Weekly Docket
Dive into the world of law with 'Weekly Docket,' hosted by Silberman Law Firm's Phil Silberman. Get the latest on landmark cases, practical law, and a unique perspective on the legal landscape. Join us for a weekly exploration of law like you've never heard it before.
Weekly Docket
Legal Advice For the $800 MM Lotto Winner, Law Gives Parents Control over Social Media, Anti-SLAPP, Multiple Wills at Death, and Crooked Industry Studies
Join Phil Silberman and Austin Black for Episode 35 of the ‘Weekly Docket’ as they break down the legal complexities of managing an $800 million Mega Millions jackpot win in Texas, including staying anonymous, tax strategies, and financial planning. Learn about Texas’ new law giving parents more control over their kids' social media accounts, plus a deep dive into Anti-SLAPP laws and how they protect free speech in Texas. The episode wraps up with insights on handling multiple wills at the time of death and a rant on deceptive industry-funded studies, like the myth of red wine's health benefits.
Welcome to Silberman Law Firm's Weekly Docket, episode 35, where we talk legal news and practical law. Today is September 11th, 2024, and I'm Phil Silberman, owner of the firm and your host. I'm joined by Austin Black, my co host, who works in our Dallas office. Mr. Black, how are you today?
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:I am doing well. glad we're finally moving into some semblance of a fall here and attempting to ignore the debate that happened last night because I didn't watch it. I just, I just prayed.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:I watched the first hour of it and let's not, I just have one question for
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:the debate. Okay. Before we go on, do you believe that migrants are eating dogs and cats in towns?
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:I have no idea, but if I was going to say something about that, In a national debate when I'm running for president of the United States, I might have something better backing it up than I saw it on TV.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:I don't know. I don't know whether that's true or not. I can tell you, I did see a very serious news piece on people starving to death in Venezuela
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah,
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:one time. And this has been going on for many years and they were eating things like flamingos and protected it. and
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:do what you gotta do.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:right.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:yeah,
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:the people covering the story, I think they interviewed, I think somebody in Venezuela that was responsible for protecting animals. And he was like, Yeah, we want to protect these animals, but I get it. The people are starving to death. What do you expect them to do?
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:yeah, I
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:it's believable because most of the, a lot of migrants, at least coming through Houston where I live are Venezuelan, but I can't say, beyond, it doesn't exactly make sense to me either because if you're homeless, In the United States, you can pretty much find like a shelter or somewhere to go and get some of food, I think, but I don't want to presume.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:don't know. a lot of what I heard was said last night didn't make much sense to me. That included, I don't know why, even if that's happening, I don't know why we're talking about it in a presidential debate. it, wha
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:people's pets, the polls, the polling showed if I could convince people that their pets are in danger. it's like, it's You know, if you believe what's, what's the shih tzu's name
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Arlo, Arlo, yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:but if I convinced you that Arlo was in danger and he may be eaten by a Venezuelan,
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:But,
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:you would probably vote for me because I'm going to keep Arlo from getting eaten by the
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:but, what is okay, even if that's the case, what are they going to do to stop the dogs from getting eaten by Venezuelan migrants? Are you going to start excluding Venezuelan migrants because you think they're going to eat dogs?
