OA622: Will Alex Jones' Damages Be Capped by Texas Law?

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:01:17 Thomas: Hello and welcome to opening arguments. This is episode 622. I'm Thomas. That's Andrew Torres Esquire. How you doing?

0:01:24 Andrew: I am fantastic Thomas.

0:01:26 Thomas: I am still fantastic from all the way back when we recorded the last episode. I can't even remember. It's been so long.

0:01:26 Andrew: How are you? That's a, that's a lot of Fantaz to carry forward.

0:01:36 Thomas: It is, but I am just, whew, this it's been a good week of news. And we're going to continue that theme talking about damages. Well,

0:01:44 Clip: My lawyer sent it to you, but I'm hiding it. Okay, Mr. Jones, Mr. Jones, just answer questions. There's

0:01:52 Thomas: I'm very worried that that horrible, evil person who put the families of dead children through hell is not going to have to pay as much as he should, pretty. I'm worried about that. But we'll see our, what new expert in damages in Connecticut and Texas has to say. In, Andrew, what do you think, am I correct to be worried about this, the um, compensatory damages, I didn't think were particularly even close to high enough in the Texas case, wasn't like 4.1 million I want to say? Yeah, and that seems like nowhere near enough but then I thought okay well punitive damages and, you those still weren't as high as I thought they should be, but, you know, still a significant chunk of change. But then I see this idea that, and we've talked about in the past, that due to, historically misguided efforts, punitive damages are capped in like $750,000. That would be a disaster. That would be, in my mind, such a miscarriage of justice if it gets capped at that amount. So am I right to be worried about this?

0:02:14 Andrew: 4.1 million, exactly.

0:02:48 Andrew: I think you're right to be worried about it, but I also think there are some, uh, rays of light that are kind of going to pierce through that, that dark cloud. Let's start at the beginning, and again, I want to reference all the way back to first year of Opening Arguments, Opening Arguments episode number 29, uh, I love the cog disguise, we all love the cog disguise, it's unfortunate that the episode is entitled Cognitive Dissonance. This was at a time in which, you know, we were, um, to promote the show, yeah. They're trying to get out there, um.

The c segment is about the McDonald's hot coffee litigation, and I reference this a lot because it is perhaps the most gross mishandling, uh, playing into, uh, an urban legend that has been promoted by the very worst elements in society. So go back, listen to OA 29 about that case, uh, and that will give you the background you need to know that the Republican argument, the Republican war on plaintiffs that is has been uninterrupted for 50 years, has been based on grotesque misconceptions and sort of playing into the flip side of the ideology that gets, you know, people making minimum wage to voting to lower the estate tax, right, and you're

0:03:15 Thomas: Days. Yeah, right.

0:04:07 Andrew: Like, um, you don't have an estate. No, but I could, but you know, there's nothing to stop me from, you exactly. Um, tort reform falls into that category, the reverse. They like, oh yeah, and you know why you're not a millionaire right now is because there are these people out there sort of spinning the wheel of plaintiffs, uh, who, who get hundred million dollar punitive damages awards, and like it's an undeserved windfall. So the way in which we make you a millionaire is by taking away their money. And I, right, realize that that does not fly as, you know, you put that in symbolic logic and, know, an eighth grader would look up at you with a quizzical hang dog expression. But nevertheless, that has been the argument. And when I say we blame Republicans, we're talking about Texas. So we can very specifically blame Texas Republicans in Texas. The Republicans did not.

0:04:12 Thomas: Temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

0:05:00 Andrew: It's kind of amazing to think about this, but until the 2002 elections, Republicans did not control both houses of the Texas state legislature and the governor's mansion. Prior to that, right, it was a robust two-party state that elected Democratic governors, uh, that had powerful Democratic members of the Texas House all the way up till 2002. Okay, in 2003, Republicans controlled the state legislature for the first time in 130 years, okay? So that's a long, long time.

One of their first pieces of legislation, how do we know this, because they're numbered consecutively, this was House Bill four, okay? So I looked at House Bills one, two, and three, and I can tell you, you know, none of them were significant. The first significant piece of legislation advanced by Republicans, the second they took control of the Texas state legislature, was to to cap punitive damages, okay? So when I say this is a Republican want list based on Republican misconceptions, that is not editorializing, that is fact. This measure was brought up in previous legislative sessions and died because Democrats blocked it. Punitive, okay, damage is tort reform, all of that, you can hear it, they can call it whatever it want, it it, it is a Republican proposal to provide relief to extremely wealthy individuals and corporations who are adjudicated liable in our civil system. That's all it is. It is. It is giveaway to the very wealthiest. And I love that the Alex Jones trial has has gotten so much coverage, because it is about damn time that we fought back against the way in which this is being characterized.

0:06:02 Thomas: Jeez.

0:06:50 Thomas: I thought the same thing. I mean, horrible it would as it will be if these damages get capped, at least it will draw really broad attention to this.

0:06:50 Andrew: Um, I'm gonna quote from the legislative history, because I pulled the history of House Bill four. It was introduced by Joe Nixon, I assume no relation, uh, uh, a Houston defense lawyer elected to the Texas state legislature, who said, quote, "The problem that existed was there were lots of lawsuits of questionable merit being brought where huge, huge punitive damages were being threatened, and that would push defendants into high dollar settlements in order to avoid the potential for financial ruin." Wasthe argument, oh, punitives, right, are going to cause corporations to settle, otherwise they're going to be driven out of business, to stop that, here is what the legislature passed, and then we're goingto apply it to Alex Jones, okay?

This is Section 41, uh, of the Texas code, 41.008, is the punitive damages cap. Here's what it says: "In an action in which a claimant seeks recovery of damages, the trier of fact shall determine the amount of economic damages separately from the amount of other compensatory damages." Okay, what does that mean? That is the difference between, between, uh, economic damages are, here's what you have to pay your therapist, right, non- economic compensatory damages are, here's how we value your pain and suffering. So in the Alex Jones case, I have not seen, I have looked for, but I think it is still sealed, the the polling jury verdict form, uh, but I I have been led to believe, based on the interviews with Mark Bankston, that that $4.1 million figure for compensatory damages is, it's $4,110,000. And that the $110,00 is specifically marked as economic damages. Based, right?

