OA664: Trustees Call BS on Alex Jones's Bankruptcy Shenanigans

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 664. That feels like some sort of important number, but I guess it's not really. I don't know. Nevermind. I'm Thomas. That's Andrew Torres Esquire, lawyer extraordinaire, brilliant legal mind. How you doing, Andrew?

0:01:32 Andrew: I'm good. We haven't done numerological musings in quite some time. So

0:01:36 Thomas: Yeah, I think we ran out of numbers.

0:01:38 Andrew: That's it. The numbers are all gone. So, that

0:01:41 Thomas: Four shows a week, we've used them all up. There can't be that many numbers left.

0:01:43 Andrew: Is true. Fair enough.

0:01:46 Thomas: I've had my kids ask me, Phoebe, well, sorry, I've had my Phoeby, my kid, who can ask me thoughtful questions. Arlo's not quite there yet.

0:01:53 Andrew: Love Phoebe's questions. Like you will post these on Facebook all the time and they are just adorable. Anyway,

0:01:54 Thomas: Yeah. She asked me what, how many numbers there were. I was like, well, there's that, and Yeah. And I, I realize it's really hard to explain certain things. It's, it's like, okay, I'm venturing into Dear Old Dads content, but yeah, she was like, how, how high do they go? I was just forever like, she's like, what? She literally can't even understand that concept, which is, you once you hear you her reaction, you're like, oh, yeah, that is a hard thing to explain when you're you don't know anything. Uh, yeah, they could just keep going forever. Similarly, she's, they'll ask where they were during a particular memory or photo and we'll be like, oh, you weren't born yet. No, big, oh, so we were in mama's tummy then. We're like, no, you just, you just weren't. You

0:02:03 Andrew: Five. There's only five of them.

0:02:37 Andrew: Yeah.

0:02:38 Thomas: Just, how do you, oh, boy, this is heavy. Uh, you were not, it's fun, those little things, but anyway, uh, sorry about the Dear Old Dads content. Anyway, let's get to today's real content, an update and possibly a spicy one, on the Alex Jones declaring bankruptcy in every which way he possibly can, and then some. Oof.

0:02:48 Andrew: No, I love it.

0:02:59 Andrew: Yeah, that's exactly right. To get there, I thought I've been answering some questions that folks have sent in via Patreon and elsewhere on bankruptcy. And so I thought, you know, maybe take a couple of minutes, talk about the landscape. One of the questions that I saw multiple times was, Alex Jones filed a personal bankruptcy under Chapter 11, and a bunch of people said, can can you do that? Right. Chapter, like, 11, let me take a step back. Back. There are really three major forms of bankruptcies that you will hear about: Chapter 7, Chapter, Chapter 11, and Chapter 13, right? Chapter 7 is a liquidation, right, that is when there's no ongoing value to the business, and so a trustee is appointed to sell off the assets and distribute them out to unsecured creditors.

0:03:54 Andrew: Chapter 13 is a special kind of individual bankruptcy. It is a sometimes called a wage earners plan. And this comes directly from the U.S. bankruptcy courts website, enables regular income to develop a plan to repay all or part of their debts. And so it's generally considered more forgiving than as an individual being in Chapter 7 and just having your assets liquidated, not the least of which is there is a specific plan to enable individuals to having their homes go to foreclosure.

0:04:35 Andrew: So, again, not super not favorable. And when we talk about changes in the bankruptcy law and the personal bankruptcy law becoming less favorable over the years, those are changes to the Chapter 13 bankruptcy. But Alex Jones declared this here as a as a chapter 11.

0:04:35 Thomas: Makes sense. Speaking of numerology, is the reason all the chapters have to be prime numbers, is that, like, a rule of bankruptcy? I

0:04:57 Andrew: No, I wish there were some explanation, but we're going to, we're gonna deal with a sub chapter that is not a prime number in a minute. So it will break the numerological pattern. So the question is, can an individual declare, we all know Chapter 11 from the corporate context, right? That's the reorganization. The idea is the business still has a viable model, but it's drowning in debt. And so from a market perspective, what we want to do is discharge out the bad debt and give them a fresh start to be able to go back to, you producing valuable stuff free of this kind of background condition.