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:we're
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Oh,
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:of your dog.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:this is so stupid.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:I've got an update. So in, in one of our previous shows, we talked about Sheen and Timu. part of show research, okay. I ordered a bunch of stuff off Timu because I thought I was going to Sheen, but then I got tricked, which was part of the whole, unfair competition, trademark lawsuit. The two of them have going on. I ordered a bunch of stuff off Timu and I was optimistic that I could find quality clothing for eight, I bought some eight or nine or 10. So very from some very inexpensive shorts. All right. And then I also bought some shoes for 20 bucks each and I'm like, I'm going to buy 20. So have to report it was an utter failure. And I'm going to show you, I'm going to show you some of these. These shoes, Austin.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Okay.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:I don't see. These are the shoes I got from Timu. Now you can't tell, I don't think you can tell they're low quality. This is like a rubber kind of soul. It's supposed to be like a casual dress shoe. And I, and we talked about, I'm going to, I'm going to, I pulled up Peter Malar and I copied cat shoes and all shoes. And I need to tell you, This stuff is just absolutely junk. I did not grow up, having like access to like extremely nice things. I didn't, obviously I had a group, grew up kind of middle class, lower middle class lifestyle. And yeah, we had a head running, but I didn't have nice stuff. Even for me, like this stuff belongs in a landfill. All right. the only way I can describe it, if you're listening to this, like when you go to Disneyland and you buy an oven mitt, you don't really, you're not really going to use the, of the Mickey mouse oven mitt, because you've heard the expression, oh, that's Mickey mouse, right? You've heard that expression. You never heard that
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:I have not,
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:Austin's a youngish millennial. I it's, If you grew up in America and you would always hear, if you had some piece of junk, you would say, ah, that's Mickey mouse or whatever. The idea being you knew when you went to Disneyland and you bought the Mickey mouse souvenir, it really wasn't going to be a quality oven mitt or whatever you're buying. It's Mickey mouse. You don't really expect it to be durable and a high quality It's just the souvenir.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:I guarantee you it was a priority for Disney's PR people to knock that term out of common everyday usage. And it appears they've been successful.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:I guess so, but that's a well, that's a well known thing. That's my experience with Timu. just junk stuff. Just throw away. I couldn't even, they advertise it as leather. I don't know if it's leather. It doesn't actually breathe. If the shoes are hot, they fall apart. It's like wearing a low quality slipper. So I will not be ordering anything from Timu again. that's my update. That being said, have you, you've heard of the croissant lamp,
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:I ha I haven't, I'm reading our show notes on it. yeah. Okay. oui. Je voudrais un petit croissant.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:like, I want a lamp, cause maybe you want to read a lamp on your desk. You're a lawyer. You read things, maybe not paper anymore, but pretend you read paper, you would buy a lamp and maybe you're French and you want a croissant lamp to remind you of, yeah, To remind you of home. So you order and you would assume this is going to be a polymer plastic croissant lamp, right? so this girl, I think she was in England and she does this TikTok video. She orders a croissant. She comes home after a hot day and they're like ants. all in the lamp and she's she's like WTF. that's how English girls talk nowadays. and she says, is this a real croissant? And she like breaks it apart. And sure enough, they sent her a real croissant that have, that had been like sprayed with resin, like a type of glue to harden it. And it's got a light in it and that was her croissant lamp. So
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:respect that so much. I like, because I think that's the perfect business model. If someone's stupid enough to order this croissant lamp, I think they deserve to get a croissant with a resin sprayed on it. I yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:these chinese people dumping these goods on the rest of on the rest
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah, it is natural selection in the business world. Yes.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:I probably will not order anything from timo again, especially not a croissant lamp or the shorts I ordered I had high hopes for, I'm not even sure I'm going to use them as a house rag, the shorts that were sent to me. right. That's my report on TV. The stuff is junk. If you're out there and you're having better luck, if you're a listener, you're having better luck with team. I don't know what you order. Tell me. All right. What's on our docket today, Mr. Black.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Okay, so in our legal news section we First are going to be talking about, the 800 million, Mega Millions Lottery. There is a winner, in Texas, who was picked or who had the numbers for that lottery. and we will be letting you know what you actually should do if you win the lottery. first thing is pay attention. Obviously go out and hire a bunch of strippers, do not do that. We'll be giving you a guideline of exactly what you should be doing if and when that happens. Should you quit your job? Should you go to Bali? what should you do? We'll let you know. and then we'll be talking about a new law in Texas that gives parents a lot more control over their kids social media accounts. it's an interesting juxtapose with Australia's new law banning, social media for, I believe users around 15. that they just passed, and then we'll be moving on to our legal questions section, talking about what an anti slap, statute is, it, spoiler alert, it relates to speech, if you are saying something that could be considered defamation, or could not be considered defamation, but a company still doesn't like it until they sue you, that's what an anti slap statute is. Laws for, we'll talk about how that works. and then finally we'll be going over what happens if multiple wills exist at the time someone dies in Texas. If they have let's say 15 wills that they've written throughout the course of their life. What happens when they pass, which will is valid, if any. and then our rant and rave section, we will be talking about studies. you can find a study to say whatever you want it to say. and is that good or is that bad? I'll give you our opinion.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:All right. it sounds like a fun show. Let's go ahead and get it kicked off with our legal. News section for the day. and our first topic is someone won the lottery this was a big winner. so 800 million dollars mega millions won Somebody bought a ticket in Sugarland. You know where Sugarland is Austin?