0:08:46 Andrew: On paying therapists. And the $4 million is other compensatory damages for pain and suffering. I'm proceeding on that assumption. If it is not, that will change the application of this particular provision. But I think I'm right with a high level of confidence. So, try or shall determine economic and non-economic other compensatories separately. Exemplary damages. Had to change the name from punitive damages to exemplary damages, yeah. Exemplary damages awarded against a defendant may not exceed an amount equal to the greater of, and the second half is $200,000, $200K right? Cap if you have a small case, or two times the amount of the economic damages plus the non-economic damages, but the non economic damages not to exceed $750,000.

0:09:38 Andrew: If that is correct, okay, that would be $970,000 per defendant. That's 110 times two plus 750. So that's about a million dollars per defendant times three defendants. So about $3 million for that claim. Counsel have also made the argument that this section 41.008 applies per claim as opposed to per lawsuit. Okay, if that is the case, uh, you can multiply that by two. It, is not clear to me that that is the better of the argument, okay? Now you add it all up, uh, with the four million dollars in actual damages, right, and you get to a number that is between seven to ten million dollars as a result of this particular lawsuit, is that way less than 50 million? It is way less than 50 billion. As you are going through and making the case to get rid of punitive damage caps, that this is the perfect illustration of that, right, the amount that is necessary to stop Alex Jones from doing this again is not related to the amount you can trace back as an injury to any particular plaintiff, right.

0:10:50 Thomas: Yeah. Obviously it's, it should be related to how much he made on the whole thing and how much his show makes, which side note, how the hell is he making so much money? Andrew, do we need to start selling boner pills? No, I think we already sold boner. Do we need start selling, slop for life, uh, you know, to, buckets of slop, doomsday slop.

0:11:09 Thomas: Yeah, I don't, I don't understand it. He was making 800,000 a day at some point. Isn't that what it is? What in the world? Question, how the hell, and how do we start making that much money?

0:11:05 Andrew: I I yeah, doomsday prepper yeah, yeah, yeah, um, yeah, how do we

0:11:21 Thomas: And also, shouldn't it be way more related to that? As you referenced, the McDonald's coffee case. McDonald's makes $11 gazillion per minute on hot coffee. If they burn one person to death and have to pay a few whatevers, errors on their income, that's not going to do anything.

0:11:21 Andrew: Get on that gravy train. Yeah, I agree, it Yeah, and we know that actuarially defendants do this, they figure out when there is potential liability what their potential liability is, and right, when you decrease the possibility that in the event that they do so, that you could award meaningful punitive damages to stop them from making that calculation, that basically says there are no legal incentives that an outside party can bring to force a private wrongdoer to stop doing wrong. And that's terrifying, that's why I keep going back to the McDonald's coffee case, fact that that was litigated in the public in such a way as to say, let's, oh, blame the greedy plaintiff, as opposed to let's figure out a way to hold people accountable when.

0:12:35 Andrew: And remember, you only get punitive damages, right, when you engage in extreme and outrageous conduct? You don't get punitives just for negligence. You must be willfully, maliciously negligent. And Alex Jones is the perfect face of that. He was told over and over again to stop, and he didn't. And the only thing that will make him stop is financial ruin. And Texas has passed a law that prevents financially ruining him with an asterisk. We're going to talk about the potential good light kind of shining through on this.

0:13:10 Thomas: Can't wait.

0:13:10 Andrew: Some folks have asked, how come I only heard about this capped punitive damages provision after the jury came back with, you a $50 million reward? Why right? Didn't they argue to the juror, "Hey, you're going to be capped on punitive damages on the amount of your actual damages, so keep that in mind." As you pointed out, that number of 4.1 million in compensatory damages, the plaintiffs had asked for 150 million. If they had awarded 150 million in compensation damages, we wouldn't be here making this discussion, right?

0:13:41 Thomas: Boy, I sure wish they had done that. I don't get it.

0:13:42 Andrew: I do too. And the answer is, the law prevents you from mentioning this to the jury as

0:13:48 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. No, that, but it still feel like the jury could have have awarded more regardless well

0:13:51 Andrew: Oh, sure. And Here, so I just want to read it, right. 41.008E says, the provisions of this section may not be made known to a jury by any means, including voir dire, introduction into evidence, argument, or instruction, right. You can't tell them your punitive damages will be capped, you can't tell them you're punitive damage is are related to the amount of compensatory damages at

0:14:14 Thomas: That's some bullshit, though. You functionally, this is one of those things that maybe the letter of the law makes sense, like, okay, you can't use that to, you know, get them to blah blah blah, but I don't know if you look at what is effectively happening, where, you know, jurors just don't understand that this is going to happen, and they may entire, the jury may have entirely had the intention of, we want to make, make sure we as a jury are convinced, we want to make sure this asshole pays 100 million dollars in some way, or whatever, it adds up, 50 something million dollars in some way, and they just don't understand how it works. I feel like that's very relevant to their decision of how they want to, you know, maybe award damages, right?

0:14:50 Andrew: Couldn't agree more. And in looking at repealing or modifying this legislation, right, if you just had a provision that sent back to the jury a modified amount and ask them to either sign, sign off on it, or revive, you know, overrule, like, that would greatly change the the equities of the situation, right. And you, I get, like, defense counsel here would be laughing at me and be like, well, you know, juries, but, but put in the strongest possible admonition, right? Make it the equivalent of an Allen charge. Say the form would be, be this, jurors have returned a verdict that this court and the law of Texas find to be excessive and a windfall to the plaintiffs, right? Put in it the strongest possible language and say, so you are being asked to confirm that this is your intent to go beyond, and just let them know for the first time, don't let them revisit their, their actual damages, right? Don't want them jigger it around and play favorites. Tell them in the strongest possible terms, your fellow citizens have voted and determined that this amount is excessive, and

0:15:08 Thomas: But

0:15:53 Andrew: So this court returns this verdict to you to make sure that you really want to do that? That would, that would be a compromise, right? That would, I think, hit some of those goals. There's a second category. If you are convinced that, um, and again, I love the Alex Jones point, because they're just so sympathetic that I think all of of us feel like, yeah, I don't honestly care if they get a windfall, right? Like if you told me you that, that the, the Sandy Hook families, uh, we're all gonna win the lottery tomorrow, I would be like, wonderful, right? But, but, know, you, to the extent that it's been portrayed as an unjust windfall, um, tax the hell out of, don't care, you know, you, it, want to have a Liz Warren style tax, right? You know, all right, the first, you know, million dollars of any punitive damages is on you yeah I

0:16:32 Thomas: Get you're trying to, uh, compromise here, Andrew, but I feel like, aren't, aren't we playing into this bullshit idea that that this is a major source of income for people. The money that needs to be taxed is the billionaires and one-tenth of the one percent, you know, like the People Who Have Insane Amounts of Wealth, not ordinary folks who suffered a massive tragedy that they would trade any amount of money in the known universe to undo if they could. Make sure we tax them on their first million or whatever the hell. It's just,

0:16:40 Andrew: Agree I agree I don't, I don't disagree, I'm trying to give some compromise solutions here because every once in a while, you know, my brain gets stuck in thinking that it's 1995, and, you know, we can pass legislation, but, but you know, you can at the. And so if you're, if getting involved and you want to eliminate the onerous and stupid punitive damage caps in your area, is this is a good way to get involved.