And almost all the cases you hear of Chapter 11 bankruptcy are large corporation, you know, we talked about Sears, for example, going in and out of Chapter 10 bankruptcy, we talked about Stephen Mnuchin shenanigans with Kmart and that sort of thing, right? Like, it, that's it, a common yes but remember, he also had, uh, oh yeah yeah yeah, lots. Um, and so think of Chapter eleven. And you think of corporations, but corporations are people, my friends.

So under Section 109D of the Bankruptcy Code, any person that may qualify as a debtor under Chapter 7 may also qualify, may choose to file under Chapter 11. Now, I am not going to get into the debtor test under Chapter 7. It's just beyond the scope of this. I'm not a bankruptcy practitioner. If you are and I get something wrong, feel free to email in. And yes, there are restrictions on the kind of consumer debt versus business debt that you can have filing under Chapter 7. If we had an hour, I'm not sure that I could explain that adequately, and it's not important to this discussion.

0:05:57 Thomas: Thought he did Sears didn't he do, oh already F over another major, uh retailer oh

0:06:53 Andrew: But so the important thing is individuals can file for Chapter 11 as well. Why don't they? And the answer is because in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the United States trustee is an active party to the bankruptcy. They're present in Chapter 7 cases as well, but they are Chapter 7 personal bankruptcy cases are what they call zero asset cases. That means exactly what it sounds like. And in a zero asset case, the trustee just kind of comes in, looks at it as like, oh, you don't own anything net of liabilities.

0:07:33 Andrew: So therefore, there's nothing for me to do here. Right. And so no big deal. As opposed to in a Chapter 11 case. Right. There are lots and lots of assets. And so you have these monthly reports. You have quarterly reports. You have all kinds of expenses and you're paying a lawyer right out of the proceeds of the estate. And most states don't have. That's why you're declaring bankruptcy. Don't have the proceeds sufficient to pay anyway. So that's why individuals generally don't take advantage of Chapter 11. Not just individuals. Most small businesses have foregone Chapter 11 bankruptcy, again, because of the high cost and complexities.

0:07:33 Thomas: Yeah yeah

0:08:24 Andrew: And this is, now I'm quoting from an American Bar Journal article, this actually led to bipartisan legislation reform. This was all by voice vote, so I can't tell. If you're a member of our contingent who's like us, or rather critical of the effects of late stage capitalism, and you want to find out, are there any brave souls in either party who held out? No, there was no call for a division, no call for a roll call vote here. So nobody put their name on the line as opposing this particular piece of legislation, which was known as the Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019.

0:09:09 Andrew: And that amended the bankruptcy code and allowed and created subchapter 5. So the first non-prime number that we care about, it created subchapter 5 of chapter 11.

0:09:22 Thomas: What, are you claiming that five is no longer a prime number, or big news big news, huge if true, Andrew, we broke it, we like breaking news, five no longer consider a prime number, you know why because two and a half goes into it evenly, that's why don't ask questions, anybody, Andrew's a little under the weather he's his, uh that's, don't, that's okay, uh so we the street continues it's all prime numbers over here

0:09:30 Andrew: Oh, shit. Five is a prime number. All right.

0:09:39 Andrew: No, of course five is a Prime number. That's right. Nope. It's been a long time. I mean, you know, I'm not here as the math expert. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. All right. It is all prime numbers. I don't ask me what was going through my head when I thought five was not a prime number.

0:10:03 Thomas: We've all been there, my friend, we've always been there so

0:10:04 Andrew: Yep. All Right. So what subchapter five is meant to do is create an avenue to a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization for small companies that would otherwise be intimidated out of filing under Chapter 11, normally pre the SBRA. The SBRA now says, right, this is, this is what it takes to qualify for subchapter five relief. So this is Section 101 of the Bankruptcy Code, 11 U.S.C. 101, subsection 51D, says you are a small business debtor if you are, a person, one, engaged in commercial business activity, two, you have non-contingent, liquidated, secured, and unsecured debt as of the date of filing, not more than, and this was increased from, $2.7 million to $7.5 million by the CARES Act of 2020, the last coronavirus relief act the Trump administration.