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:do.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:it?
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:I do, yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:So southwest Houston, somebody goes into a Murphy's USA convenience store, gas station in Sugarland, buys a winning lottery ticket. I saw a little, the local news is so awful. I saw a local news piece on it. And the news reporter is out there at the Murphy's convenience store, he's trying to, cover this lotto winning. and they won't even let them in the store. So he's trying to reenact, he's They came right here to this store and this is, and then I'm not allowed in the store, but this is how they went in and he opens the door and like sticks his head in.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Really, thank you, Local News, for enacting how someone walks into a convenience store. Never seen that before.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:But the best part was, is how the anchor sits in there. There's a whole, and there's a Will Ferrell movie. I can't, what's the, I can't
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:It's called Anchorman, aptly.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:so the anchor is like in the studio and he and the anchors like, are there tons of people out there at, thinking that Murph, everyone would be flooding Murphy's to go buy more lottery tickets. guy's no, it's just me. the only one here. Anchor's the anchor's like, how many people are there? no, it's just me. And the camera guy's like going around the Murphy's. And he's okay, there's actually a couple of employees inside the store that won't let us in, but it's just me out here.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:because if you go to a convenience store in Houston, you're likely to get killed or
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:I really hope that guy lost a bet and that's why he was out there on that story, but
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:top 10 highest lottery prizes ever won. All
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:This is within that, yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah. So what should you, we're trying to ask, answer the question. If you were one of the lucky people that wins the lottery. Okay. And by the way, that is not very likely. we have some statistics.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:you have a significantly higher chance to get struck by lightning than to win the lottery, okay?
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:My odds of getting struck by lightning, like one in one and a half. million my odds of getting struck by lightning. Okay. So much higher chance of getting struck by lightning than winning the lottery. So the, what do you do if you win the first thing you probably do is not what one of our clients did Austin and this client did not win the lottery, but we got them a pretty big settlement. And he really wanted a settlement check. So we gave him a settlement check. And then I woke up the next day to find out that after getting a settlement check, he promptly went to the dealership, bought a brand new Ford pickup truck and overdosed on cocaine that night. So that's what you don't do. When you win the lottery or when you get a settlement check. So don't do that. What you should do is remain anonymous. And we have a law in Texas. Do you have that law?
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah, I do, it's section 466. 411 of the Texas government code, where winners of one million dollars or more can choose to stay anonymous.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yes, I
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Hmm.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:you take advantage of that government code section and you remain anonymous so you don't have a bunch of people calling you and make yourself a target. Consult an attorney. Okay, you're going to want an estate planning attorney because now you have enough money to worry about it. You are going to have a taxable estate, so your taxable estate thresholds right now for 2024 if you're an individual. about a little under 14 million. if you're married, your taxable estate is a little over 27 million. So now that you have a taxable estate, you're going to want a good estate planning attorney and just don't call one. don't, you don't want a s for that kind of thing. Y small law firm. We are so law firm. I guess some mi We've got about 15 lawye practice probate law. We planning. But if someone got like a couple of 100 We don't work on those cases. We send them to other law firms that do complex estate planning. And the reason we do that is because get into some very complex trust work and tax planning work. And it's, and we've had people that work for us that, that have workforce that could do that, we don't do it because it's a huge malpractice risk. And I don't want that kind of liability.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:and it keeps me up at night. So there are firms that specialize in that. So if you end up getting a couple hundred million dollars or that's what your net worth is, you're going to want a very specialized law firm that has the right type of malpractice insurance that's accustomed to taking on that risk with that experience.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:can trust us, but you should not trust us to make a trust for you in this situation. Yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:we will, that's clever. We will turn that business away.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:All right. Hire a financial planner. All right. That's probably helpful. if you're not used to having money, And you're not used to knowing how to budget and invest and that, that's good. That is going to be very useful. Stay away from anybody that wants to charge you 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 percent of the money annually. is a really bad deal. once you get enough money, okay. And you've got 20, million, something like that. You no longer need to pay retail rates for financial planning. should no longer be paying. You should definitely not be paying anything over 1%. of the value of your whole portfolio annually, you can negotiate that it should be fractions of a percent when you're talking about that kind of money. And you can put it out for competitive bidding. and you can even do hourly and flat fee situations. When you do, if you do have half a billion dollars, you are really probably getting into a situation where you can have. Almost like a full time person. They sometimes they call them family offices. You're you can have you have enough money there where you can have full time employees that they're just in charge of managing
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:I think that blows a lot of people's mind But if you find the right people that can be a very good thing. So tax planning If you win the lottery, you're immediately subject to 24 percent withholding, but you're probably going to have more than that. The highest tax rate in this country at the, for federal income tax purposes at this time is 37%. so you're going to be in that higher tax bracket, for if you live in Texas, there's no state income taxes, gambling winnings, winning the lottery. That's a type of income. Texas does not have state income tax. So thank the Lord that you are a Texan. If you win the lottery, as opposed to a New Yorker. somewhere on the East Coast or California where they have, high state income taxes because you're going to be given some of that money, a lot of that money to the state. If you won the lottery, Austin, would you want to take it as a lump sum or an annuity paid out over 30 years? What do you think?