And there are ways to, there ways is to use Alex Jones, uh, as a talking point, uh, and then sort of get rid of the boilerplate objections. Um, remember, like, this is, this is based on 40 years, 50 years of Republicans demonizing, uh, plaintiffs, particularly personal injury plaintiffs, uh, as being the source of the problem in our judiciary.

You saw that, like, the first three days of trial, file ultimately Mark Bankston had to look at the judge and say, of you can know, I let them do this in their opening statement, but every time, uh, lawyer McMullet over there opens his mouth, he calls us personal injury lawyers, we know what we do, we're proud of what we doing, let's knock it off with that. Right, know, there's been an organized campaign to demonize personal injury lawyer as all being, the Lionel, you Huts, ambulance chasing, you pox on society. And And that's a, that's an uphill, that's challenge. Things really, really quickly, uh, what's the state in Connecticut, it's even worse

0:18:19 Andrew: I want you it's here's why it's going to wind up being worse, the law, because you're sitting there thinking, like, wait, the Connecticut state legislature is way more liberal than the Texas state legislature. What's going on? And the answer is, in Connecticut, it is a function of a Supreme Court opinion from 1906, and the Connecticut Supreme Court in 1906 is apparently more concerned than the Texas, uh, legislature is now. Um, and that case was called Hannah versus Sweeney, and the Connecticut Supreme Court said, uh, okay, look, at common law, right, certain actions of tort, the jury were at liberty to award damages, quote, "not only as a satisfaction to the injured person, but likewise as a punishment to the guilty, to deter from any such proceeding for the future, and as proof of of the detestation of the jury to the action itself," end of quote, citing its authorities. Okay, that seems to describe it, like, look, in this state, until now, juries could award whatever the hell they wanted, right, they can compensate the plaintiff, they can deter the defendant, it's up to them, right.

0:18:19 Thomas: Really worse than texas no in

0:19:22 Andrew: Moreover, at common law, the Supreme Court continues, the amount of punitive damages that might be awarded was left almost entirely to the discretion of the judge. The courts generally refuse to grant a new trial offer excessive damages of this kind, right. And then it goes on, and then the court just says, and this is all it says in its reasoning, in this state, the common law doctrine of punitive damages as above outlined, if it ever did prevail, prevails no longer.

In certain actions of tort, the jury here may award what are called punitive damage, is because nominally not compensatory, but in fact and effect they are compensatory, and their amount cannot exceed the amount of the plaintiff's expenses of litigation in the suit less his taxable costs. So what does that mean? Any award during the punitive damages phase in Connecticut may not exceed the plaintiff's litigation costs and law expenses. So in any one individual claim that will then be larger than the 970,000 Texas figure, because the plaintiffs have probably spent several million dollars, they will submit all of it, right, they will get the very, very maximum.

But if you take the near million bucks from Connecticut and multiply it by 10, from having 10 Sandy Hook plaintiffs there, you, you would get, I think, a significant, right, you, the 7 to 10 million multiplied by 10 would give you 70 to 100 million coming out of Connecticut, and you're not going to get that. So it, it is crucial in Connecticut to get, higher compensatory damages and to know that the punitive damages will wind up being capped. And I don't know how to estimate how much the plaintiffs have spent. They probably spent about $5 million litigating that case.

0:21:05 Thomas: My world, that would be a given that he would have to pay for all that first, and then all the damages, sanctions

0:21:09 Andrew: Yeah, I agree. That's what it's limited to in Connecticut. Way easier to get this law changed than Texas. This is just a vestige that's out there. There are groups when I was researching this that have been trying to get this decision overturned and repeal the oppressive punitive damage caps in Connecticut. And this is a good example of where you should get involved. Now, I promised you a little bit of a silver lining. And here is that silver lining, and it has to do with the fact that these claims, particularly as against InfoWars, are going to be adjudicated in bankruptcy. Yeah, because InfoWorks has declared bankruptcy. Right. The stay was lifted by consent to allow the Texas case to go forward.

0:21:59 Andrew: They are litigating the question over the Connecticut case. Oh, and I should also add one more ray of sunshine. This does not cap or cover uh sanctions handed down by the court.

0:22:10 Thomas: What would that- oh, like for all the nonsense he did, and yeah

0:22:12 Andrew: Misconduct and stuff Yep. And the the fact that your punitive damages are capped at plaintiff's legal expenses does not prevent the court from also awarding plaintiff legal expenses on top of that. In other words, you get twice that, if if the court so decides, which I would hope the court so decides. So there are ways to pump up these numbers, but none so much as the fact that these claims will then go into a bankruptcy proceeding. And if you recall, the way in which a bankruptcy preceding takes place is there's an automatic stay, right? You prevent money from going into or coming out of info wars and you line up the assets on one side and the liabilities to the creditors on the other side.

You look at the numbers, and, uh you play the "which one is bigger than the other" game, uh and you figure out how to allocate those assets among the classes of creditors, whether that is a plan of reorganization in a chapter 11, which is what they filed, or liquidation in a chapter 7. It still involves understanding what info wars owes as to whom. Now, you might be sitting there thinking, like, but it is obvious what info wars owes to, for example, the Texas plaintiffs, because you you have a judgment for 4.1 million plus plus the reduced amount of punitive damages, which I believe will come to 970, right? So you have $5 million, and then maybe doubled by the number of claims.

0:22:13 Thomas: Oh man, yeah.

0:23:50 Andrew: So you've got a $10 million claim. Why isn't that on the balance sheet? And the answer is because there are these uncertainties, because plaintiffs will claim, um, we're we're appealing, and they have, right, filed a notice of appeal, uh and Alex Jones has filed a note of appeal the punitive damages awards, right? So Alex Jones is appealing the whole, including the actual damages. The plaintiffs are cross-appealing on punitive damages and arguing that there's a constitutional right under the Texas Constitution for juries to To be able to determine the amount of the award, unfettered

0:24:26 Thomas: There you go, that's kind of what I was saying,

0:24:28 Andrew: By statute. And they're helped by the unique factual circumstances of this case, this is a case where that was the only thing the juries could do, right, no liability.