From the commercial or business activities of the debtor. So, this leads to the first point. The debt claimed by free speech systems that led them to declare bankruptcy prior to the adjudication of the damages phase of either the Connecticut or Texas Sandy Hook plaintiff's trials is claimed to be less than that statutory cap. And so free speech systems is in the subchapter five of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Alex Jones's debts, personal debts, are plainly do not qualify for subchapter five and are way in excess of that cap.

0:11:57 Andrew: So the two, this is really the important part grasp right here. There are kind of two principles here. The first is, I'm not sure free speech systems is either, given that free speech system claims a $40 million unliquidated debt that it owes to PQPR Systems LLC, which is in turn owned by Alex Jones and Alex Jones's parents, right? Right. It's part of the alphabet soup of ways of trying to hide assets that Jones has engaged in. So, there are really two options. Either that is a real debt, at which point subchapter five shouldn't apply. You're well over the statutory cap or it's not a real debt, at which point you're not going to be able to, you know, get that amount out of free speech systems by having Alex Jones be able able to write a check to himself, essentially.

0:12:53 Andrew: I'm going to be watching that. The U.S. trustee in this case has already weighed in and said, I think this is not a valid debt. And so the trustee is attuned to, you what Alex Jones is trying to put down here.

0:13:13 Thomas: They might be lying. Is there any any consequences for that at all? Yeah.

0:13:13 Andrew: Yeah there absolutely are consequences for lying in bankruptcy. Um, there are both bankruptcy specific consequences and criminal, criminal liability if you, you perjure yourself in bankruptcy. That goes above and beyond just ordinary perjury. So it's, it's a very, very bad thing to lie in connection with a bankruptcy. And by the way, unlike, you know, sort of perjuring in connection with your testimony at trial, perjurry in bankruptcy is the kind of thing that gets prosecuted, relatively speaking, all the time, because, you You know what, people who have run their companies into the ground, they sometimes lie in bankruptcy about their assets.

0:13:58 Thomas: Yeah I'm sure there are plenty of totally, you know, legitimate, unfortunate bankruptcies. There are also a bunch of crooked people who, I'm surer, run companies into the ground, and uh, yeah, they, they're, may be prone to lying about where their money is or what's going on in order to protect themselves, uh, a la possibly Alex Jones here. Yeah.

0:14:18 Andrew: Yeah, that's exactly right. So crucial to all of this is that one of the things, and this seems a little bit counterintuitive at first, But one of the things that the SBRA, the Small Business Reform Act, did in creating subchapter five of chapter 11 is it created a second job for a second trustee, a subchatter five trustee. And if you're thinking, well, I thought the purpose was to sort of make this less complicated and impose less expenses. Why? You know, now I got to pay another guy.

And the answer is, cost yeah, savings are in connection with reducing a whole bunch of other costly reporting requirements and taking some of the work off the U.S. trustee. So I'm going to link in my show notes, which you get if you are a three dollar patron and above, this is a a Bar blog from somebody who has served as a sub chapter five trustee. Again, not too many people have done this because, you know, it's, it's relatively new change to the bankruptcy code. And the bottom line is, he describes this, Jim White, describes his, his role as being, quote, "akin to a mediator or consultant," as opposed to being a trustee.

And what you think of as the typical job of the U.S. trustee, which is defined under the bankruptcy code as being the watchdog, right? So the U.S. Trustee is a party to every bankruptcy, because you don't want to create a situation where the parties are essentially conspiring to to deprive the United States of assets, right?

0:16:00 Andrew: Or, you know, you could easily imagine, right, my creditors, creditors to a particular business, a set of interests that runs contrary to the interests of the public at large. Right. And certainly you could imagine situations in which the creditors are willing to wink and nod at fraud by the bankrupt estate because the question is, right, how do they get paid out of the assets that are there? Every Chapter 11 case, every bankruptcy case involves the U.S. trustee. Chapter seven, we already talked about, most of these for individuals are no asset cases. And so the U.S. trustee comes in as like, "Oh, there are no assets here. I don't care."

0:16:45 Andrew: I'm leaving. Chapter 11, there were usually assets and the U.S. trustee remains a party, again, as a watchdog over the process to oversee how the case is being run, uh, to litigate if if the parties are skirting or violating the bankruptcy laws, and to search for fraud, particularly fraud against the United States. So all of that together. The reason why Alex Jones wants Free Speech Systems under sub chapter five is because sub chapter five has the sub chapter 5 trustee whose job it is to basically like try and rush these cases towards a mediation, a negotiated solution, right?