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:I don't know, honestly.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:the right answer is probably the lump sum. Okay. This is, if you're thinking about how they do this, you take the annuity the idea is always going to have a payment if you're just never seen that type of money and you're not sophisticated enough to go get the tax advice, to go get the financial planning, taking it as an annuity is probably good for a lot of people, the lump sum controlling the money. If you take the lump sum, you're going to be able to invest it, get the same kind of bet, probably better rates than what the annuity breaks out to. You probably want to take the lump sum, control the money. Okay. And invest it, but you have to be diligent, right? Yeah, you have to be responsible. You can't just spend it all. And we have some statistics on that.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:was somewhat shocking to me. A third of everyone who wins the lottery declares bankruptcy. In the very near future. that, that's a high number for winning the lottery.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:You got a lot of people getting money. they've never seen before.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:the type of money they've never seen before. and we do have odds here. the odds reflect the rarity of matching, five white balls. That's just a statistics thing. So white balls, mega ball, when the jackpot. One in 302. 6 million. odds of getting struck by lightning in a million, one and a half million
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:infant tests, really small. and that's the lottery. That's a little bit about lottery law. The only thing I'll have to say, we did not have a lottery in Texas for a very long And then we got a lottery and this is how they sold it to it. They sold it to us as. This is going to help the schools. All the lottery money was supposed to go to the schools when they sold it to
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Who's supposed to? Yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:Now, I don't know that, I have not checked this for the show. I don't know that's exactly happened, but we can do some research and
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:I don't know. Like I, I think it still says on billboards that it goes to Texas education, but just saying that it goes to Texas education can obvious can mean very different things. And so I don't know exactly how that applies. Yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:let me, related to this, Austin, what do you think? Casinos or no casinos? We've got a lottery. Everybody goes over to Louisiana to gamble. They've, what, here's what they're pitching right now in the state of Texas. They're saying, look, our property taxes are too high and we have no state income tax. You have to have Tennessee is the only state. I don't know how Tennessee does it. Tennessee has a sales tax, but Tennessee has almost no, they have no state income tax and they have very low property tax. the people of Tennessee must not spend anything. Like I don't know how they do it, but in most states like Texas, we don't have a state income tax, so we have high property tax. So right now they're saying, look, here's the idea. Let's open up casinos all over the state. we'll get rid of the property taxes.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:think?
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Go for it.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:You go for it? Okay.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah. I'm not going to do it. So if some people want to go gamble their life savings away and remove property taxes on everyone else. Yeah. Go for it.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:this is the, this, remember you're still in the Bible belt now. and there's going to be some opposition in the state of Texas, about, about people trying to protect other people
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Also, I was, so I think Houston, they probably go to Louisiana where I am. They go to Oklahoma.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:That's
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah. So
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:and up and
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:when star. Yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:up to the reservation
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:you'll get and the proponents of this. Hey, let's keep the money in Texas. Austin and his girlfriend there every weekend. They're going up to the Indian
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:their paychecks. Keep that money in Texas. And that way I don't have to pay property
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:on to our next legal section. New Texas law gives parents more control over kids social media accounts. This one passed. It's securing children online through Parental Empowerment Act. House Bill 18, went into effect September 1st, 2024. Requires parental consent. I've got teenagers. I don't think the social media platforms, really check this. We talked about 13. Now they've raised it to 18. are the social media platforms all of a sudden going to start checking it, Now, when you get on to, to create an Instagram account, if you put your 17, does it now not let you do it? I don't know. that's the law. parental consent, required. You have to have explicit parental approval. you're supposed to get some supervision tools. You're supposed to be able to delete the account. Do you know how hard it is to delete a Snapchat account?