0:24:35 Thomas: Yeah That's interesting. Yeah The jury doesn't- so what was the point of the freaking jury? Barely got to do anything.

0:24:37 Andrew: Yeah, is right. That's the argument. So how is that going to play out? I don't know. But the bankruptcy court has to assess a value, which directs the court, when you're looking at claims that are not decided with finality, still subject to appeal, to estimate the amount of any contingent or unliquidated claim, which would unduly delay the administration of the case. So how do they determine how much each plaintiff's claim is worth? Well, bankruptcy code 502c says the court gets to estimate the amount of a claim that has not been decided with finality. What decisions do they get to use? They have almost unfettered discretion, right, for the bankruptcy judge to value that claim.

0:25:29 Thomas: But would that that actually affect the amount that he has to pay? Or is this just trying to determine, you know, for the sake of the bankruptcy, but

0:25:35 Andrew: It affects the amount that the bankruptcy court is going to allocate to the plaintiffs in bankruptcy, regarding the actual assets of InfoWars, right? Words. So

0:25:46 Thomas: Then let's say it gets capped. Wouldn't they just be able to, Oh, you allocated too much.

0:25:50 Andrew: No, because here's the thing, the final adjudication at the Supreme Court, the Texas Supreme Court level, of that cap is not going to come for years, right? That's a three years down the line. The info wars bankruptcy is going to be decided way before then, right? So the bankruptcy judge is goingto have to assess a value to it, and if I'm Mark Bankston, I'm, right, going to say, yeah, it looks like it's 10 million dollars right now, but we we have a meritorious basis for believing the cap doesn't apply to us. Right. I just outlined that to you. We've briefed that. We're arguing in the Court of Appeals right now. We're prepared to go all the way up to the Supreme Court.

And we think, Judge, you ought to increase the value of this claim to reflect the fact that, yes, there's an uncertainty involved, involved uh but um if we win, right, and the judge reinstates the full amount, this is now 55 million dollar claim, not a 10 million dollar claim. And if you're thinking, well, that seems like too much for a bankruptcy court judge to do, it isn't. And I will tell you that bankruptcy court judges all the time deal with cases where a plaintiff has gone into bankruptcy because of threatened or just filed litigation.

0:26:09 Thomas: Interesting. Well,

0:27:09 Andrew: Think about this one. You're Amalgamated Asbestos Incorporated. All of a sudden, the first judgment comes down. You have a billion dollars in assets, but now 100 million people have filed claims against you for asbestosis, each seeking $100 million. So you look at it and you're like, okay, we're not going to defend any of those claims because we're obviously gonna lose, they're seeking a hundred times more than assets that we have, you figure it out? And in those cases, in where there's been no trial on the merits, there's been no jury decision, there's no nothing, bankruptcy courts all the time will take the amount of damages sought by the plaintiffs as a fair and equitable determination of what that claim is worth.

0:28:00 Andrew: And, you know, as you might imagine, bankrupt estates have been like, oh, come on, plaintiffs overestimate that all the time, they weren't going to get it. And courts have said, yeah, I don't know, too, too bad. Think

0:28:09 Thomas: Not only that this, but with the most incompetent representation possible arguing for Ox Jones. So I would imagine that like, uh, you knows, odds are, even if it was a coin toss, I would go ahead and put the odds in the favor of anyone arguing against Alex Jones' representation.

0:28:25 Andrew: That's a very, very good point as well.

0:28:28 Thomas: I accidentally turned over the text messages that say, oh, the damages should be higher.

0:28:35 Andrew: I mean, to say, by this is the bankruptcy court adjudicating the liabilities against info wars Mark Bankston put it this way in one of his interviews, he said plaintiffs will be carving up the carcass of info wars uh at the end of this, and, I, and understand, you know, that was sort of a shorthand for what he was referring here, and that is, they will have the opportunity to go before a bankruptcy judge and say, this seven or ten million dollar claim is in reality a 55 million dollar claims, and they'll have a good argument for that.

And, um, and so we're going to see- so top lines to be taken away, uh actual damages were low in this case, and I don't know why, uh the punitive damages are capped because of a monstrous law in Texas that should be changed, that is even worse in Connecticut, and will be coming down the pipe, and use this story to combat the past half century of misinformation about plaintiff's lawsuits and get these horrendous damage caps uh overturned, because this is what happens, right? Right. Well, this is literally going to be the difference between does this deter a monster from continuing to be a monster or not? And we for the first time have a really powerful story on our hands to tell.

0:29:56 Thomas: Yeah.

0:29:56 Andrew: So let's get out there and start telling it.

0:29:58 Thomas: I just want to make sure I totally understood. In terms of the Texas cap, now I get the one weird bankruptcy court trick. I'm super excited about that. Setting that aside for the moment, I wasn't sure based on the coverage I've seen, I didn't know that the Texas cap was like a hundred percent done deal was, is there no room for that to be, I don't know, argued that it shouldn't apply or something. There's, is that 100% done deal going to be capped?

0:30:22 Andrew: Yeah, I have been through not only the provisions of the Texas Code, but also the case law interpreting the punitive damages, and there, so for example, there's a lot of litigation over cap busting, right, because there are kinds of tort claims that are specifically excluded from the act. Defamation claims, claims, IIED claims, not one of those, right? So, uh I, I think they will apply, and and I think it's a shame.

0:30:49 Thomas: Thought there was still some wiggle room in there. I guess I saw inaccurate coverage. Well, important, to to get the right information. So that's a done deal, connect it somehow mysteriously. Even worse, this sucks. Hopefully the uh one weird trick will apply, but still, you're, yeah, totally right, let's uh use this to draw attention to this ridiculous law. I mean, that, that shouldn't be the Case and This show is brought to you by Mint Mobile. After years of fine print contracts and getting ripped off by big wireless providers, if we've learned anything, it's that there's always a catch. This is so true. I always, everything I've ever signed up for promises so much for like one rate, and then you read the fine print, and then it's actually, oh no, if you actually use more than three megabytes of data, then you actually pay a hundred more dollars. Some nonsense like that.

So when I first heard that Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting, starting at just 15 bucks a month, I was looking for that catch. But after talking to them and using their service, it all made sense. There isn't a catch. Mint Mobile's secret is that they're the first company to sell wireless service online only. They cut out the cost of retail stores and pass those sweet savings directly to you.

