. You're going to reap those rewards a little more Let's talk about though the salesman promising these amazing results, because that's the legal crux of these things, whether they're a good deal. There's some of the facts we don't know, but from a legal standpoint, salesman comes out and makes these amazing promises. You're going to save 100 a month, 200 a month, whatever it is, you get the thing installed. It doesn't actually save any money. In fact, maybe it does nothing. maybe it saves a little bit, but not near as much as the salesman promised. Austin, what are the Potential causes of action,
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:fraud would be the first one.
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:right?
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:or fraud in concealment on deceptive trade practices. in Texas, that would be the DTPA and this is a Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, then potentially breach of contract. Those would probably be the main claims there.
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:So you're going to have those causes of action available to you. Now, No doubt that when the salesman came out to your house and made all these promises and signed you up to install these solar panels, they have you sign a contract, one, two, three page contract, some contract. And within that contract is what's known as a non reliance clause or a merger clause. Now, what that is, is some language in the contract that says, despite anything the salesman said, there have been no oral representations that have been relied upon. And the only representations. Are in this document that you're signing, which doesn't make any representations and probably doesn't promise any type of electricity savings whatsoever, you're going to have one of those clauses in the contracts, non reliance clause, merger clause. Is that effective in the state of Texas, Austin?
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:of the time in practice, not really, it really just creates a presumption that the document in front of you is the full contract, but if there is extrinsic evidence that shows salesperson did say something, multiple people attesting to that, then that usually is allowed in.
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:most of the time in these situations, That type of non reliance from merger clause is not going to be effective in Texas. And we've got a case, it's Italian cowboy partners. Okay. versus prudential insurance and the Texas courts also have a decision where they're going to lay out a test with several factors. You'll see courts do that all the time to determine whether these merger clauses or non reliance clauses are enforceable and the factors you look at. On whether these things are enforceable are was the contract negotiated the boilerplate terms. in this case, it's solar panel. The salesman comes out. He's got the contract pre printed. Boom. You sign it. You pay. Those are boilerplate that goes against the non reliance clause being enforceable or, was there attorney representation? No, the homeowners there at home wants to buy some solar panels. The homeowner is not an attorney. The homeowner did not have an attorney come out to the house. So you don't have counsel. That again goes against the non reliance clause being enforceable. And you've got some other factors that come into play. But what's going on here is the more sophisticated the parties are, the more even the bargaining power is, the more likely those non reliance clauses are going to be enforceable. That's, a little bit about solar panels. Are they a good deal? We don't know. We've given you some facts.
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:Tried to shine some light on that for you.
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:I love it. I love we knocked that one out of the park. Now we can rant and rave and we're talking about junk fees and the Junk Fee Prevention Act. Austin, what are junk fees?
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:Fees that are for nothing. Basically, yes. for instance, a concession fee or something like that, or when you're not buying concessions, you just charge a concession fee, or, if you've ever purchased any tickets through Ticketmaster or any other major ticket retailer, you'll see the price of the ticket, and then when you actually go forward to purchase the ticket, there's all these, Like 20 fees that are associated, you have to pay too. That's just in there. It just doesn't show that when you were initially looking at the price of the tickets. So
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:yeah. There's all kinds of junk. This has been in the media a lot recently. there's been some legislation, the proposed Junk Fee Protection Act. Biden is really on junk fees right now with service charges for resort fees at hotels. airline family seating fees, termination fees for internet services, out of network ATM fees, restaurant living wage fees. I guess that's in lieu of a tip, you go pay a restaurant living wage fee. All kinds of junk fees out there. The most egregious one that I've seen, I don't think it was actually enacted, but Ryanair, which is a discount airline, floated the idea of We're going to charge people a fee to use the restroom on an airplane. that one was too egregious. It didn't go over well. Ryanair is not doing it as far as I know. but some of the congressmen and Biden recently, they proposed this Junk Fee Protection Act. It's currently introduced into Congress. It targets these things like ticketing services, like hotels having to advertise the actual full rate as opposed to just, telling you, Hey, giving you this price and it turns out you get there as a resort fee and all these other fees.
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:Yeah.
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:service providers, it specifically requires airlines not to charge a family seating fee, which drives me crazy, by the way, I travel with kids. I've got a three year old. Do you really want to sit next to my three year old, or are you going to give up your seat, and let me sit next to the three year old that's going to drive you crazy the whole flight? the FTC did not want to wait for Congress. The FTC decided to pass some of these rules. remains to be seen whether the Federal Trade Commission actually has that kind of authority or not. and here's my real rant about this. you would think that the Junk Fee Protection Act would actually be a shoo in deal. It would just pass, because all the congressmen out there, everyone's hey, We were elected by the people for the people with no one likes junk fees. We want to get rid of them, but it probably will not pass. And that's because all of these big industries that they've targeted, like internet airlines and ticketing and hotels, they all have gigantic lobbyists that are paying our politicians, basically making prostitutes out of our politicians So that they're really working for the big corporations. And they're not representing the people that elected them. And that's a tragedy. And I think that all lobbyists should just immediately be made illegal. No more lobbying allowed for any laws. That's my opinion. It will never happen because the politicians would have to vote for it. And they're never going to vote for it because they want the money for the lobbyists. So there you have it. that brings our show to a close. I want to wish my wife and my mother. Hey, happy Mother's Day because we've got Mother's Day weekend. Whoa.
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:day to my mom, Ashley, and to my sister, Madeline, who are
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:Okay.
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:mothers, so
philip-silberman_2_05-10-2024_102735:Great. I've been your host, Phil Silberman. Austin Black has been my co host. Like us, follow us, review us wherever you get your podcasts. If you have a legal question, email us at info at Silb law firm. com. I N F O at Silb, S I L B as in boy. lawfirm. com. Tell us you want it answered publicly in the podcast. Been a great show, everybody. Thanks for listening. Have a happy Mother's Day weekend.
austin_2_05-10-2024_102735:thanks everyone. Bye.