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:I don't, I know it's difficult to delete an Instagram account. I don't know how to delete a Snapchat account. is,
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:difficult. I think I've deleted three of them for my teenagers and they keep popping back up and I get notices. and then when you try to delete, sometimes you get it.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:is it on is Snapchat similar to Instagram in that like you can delete it, but it won't automatically delete. It takes 30 days. For it to actually be deleted? Yeah, that's what I was thinking of.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:days to delete it. And then if you try to delete it, finally, then they'll say oh, we think this could be fraudulent. We're not going to delete it. That's craziness,
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah,
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:you have to let parents delete these things. so there's some good work being done here on this law. Now, is it going to be challenged? Probably.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:sure.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:This is going to be challenged by big tech and they're going to try to say that kid, this violates, my 15 year olds free speech rights and all that kind of stuff. We've talked about this before. I could care less about my 15 year old's free speech, right? They do have some free speech, but not near what the big tech companies want them to have.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Agreed. And I mentioned it in the, when we were going up, when we were talking about the overview, had you heard about Australia's new law?
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:no, tell us about
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah, so Australia just passed a law, that will ban, just no parental consent, nothing. Ban all social media for, they're still knowing down the age, it's going to be, they said between 14 15 then, yeah,
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:are getting it. The Aussies are getting how bad this stuff is for them.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:sure,
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:Good.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:absolutely. But I do think they should still be able to own guns, right? And we disagree with the Australians there, right?
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:the Australians are not allowed to own guns.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:What?
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:I didn't know that. I didn't know that. I did not know
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Oh, did you not know that?
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:I didn't know. How do they shoot the kangaroos and the crocodiles?
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:a long time ago. like they, you cannot own, I think it's just like, I'm not sure on the specifics, but yeah, they had a big gun buyback program.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:Okay. we're going to look at that.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:yeah, no,
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:it hard to believe that a guy who's farming in the outback or
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:no, I know you can still own them like for purposes, like specific purposes, but you can't just go buy a gun in Australia
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:a gun would be something I would really, so living in Houston, I want a gun because it's so dangerous. Like the criminals living in Australia, I'd want a gun because of snakes and like crocodiles and,
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:and spiders.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:In spite, just all kinds of things that are, they're going to kill you in Australia.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:so there you have it. also on this social media thing. You're not allowed to advertise them anymore. So you also, can't, I think that's right. You can't market to them, which I think
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:I
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:content. So a lot of that going on Texas Lawmakers Representative Shelby Slawson authorized the bill. So go Shelby Slawson, whoever that is. let's answer some legal questions. We're talking about Antis, slapp, What is Antis? slapp and how does it work? Austin, you've done some of these cases right?
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:have, I have, yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:You think you can take a stab at telling our listeners what anti SLAPP is?
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah, so first, the anti SLAPP law in Texas is the TCPA. SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. Um, Let's say Phil, you remember the example you bring up of that restaurant down the street, that was it like an Italian restaurant or something? Italian restaurant or something down the street, right?
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:yeah. my favorite person.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:your favorite person. he goes and he responds like personally to all the, to all the like customers. You write bad reviews, right? like things like they write. I saw a rat at the, at this place last time I went and he responds. He's that was you looking in the mirror, right?