0:31:09 Andrew: Absolutely.

0:31:58 Thomas: And the service is great. It's exactly the same as my previous provider. But you know what's not the same? The bill, baby. Baby. The bill is so much lower. So there was no drop in performance, but there was a massive drop in the amount I was paying each month because now I'm paying $15 a month. And Mint Mobile gives you the best rate, whether you're buying for one or for a family. And at Mint, families start at two lines. All plans come with unlimited talk and text plus high-speed data delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and keep your same phone number along with all your existing contacts. Switch to Mint Mobile and get premium wireless service starting at just $15 a month. I did it. I switched my existing phone. It was super easy. The process was really cool, and it's done.

0:32:43 Thomas: So to get your new wireless plan for just $ 15 a month and to get the plan shipped to your door for free, go to mintmobile.com slash opening. That's mintmobile.com slash opening. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month mintmobile.com slash opening.

0:33:02 Thomas: This show's brought to you by ClickUp. Imagine having one extra day every week. More time to cook healthy meals, work on that novel, or just binge some really good TV. Oh, I would love that. So many movies. Oh, books. I have a lot of books that I need to catch up on. I would love one additional day. Imagine one additional Day a Week. Just read. That'd be great. Well, now it's possible with ClickUp, the productivity platform that'll save you one day a week on work, guaranteed. ClickUp began with the premise that productivity was broken. There are too many tools to keep track of, too many things in entirely separate ecosystems. There has to be a more productive way to get through the daily hustle. Well, ClickUp is the one tool to house all your tasks, projects, docs, goals, spreadsheets, and more. ClickUp is built for teams from 1 to 1,000+.

0:33:49 Thomas: It's packed with features and customization options that productivity tool has, so you can work the way you work best. Whether you're in project management, engineering, sales, marketing, or HR, ClickUp has easy-to-use solutions that create a more efficient work environment. Join the more than 800,000 highly productive teams using ClickUp today. Use code OPENING to get 15% off ClickUp's massive unlimited plan for a year, meaning you can start reclaiming your time for under $5 a month. Sign up today at ClickUp.com and use code OPening. Hurry, this offer ends soon.

0:34:27 Clip: What I hear when I'm being yelled at is people caring loudly at me.

0:34:32 Thomas: We wanted to talk a little bit about the Matthew Hoh interview.

0:34:35 Andrew: Yeah, we have gotten a lot a feedback on our Matthew Hoh episodes I alluded to last time. Much more than usual. And I would say that overwhelming the majority, uh, very positive. Some folks who have said, you, I don't know why you would lend your platform to this person, and I want to answer that and

0:34:53 Thomas: Want to clarify what you mean by positive.

0:34:54 Andrew: No.

0:34:56 Thomas: You do not mean that a bunch of people are like, yeah, great guest, just positive in that, people Largely thought we did a decent job at uh pointing out kind of the absurdity of this person's position and candidacy, right? Yeah.

0:35:07 Andrew: I Think that's right. So I want to talk about how Matthew Hoh came to be on the show, what my objectives were, uh, which I I, I think, overlap with yours, and we're doing sort going forward with respect to this. Number one, I invited Matthew Hoh on the show because we covered his story, and it is good journalistic courtesy when you cover someone's story to reach out to them and say, hey, would you like to be on the show? Unless they're a bad faith actor, right? We're Going to, we're Gonna cover Donald Trump until the end of time. He, his flax are not welcome on the show, and we're not gonna do that. Um.

0:35:39 Thomas: Yeah. Oh. I would have Trump On the show. He wouldn't, like, it. But though, uh, yeah, I'd have him on. Your tip, we're not having James Lindsey on the show. We're not having Chris Ruffo on the the show. We're not, you know, yeah.

0:35:47 Andrew: Right. Yeah. They, it, felt like the right thing to do in this case to say, hey, hey, we talked about your case, do you want to talk to us? And he was very eager to talk to us. We, I believe, pulled very few punches kind of right out of the gate. I mean, you know, I'd styled it as an interview, you titled it as a debate, which I think is an accurate description of what came out. I had intended to ask, show notes, a lot more process questions. And we just kind of got right into it because, you know, he answered in a way that I, I found flabbergasting, from right from the start. And that sort of goes to, you know, what I intended to accomplish with this, which was I wanted I to do a number of things. The, right, first is we recognize our audience is left to way left.

0:36:44 Andrew: We're with you on it, just like we were with Matthew Hoh on all of that. And our belief is that the best way to bring about progressive change in this country is what we are defending and what we're doing. But I'm happy to have a smart person tell me I'm wrong about that, was a non-zero change. I don't want to suggest that I thought Matthew Hoh was going to come on and change my mind. My ways, right, are pretty set. And I think that those ways are reasonably well, intelligently develop, right? Like I, I think I get a good basis for those beliefs, but I'm certainly open to the idea that I'm wrong. So number one, I thought he had a chance of persuading us. Number two, I, and the emails that we've received, I think validate this, that we had a chance of persuading our most disaffected component of our audience, right?

0:37:35 Andrew: Our leftmost set of our audience, that, hey, however much you feel disempowered and demotivated by the Biden administration, by the status of where we are now. This is not the time to bail out and vote third party. This is the time to double down and do what we can to deliver a mansion and cinema proof Senate to the Biden administration. And number three, I wanted, and this was, I think, the most disappointing part to me, we've gotten a lot of folks who have written in to talk about the mathematical issues with ranked choice voting, and I appreciate, I love, and I've written back to I think almost everybody who's done that, um, want, and I thought a third party candidate would be a good person to to hash out some of these specific issues, um, and That didn't Happen

0:38:23 Thomas: Yeah, not so. Yeah.

0:38:24 Andrew: Nope.

0:38:25 Thomas: He wasn't really At all. He didn't take the bait that you offered to really go in. I'm with you. That's surprising that we didn't get a voting nerd, you knows, somebody who's going to be like, ah, voting system nerd, rather that, we like, can, very. I think that's kind of an indictment too, of the whole scenario that, you know, as, as is our firm position, you have to change the system first, because the political, the the voting system you have is what's responsible for this two-party, not, it's stranglehold It's Not. It's not, you Know, because we haven't had the right candidate third part, that's just not how the system works. And so, yeah.