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:him.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:yeah, things like that, right? and so let's say him, instead of taking the approach he's doing, which is countering their speech with his, it may be equally or maybe less effective speech, depending on your opinion on that. he decides to just sue the people who post their reviews, the bad reviews of his restaurant, right? Okay, so those reviews and people getting sued for those reviews, might be protected under the Texas Citizens Participation Act, which is the TCPA. and so what that serves to do is to protect people's First Amendment rights, if they are sued attempting to just suppress speech that's protected. Okay, not all speech is protected, but that's what the TCPA is for.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:it's meant to keep big bad corporations and business owners and nasty lawyers like me from oppressing a citizen, a consumer, opinion. So if, like in Austin's example, you have a restaurateur who gets a bad review and the restaurateur, sues the consumer who left the review, the consumer as part of the lawsuit almost immediately very early on in the lawsuit can file an anti slap motion. And they're going to have, they're going to have a hearing very quickly that will dismiss that lawsuit if successful brought by the business owner because that consumer is exercising their right for free speech to exercise free speech. leave a bad review on the restaurant. that's anti slap in a nutshell. And there's penalties, if the restaurateur files, the lawsuit, they're usually gonna file a lawsuit for defamation for libel.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:yeah. Yeah,
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:motion. and if it turns out that the consumer wins that, that business, that restaurateur is going to be subject to. types of, penalties and maybe even, sanctions and all kinds of bad stuff. So this is meant to really protect consumer free speech. Now, when this thing first came out, when anti slap first came out, it was overused because the definition of there was this talk about any action, the definition of action was really overbroad. So anti slap motions were being just abused and used in all kinds of lawsuits. And then since then, we've made some amendments to clean it up. So it's really now supposed to have a narrow focus of what it was intended to do and protect free speech. So we do a lot of this type of work, anti slap work. we've on both sides, we represent business owners. We represent. we've represented some consumers, that are being faced with defamation. I think Austin, you represented maybe a podcaster or you've some case involving a podcaster. So on this podcast, if someone sued us at, oh, the Silverman law firm, Phil and Austin, they defamed me. we would probably file an anti slap motion very quickly. So that's, it's that kind of thing.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:absolutely.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:what happens if multiple wills exist at the time of death in Texas? This happens more frequently than you would think. Let me tell you a cool little story. we get these old people that are clients and I hope I'm not offending people. old people can tend to get a little bit cantankerous and bitter their old age. And they do, they tend to, some of them tend to do this thing where they have a will, they have us do a will, and they've got four or five kids. And then every month or so, John, Sue, Mike, and Bill or whatever, and every month or so, like one of the kids will really upset them. So they'll come into the law firm. And we had this one little lady that would come into the law firm like once a month and one, and have us change her will
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:yes.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:based on what the kids had done that month. And we, we would try to like, Mrs. Smith, do you really want to do this? And I know she, she had capacity. She knew what she was doing. She was, just an old cantankerous kind of woman. And interestingly, I ended up having this other case going on simultaneously with one of my businesses. and somehow opposing counsel connected that Mrs. Smith was my client. I did not disclose it or divulge it complete confidentiality. But it turns out that Mrs. Smith was his wife's mother.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Okay.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:and Mrs. Smith was wealthy opposing counsel was now concerned that he was going to upset me. And I was going to encourage Mrs. Smith to write her daughter out of the will.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:Now, I did not use that as any kind of leverage or did not make any implications whatsoever, but by the time this was all said and done, Mrs. Smith had probably done her will five, 10 times, whatever.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Sure.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:She had 10 wills out there and who knows what she was doing with these things once she walked out of the office. But we would protect Mrs. Smith and her wills because any will we do Austin and most wills out there that are done by attorneys, they're going to have a clause where the will says this is the last will and Testament, right? This is
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yes.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:one I've done. by the way, this expressly revokes all other previous wills. So we were no matter the date, the last date of the will revoking all pre, we were covering Mrs. Smith. she probably had a stack of them,
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:yes.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:in her study at home. what do you think happens if they're out there doing pro se wills or maybe an attorney gets ahold of a bad form and doesn't have a revocation clause in the will? What do you think that happens?