0:38:25 Andrew: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:38:55 Thomas: I thought we were going to get more discussion of that, but you're right, he uh he really didn't care about that at all. Well,

0:39:00 Andrew: And, two, two points off of that. Number one, we had multiple uh political science professors sort of write in to confirm that, it, right, is the structural rules of first past the post that really have entrenched uh the two-party system, and the way to get rid of that is to change those rules. And I came away, I think you did too, feeling more strongly than ever that the way to get read of that system in particular is bottom-ups grassroots, because there's so much minutiae to figure out. And I, right, guess I want to clarify that this one piece that's out there, there are plenty of times where a top-down strategy, national consciousness combined with doing the hard work, is Winning strategy, and the best example in recent years is the push for marriage equality, right, a lot of hard work was done in a lot of individual states with respect to things like states being on the forefront of civil unions in Vermont and Hawaii and that sort of thing. But eventually, that was a national, it was driven by the Supreme Court, obviously, but it became kind of a national movement, right?

And so I don't mean to suggest that when we're talking about particular political issues, that they always have to be litigated out out at, you know, the county council level, and then kind of percolate their way up to the state level, and then percolates their way from that to national, that's not the case, there are times when you want

0:40:31 Andrew: Top down. But this conversation convinced me more than ever that for changes to voting, you, this really needs to be a of bottom up, you know, you need to figure out the best mechanism, uh, and the way to do that is, you know, to litigate and implement. I, I can't tell you the number of, like, math professors who wrote in, you know, because I keep saying rank choice voting, because that's the system I know the best, I'm not saying that it is the best system, it's just the one I know, right. And so people would write in and be like, well, you know, rank choice voting can produce like these weird anomalies. And I'm like, I would have liked to have had that discussion. Yeah.

0:41:06 Thomas: We have talked about that, is that the one where you can get the very specific situation where the nobody's first choice gets elected because of the math of it, yeah, But that's, it's again, weird to me that gets referenced a lot as some full indictment of the system. It's like, yeah, okay, that could happen in very, very specific circumstances where you have perfectly unaligned preferences and all this stuff. But like for the most part, us saying rank choice voting is shorthand for we need a better, different system that allows you to not have to just choose from two people that you might not like. Like

0:41:07 Andrew: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

0:41:40 Andrew: And I think the fact that, so I agree with that a hundred percent, and I think the fact we are using that as a shorthand instead of we have a model illustrates the importance of litigating this out, uh, by and amongst ourselves, right? At the grassroots level. For example, right, for doubling the size of the federal judiciary, right, for packing the Supreme Court, I've litigated all that out. I have a plan, TM Liz Warren. But I can tell you, I do not need a grassroots organization to describe how we expand the Supreme Court and double the size of the federal judiciary. That's a solved problem. I don't have a plan for how we implement voting reform such as to promote fairness to progressive parties. And I think the difference between those two is the difference between top-down and bottom-up. There, so we go. We're going to continue to be active in these issues. This is not a debate show. We're gonna have a lot of political candidates on.

0:41:54 Thomas: Yeah.

0:42:42 Andrew: But if you're a Democratic or Republican candidate for governor, for Senate, drop us an email, um, other than that, other than statewide candidacies, uh, I think our position is probably, you know, the this is more of a one-off

0:42:55 Thomas: Well, yeah. We, we interview when there's something notable, uh, or something important, but yeah, for the most part, I, I that's another thing, just talking about the content of the show. We do over a hundred episodes a year. One episode was a debate with the Green Party, you know, it's, it's, it's a bit weird to me to make a massive deal about, we're on, I'm looking at it, episode 622, and we've done one episode debating a Green Party candidate. I mean, I not very, I many people, but I think some emailers and commenters made a big deal about like, uh, you know, the the choice of content for the show.

And I think it's worthwhile, I also think I'll go further, further and say that I think it's more important that we try to convince people we disagree with than ever. I, and some people accused Matt of being bad faith. Don't, I think, I thing, Matt is pretty obviously priced into his position. I do not think there was any chance that we are going to get the Green Party candidate to come on and by the end he's withdrawn his candidacy from the race.

I don't, I into his opinion, but I, I don't see that as bad faith, uh, but I, but like you know, he, he seems like a really good guy to me, I don't know him personally, but like he couldn't be nicer to us personally. He's, uh, you know, a disabled combat veteran.

Um, he, he has a lot of views, that he has very left-wing views, uh, and I take him at at his word on those, and I take him at his word that he wants to help. I think he was just desperately um wrong about the best way to go about that.

And uh so I think he was a great, if, if we were going to interview somebody who believes in shaking up the system and voting their party, I think she was that, you know, about, about as a good faith, uh, interlocutor as we would have gotten for that, don't you? Yeah.

0:42:57 Andrew: Yeah Oh.

0:43:39 Andrew: No.

0:44:25 Thomas: Think

0:44:25 Andrew: I, agree with that, and I would add on top of it, I got one, and one, right, we had

0:44:31 Thomas: That's my, no, I'm for the most part, yeah

0:44:33 Andrew: But I want to say, and I do want to answer it, you know, that was kind of a, you went too easy on the guy, and I don't think that's the case there. Right, were certainly, and this, the specific complaint was, and I thought this kind of dovetailed with your assessment of Matthew, with, which, which I totally agree. And that is, were there times when we asked hard questions and his default was to sort of go back and make left wing criticisms against the system? Sure. OK. Right. And I think we held his feet to the fire in terms of, OK, but respectfully, that didn't answer the question. Right? There were folks who wanted us to sort of call him out above and beyond on, you know, well, but you know that, you, Chuck Schumer isn't for Medicare.

0:45:18 Andrew: That's not the point, right? I wanted him to walk away from the discussion slash debate feeling like I had the opportunity to fully and completely state my point. And I would leave it up to the listeners to say, okay, well, that point, have a point, did it respond to the questions? That's up to, you know, that's up to the listener. So I do, I not feel like we, um, we went overly, we were overly conciliatory, uh, I will say, you know, Matthew shared out our show on his channel, right, like

0:45:51 Thomas: And a note on that, I mean, I, I think uh we're definitely aware, I'm definitely aware that, you know, that's the game for him. I mean, obviously, as a third-party candidate who has no chance, I mean the thing you have to do is get as much attention as you can possibly muster, and we're not under any illusions that like, it was anything other than that for him, I mean he's obviously going to take any boost that he can get in that way.

And, but, you now, whatever, I just, I would be incredibly surprised, a lot of people, I, I think a lot of people take on a very dismal view of our audience when it suits them. You know, we get a lot of people are like, you're, you are promoting this, can't, it's just like, do you really think, what's, what's the, what is the numbers? Give me the numbers of our Audience, of our audiences, like our show, who has listened to that and, and what, furthermore, and wasn't already devoted to the stupid idea of voting, voting third party, but was actually going to vote for the Democratic candidate in that race. But then after hearing that show, I was like, nevermind, I'm convinced, I'm going to, seriously. People take this view that like the listeners all of a sudden are a bunch of sheep that are going to just take whatever our guest says and run with it. I, I just don't, I trust

0:46:33 Andrew: Yeah. I

0:47:01 Thomas: Our listeners a little more than that.

0:47:04 Andrew: Do. Too. I will say, you know, the the number of potential North Carolina listeners is uh in in the thousands, right, from that episode. And, you I don't view that as providing a platform that was otherwise beyond his reach. I think I agree with everything that you've said. And I think far, our listeners were likely to come away in every state. Because remember, the advantage for Matthew is, did we convince somebody in North Carolina to vote for Matthew listening to our show? I don't think that that's the case. I mean, literally, I do not think we gave him one voter. But if we gave him one vote, the disadvantage for us is if we convince X percent of our audience that, hey, in your state, in these races, voting third party in the general election is not the right strategy. We've gained way more than we've lost. So anyway, that's... we know the overwhelming response was pretty positive, but we take seriously the criticisms and, you know, we wanted to uh to give you kind of a full explanation and and decompression. So there you go.

0:48:08 Clip: Thank you for being a friend, yeah, travel down the road with me, say we started from the bottom now we're here girl,

0:48:18 Thomas: Now it's time to thank our top patrons, our Hall of Famers, our all time greats, at patreon.com/law. I'll start us off. Thank you to Hand Woven, sustainable textiles for your home and body, at kellywoveit.com. Don't Bring a Mullet to a Knowledge Fight. Oh, that that is very good. That's an incredibly good one. For a fun fantasy story, read The King's Own by W. Marshall, now on Amazon. This is not our all-time great Conrad Michaels. No, this is just a tribute. Liberal's Own Guns. You know what? That Don't Bring a Mullet to a Knowledge Fight one is so good that I'm going break the fourth wall and tell you that I am having to read these ones on my own because Andrew had a hard out. Just let it be known that had Andrew been here for that, he would have laughed for like a minute because that is a solid one. Don't Bring a Mullet to Knowledge Fight. Now, here's the thing, did you come up with that, or did the Knowledge Fight guys, or somebody on the internet?

0:49:07 Thomas: I'm just curious. Maybe you did, but that's very good. Anyway, Liberal's Own Guns, to support root cause mitigation, not ineffective gun control. Oh, a Chicago live show, you bring the law talking guys, I'll bring the Rainbow Cone, the Fat Jedi eating cake and drinking Emperor's Brewery beer in the Death Star canteen. Zach Bloom, at Daniel, DanielDuncan4SC on Twitter, a state politician getting around ad rates one month at a time. Nice. Terry Cannon, tell Morgan to get Tom's son.

Ray, Pizza School the Corgi says hi to Jamie, Patty, and their adorable cat, who definitely loves me, Frankenstein. Legal Eagle is so handsome. Behind part on Clarence Thomas is epic. Epic, the Smiths. Crazy Animal Lady has given up on changing her Patreon name, just take my money. Budget Botanist is pausing fiverr because of PhD workload last week, reach out on Twitter for plant help and I'll try to get to you, that's uh, that's that's been there a while, Budget Botnist, I'm curious, I hope your PhD is going well and looking forward to when you're back to identifying plants or whatever, it was a plant of the week or something, out to Nubs, Boo Boo Chucky and their loving cat lady in training, Reva. Cats, not gats. Gats. What's gat? I don't know.

Sparkle Donkey, Black Acre Agave has A, diagonal privity, B, indefeasible divestiture, C, disputed quit claim, and D, verbal tenancy in common. Oh, good stuff. Listener Thomas F, stay safe and remember, many police and military people are hardcore right-wingers who won't do the right thing. Absolutely true. Matt Morrison and One Smart Cookie, sent cutters, your turn, Andrew.

0:50:45 Andrew: A big thank you to Celebrating a Johnson Free Future in the UK with some tasty at Emperor's Brewery beers. Woo. GDT says everyone knows that the police can't arrest you without, page two of two, your consent, and that's the Maritime Laws Freedom Menu. Ben Gazi and the Buttery Males. Les Deux Lesbien. Fabulo Jennifer Tchaikovsky, not a Last Week Tonight producer. Supreme Court justices should have 18 year term limits, and so should Conrad Michaels. Sabrina Sturgeon is unicycling around the world, check out her Patreon at patreon.com/unicycletheworld. Well, that sounds crazy, but I might take a look. Edgy Veggie, Torsten, Two Wolfies, Peel, Evie Huntington, Harvard alum, no hood, Clarence's Ginny and Tonic, now with more Q-I-9.

Hey, you are not going to ruin gin and tonics for me. John Brown did nothing wrong. I like Thomas Smith, president, American Honky Tonk Bar Association. Don, Quicks, Oat, don't laugh, Donkey Hody may deliver you a swift kick in the ass, I learned the name in a book, okay? Okay. Pablo Escogar, Pablo Escargo's Heroin Snails, Brian K, Penelope, Penelopy is glad Sydney got sanctioned for Terpsichore, Angry Mac Face, Leo G, still waiting for Seattle live show, this is not the greatest patron name, no, this is just a tribute. April Poff and Tender Fender Bender Mender. All right.

0:51:34 Thomas: Good thank you so much, top patrons.

0:52:12 Clip: Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar will eat you.

0:52:18 Thomas: Now it's time for T3B, Thomas Takes the Bar Exam answer time. This was, this was a fun one, I'm I, who knows if I got right, but you know, it wasn't real property. So or hearsay, no.