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:It doesn't matter. will executed subsequently is still going to be presumed to be the valid one.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah, that's, I think Austin cheated because he read Texas Estates code section.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah. I cheat.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:002.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:because really most attorneys would not know the answer to that because As attorneys, we almost never see a will that doesn't have a revocation clause in it, right? But interestingly, if you happen to get a hold bad, a bad will, we read you the law correctly. There's a presumption that your recent will is, revoked all your previous wills. So that's what happens. If you got a bunch of wills floating out there and you're Mrs. Smith and you're doing a new will every or so when a child upsets you, all right, That leaves us to my favorite part of the show. And we're talking about a rant and rave section and we're talking about crooked industry studies. These are all of these studies, Austin, that are like, Hey, we think this product is good for you. these industry studies, the big red wine study, and I don't know if you remember this, but everyone I was convinced to this. until a couple years ago, or maybe a year ago, that red wine is healthy for your heart. Had you heard that before,
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:yes, that's right.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:Okay. I was convinced and I had this conversation. It turns out that study has been completely debunked and it was originally done in the 1990s. it came from out of this concept called the French paradox. And we were all looking at French people in the 1990s and they smoke and they drank a bunch of red wine and they were all healthier than Americans. And we concluded that it must be all the red wine that they drank. So we decided in addition to the McDonald's, Big Macs and French fries we were eating, if we just threw two glasses of red wine on top of it, that we would be healthy like the French.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Oh yeah, that, that is how that works, I think.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:I think so too. that's what I believe. That's absolutely what I believe. with these days. There's a difference Austin between correlation and causation. just because the French are healthier than us. And they happen to drink more when red wine. Does it mean that the red wine is causing them to be healthy? It just happens that the red wine is correlated
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yes,
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:it. So difference between correlation and cause the real reason they're probably healthier despite smoking and drinking red wine as they were walking all over the place and they were not eating Big Macs.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:yeah, that, that might be a better indication, yes.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:who funded the red wine study?
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:probably wine vineyard, like venues and things like that.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:was the wine industry.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:big surprise vested interest in how these things came out. this is a really great statistic. One, one of the things that the red wine industry was emphasizing this thing in red wine called, resveratrol. And I don't know what that is, except there's some evidence. There's some real scientific evidence that this thing called resveratrol is actually good for you. And the science estimates that, milligrams of resveratrol would be a good thing for you. And the red wine industry said, oh, red wine has resveratrol in it, so it's gotta be good for you. it turns out. to get 500 milligrams of resveratrol into your system, you have to drink about 40 liters of wine daily. the average bottle of wine is about 750 milliliters. So you'd have to drink about 53 bottles of wine a day. To get the health benefits 500 milligrams of resveratrol, All right, we've got, other tobacco industry was famous for many years of trying to debunk a correlation between the correlation between cancer and tobacco. My father in law, who's still alive, I can tell these stories because he doesn't really practice medicine anymore, so he doesn't really care. But, doctors are notorious for violating So I go see a friend, I go see my buddies all the time that are doctors and my buddies are like, cause I'm, again, I'm a Jewish background. So I go see doctors a lot. Cause I'm, I have a neurosis and of hypochondria, so I go sit in my, my, Oh, our mutual friend was in here the other day for so and And I'm like, you're not supposed to tell me that. he's, my, my father in law was, he, Was edu he did his residency at Duke. And he did his medical school at Wake Forest. And you know what they grow in North Carolina, don't you? Austin for many years. Tobacco, yeah, tobacco
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Ok. Yes, it is.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:not growing marijuana. I know Austin wanted to say marijuana'cause
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:they probably grow marijuana there too. I'm sure there are parts of North Carolina where they grow marijuana. ha.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:tobacco and my father in law told me he would see the Reynolds you've heard of Reynolds tobacco
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yes.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:and they were the Reynolds family was going into his office when he was like a resident at Duke or wherever or medical student Wake Forest or whatever. And they were, the lady was just the Ms. Reynolds was just Mrs. Reynolds, or whoever it was, one of the Reynolds, just caught smoking in the office. And my father in law's I got to tell you that the, those cigarettes are causing the cancer that you had
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:and they were, the whole family was just adamant that there was no connection between the cigarette smoking. the cancer and you can imagine why. they love their money more than they love their health. And they, the tobacco industry for years have been in these studies. just paying for these studies and then fine. They don't do that anymore because now they just can't even sell that one. All right.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:there, there was a master. Had you heard of the 1998 master settlement agreement? 1998, as late as 1998, all the state attorneys generals finally got together and they got the$200 billion tobacco sale, and that was the big settlement. And that was it. And then now, since then tobacco, now Philip Morris and all the tobacco companies, you think about those as terminal businesses, right? Like what's the, how long people are gonna keep smoking
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah, it's a bad business model, right? Because if people use your product more, they die.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah,
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah,
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:who was a mutual friend kind of who was of my father. He was an infectious disease doctor and he had his little sign in his offices that keep smoking. It's good for business.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:yeah, of course, yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:yeah, that's how they go soda industry. soda is one of my big things. My kids, if I put it a 12 pack of coke in my house, it will be gone in like an hour.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah. 46
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:my, but I keep it for my in laws because they're from North Carolina. They're like JD Vance, like Trump's vice president. They grew up a little hillbilly, right? And a lot of hillbillies out there, they're drinking, they just pound mountain dew. And if you look at the sugar and the caffeine it's crazy. They're like killing themselves on Mountain Dew, your caffeine. soda industry, they've funded research, saying, oh, it's not sugar. if you're just, we did an added sugar piece last time, so we're not going to beat this one to death, but
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Each 12 ounce, I just looked it up to convert, each 12 ounce fluid, 12 fluid ounce can of Mountain Dew contains 46 grams of added sugar.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:that you've got to be, you're
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Oh.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:yourself.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:yeah. ha.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:need more exercise. No, you just need to not drink,
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:it.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:five. They were Dawson. They were in the hills of North Carolina, the mountains of North Carolina, all over there, rotting that the Mountain Dew is rotting their teeth out.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:it's cause it's in the mountains. That's all they have to drink is Mountain Dew, right?
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:that's not all they have. That's not all they have to drink. All right. and we can thank you. Surely you don't know George Jones. You probably don't know who George, you probably don't even know who George
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:I know who George Jones is.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:Okay. All right. White lightning.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yes. I Have you had moonshine? Phil
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:no, I don't want to go blind. I don't want to go, but you're the one that was your family's like from Tennessee, not Western Tennessee,
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:No, not Washington, Tennessee, but I've had moonshine.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:that's a very dangerous thing. I don't recommend that.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:yeah, it's it's disgusting. I wouldn't recommend, but it's disgusting.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:you'd go
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:you
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:no. The moonshine I had was not like, made in like a, still in the middle of the woods or anything, but yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yeah. Okay. don't, we don't, we do not recommend moonshine on the show.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:No.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:although if I, if someone were like. right, Phil, you've got to have one Mountain Dew or some moonshine.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Oh, I would take the moonshine if it's like a shot. Absolutely.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:I might go with them. It on the quality and if I trusted the
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:definitely. And I don't drink alcohol, but if someone were like, all right, Phil, right now, I'm going to, you, you have to drink a Mountain Dew or you can drink a shot of whiskey from like a health standpoint. I'm going with the
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Oh yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Way healthier.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:all right. And then our podcast would probably be more interesting after I drank it.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:That would be an interesting podcast. if we have a tipsy podcast. That would be very strange. Yeah.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:our market research, in law firms, Austin, in the old days are, the supervising attorney at the Southern law firm, great guy, Chris Heald. We talk about him all the time. he's my number two guy. He supervises the attorneys. Chris has visions of working at this old time law firm where they bring the, and this is the opposite Austin's laughing because this is the opposite of who we are, but Chris like fantasizes about being. At the wooden desk with the mahogany and having four legal assistants and two secretaries and fridays or maybe even more frequently than that They roll the liquor cart around and you know All the men at the firm go and smoke cigars and drink whiskey that's what chris wants
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yes.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:That's okay.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:for him.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:that Mr. Hill will have to be depressed with just an efficient law firm and law practice that brings our firm or no, I hope it doesn't bring our firm to a close that brings up that brings our show to a club. Maybe I've had something to drink. what's in this coffee.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:That brings our firm to a close today. we hope not.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:that brings our show to a close. I've been your host. Phil Silverman, Austin Black has been my very gracious and tolerant co host for 35 episodes. Thank you,
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Of course, it's been fun.
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:Like us, follow us, review us podcasts. Nothing in this show is to be considered. Legal advice. We keep adding to this. Nothing in this show is to be considered legal advice, health advice, financial advice, any kind of advice. This has all been for entertainment purposes only, but definitely whatever you do, do not drink Mountain Dew.
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:Yep,
phil-silberman_3_09-11-2024_131411:if you have a legal question, email us at info at syllablawfirm. com, S I L B as in boylawfirm. com. And tell us you want it publicly answered in the podcast. We will do our best. Everybody have a great rest of your week and weekend
austin_3_09-11-2024_131411:thanks so much. Bye.