0:52:27 Andrew: Yeah. Good old criminal law. This was knowing, uh, that the owner of a house owned a large collection of valuable jewelry. Man decided to break in to steal some. Uh, he decided to do that during the day when he thought the man would not be at home, would be at work. He, that breaks in, uh, grabs some jewelry, the, the homeowner, the, is there, uh, and when the, uh, thief, uh, starts to hear the owner coming down the stairs, he panics, smashes a window to escape more quickly. The owner had actually started coming down the stairs just after he entered the house, uh, witnessed both the grabbing of the necklace and the smashing of the window, uh, which terrified him and he called the police. In a common law jurisdiction, what crimes could the man be guilty of? I'm going to jump to the point because the very first answer that you eliminated was a larceny, and I'm here to tell you it is only a larceny. So you Went That was the first answer you eliminated, so

0:53:20 Thomas: That's not true, re uh no, yeah, but that's not the right answer to this question, so uh, funny prank. Haha, okay. Real real answer

0:53:26 Andrew: No, It Is True So here, this required you to know the differences between larcenyy, robbery, and burglary, and by the way, um, to, to answer your question on, do you list the the lesser included offenses, you absolutely do, but all three of these have slightly different elements. So larceny, right, is the trespassery, trespassory, you have to trespass onto somebody's property, taking, and carrying away of the personal property of another with the intent to permanently deprive him thereof, right, we have actually had a bar question on that last bit, but uh, yeah, when he steals the jewelry that he knows isn't his, uh, and intends to keep it, that meets the definition of larceny. He's on someone else's property. Why is it not robbery? Robbery is a larceny plus the element of taking from another's person or presence, right? It doesn't. So you were starting to get that right. It doesn' t have to be like I rip the necklace off your neck if it's next to

0:53:29 Thomas: Yeah uh-huh sure yeah yeah right right yeah totally that's

0:54:22 Andrew: You, right, using force or threat of force, right. But here the taking of the necklace was not not through force or threat of force.

0:54:22 Thomas: What I thought, yeah. Yeah. Interesting.

0:54:30 Andrew: That came later, right? And then thinking burglary, burglory is breaking or entering into the dwelling of another with the intent to commit a felony or a larceny therein. And you're like, uh-huh, uh‑huh, at night.

0:54:37 Thomas: Uh-huh. Yep. Mm-hmm. What?

0:54:46 Andrew: I am 100%, I am a hundred percent not making that up. At common law, burglery must be at night,

0:54:47 Thomas: No. No. You've got to be kidding me. No fucking way. No, come on. That's funny. Here's what's funny is I have noticed this, and it's very hard to make use of this thing I've noticed, because it's incredibly difficult to know everything going on at all times. But I have noticed that when the bar hands me an absurd trick question like this, which is just a joke, like this is a joke, it didn't give me the just burglary option. And there's always a little thing that signals after the fact, like, yeah, it didn't gives me the option to do just burgle, which I feel like is this tiny signal to me that there's something tricky going on here.

What am I reading into that too much? I've noticed it in a couple of the trick ones where it's like, oh, if I had just taken a minute to say, why wouldn't it be just burglary? I mean, because you would, you would think that would be one of the given options here, on the, on the idea that it's, you know, wasn't enough in the person's presence kind of thing. And I feel like it just gives you that, I think the bar feels a little bit bad for how dastardly this question is, and maybe it's trying to signal, yeah, we didn't give you just burglary, and then you're supposed to be like, oh yeah, because that's at night, for, because of

0:55:38 Andrew: Don't, I don't know that you are, that may, that may be a good observation. I feel

0:56:11 Thomas: Some stupid 16th century law, and then you remember larceny. I don't know, I feel like it does that.

0:56:17 Andrew: Like you might be right. Anyway, you got hosed on that question. I am very sorry but

0:56:20 Thomas: That's so funny that is this. So if I break into just during the day

0:56:22 Andrew: Yeah not, and now mind you, most states have changed, I, I feel comfortable representing this. I don't know, because not a criminal lawyer this is this is buffoonery of the highest order, uh, it was not at night. I mean, you know, what, what if this were, at what if it specified, like, at, at dusk, right, the sun is setting, I don't, I don't even know

0:56:28 Thomas: Okay yeah, common lie yeah well yeah, because this is idiotic there's no, it would be ridiculous yeah wow wow what a, okay, I, very funny trick questioned, me, I do, I do think there's a top secret signal, yeah, I do, I do think there was a top-secret signal by not giving me just burglary.

If I'd known enough, because I think, because I want to give you the out of, if I'm rock solid on, like, just about all the law except the, the one thing that it's during the day, like, you would be able to get this, because you'd say, or well, you'd have a good chance of getting it, because you would say, this has to be just burglary because I know there was no violence, threat of violence, so that can't be robbery.

It can't, by any of the other options. Then maybe that would be enough to signal to your brain that you forgot that one little detail that it said at the daytime. You know what I mean? I don't know. That's my theory. But let's find out who either read those smoke signals or just knew that this was an insane trick question.

0:57:37 Thomas: That I feel very happy that I got right, uh, in in the known actual rational universe, but I got wrong in this universe, which is crazy.

0:57:45 Andrew: Well, Thomas, we got A, B, C, and D answers all this week. And I looked for a non-lawyer who got this one right, and I couldn't find one. So we're going to go with Charles R. Terranova, New York lawyer at CRT Esquire on Twitter, who writes, T3BEA, I think it's larceny only. Good example of the bar exam testing you on useless knowledge. It's not burglary of common law unless it's done at nighttime. Pretty sure robbery requires threat of physical force against a person. Well, Charles, congratulations, you remembered those arcane and esoteric rules, uh, unless, you know, this is your practice, you're in a common law jurisdiction and you, you practice substantive criminal law, at which point we, uh, withdraw all of our praise, but even if we do, uh, enjoy your never-ending fame and fortune. And everyone, let's give them a follow, they are at CRT underscore ESQ, CRT Esquire, that is Charles R. Terranova. And congratulations on being this week's winner.

0:58:47 Thomas: And that's our show. Thank you so much for listening. Like Andrew said, get the word out on how terrible this law is, let's spread the word on that, but at least Alex Jones is paying, you know, millions, but it should be more, should be quite a lot more, and hopefully with one weird bankruptcy trick it will be. So thank you so much for listening, we'll see you next time.

0:59:09 Clip: I move for a bad court thingy. You mean a mistrial? Yeah, that's why you're the judge and I'm the law talking guy.

0:59:42 Clip: www.openargs.com. Be sure to join the Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash Yodel Mountain and follow us on Twitter at OpenArgs. This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media LLC, all rights reserved. It is produced with the assistance of transcriptionist Heather Leverage, production assistant Ashley Smith, and additional contributions from Morgan Stringer and Debra Smith. Special thanks to Teresa Gomez, who runs our live shows and heads up the OA Wiki, follow at OA Wiki on Twitter. Additional thanks to the moderators of the Opening Arguments Facebook community, Emily Waters, Alicia Cook, Eric Brewer, Natalie Newell, Brian Ziegenhagen, and Teresa. And finally, thanks to Thomas Smith, who edits the show and created the fabulous theme music, which was used with permission.