That's the whole idea behind creating that brand brand new section in 2019 and expanding it in 2020, to get out of the traditional large company bankruptcy situation where you propose a plan and it goes to the creditors and then they object and you come back and you have a second plan and a third amended plan. And, you know, it takes years to sort of resolve and people litigate out specific issues. And, you know, it's it's typical large-scale litigation. The idea here was to streamline it for small businesses and say, you know, look, we could envision a small business having an ongoing model that is worth preserving, just like a large business might have an ongoing business model that's worth preserving. Neither of that applies to InfoWars, of

0:18:19 Andrew: Course.

0:18:19 Thomas: Once again, as we've covered, the asbestos of broadcasting.

0:18:21 Andrew: Yeah, yeah, the asbestos of broadcasting. Yeah. So So Jones wants that trustee on his side sort of pushing for, all right, come on, where are the assets? This is it. Let's get you, you know, plaintiffs kind of knocked out, get a plan in place and get this discharged. Right. That's their job. And so put a pin in that one, because I think things are not quite coming up roses for Alex Jones. Here. So when last we discussed the implication of Alex Jones's personal bankruptcy, which again is a chapter 11 but does not qualify for subchapter 5, we mentioned that the goal here was to stop the, there's one more trial yet to proceed to judgment, and to stop the entry of final orders in the Texas and Connecticut cases that would run against him personally.

0:19:19 Andrew: So and we quoted from paragraphs seven and nine of his personal bankruptcy petition. And essentially the argument here is read paragraph seven. Jones requests that the stay orders be modified to prevent the entry of a judgment in the Heslin Lewis lawsuit in Texas or the Connecticut state court lawsuit. In the event that judgment is entered in either action, appellate deadlines will begin to run. In the event the judgment is answered as to free speech systems but not as to Jones, appellant deadlines will be staggered, creating confusion and increased costs. Further, a mediation is expected in this debtor's case with Jones's participation. In event that this is successful, the fees and expenses associated with appeals would be for naught and would further deplete the limited resources available to fund such a settlement, right?

0:20:08 Andrew: So that was basically his argument. Hey, this is going to cause staggered deadlines if you don't stop the entry of a judgment against me personally, Alex Jones. So you should consolidate the cases. You should stop the courts. That implicate the automatic stay, right, 11 U.S.C. 362A. It would would prevent any money from going in or out, and nobody would get paid. No judgments could run because everything is subject to the jurisdiction of the bankruptcy court. Two trustees have now weighed in on the matter. And I was not surprised at, I'm going to spoil the spoiler, which is that the subchapter five trustee filed a me too brief in which it it just completely agrees with the reasoning given by the U.S. trustee. I haven't looked at other subchapter five cases, but I suspect this rarely happens, right?

Because remember, the U.S. trustee's job is to detect fraud and to litigate on behalf of the interests of the bankruptcy court system in the United States. That's why they're the U.S. trustee, the subchapter five trustee job is. To speed this process along, is right, to get stuff moving. And so you can imagine that those are probably usually at odds with one another. Nevertheless, the U.S. trustee looked at this and said, this is nonsense. So I had to read a little bit from it. "As a threshold matter, these cases may not run on the same timeline, and it's questionable whether joint administration would offer any convenience. FSS has been in bankruptcy for almost five months while Mr. Jones just filed his case. FSS is already filed its schedules and statement of financial affairs and held its meeting of creditors while Mr. Jones has not.

And subchapter five cases are meant to move quickly with a 90 day deadline to file a plan, which can only be extended, quote, 'if attributable to circumstances for which the debtor should not justly be held accountable,' end of quote." Right, so get this through, 90 days, get out of plan. "But counsel for Mr. Jones has already announced that he intends to request an extension of time to file his schedules and statement of financial affairs, and it is not clear how quickly his case can progress, particularly given how important complete and accurate disclosure of his assets will be to any potential settlement with the main creditors in his case." So point number one, yeah, um, you filed for Free Speech Systems five months ago.

0:21:34 Thomas: I didn't

0:22:32 Andrew: That's on a super expedited track. You just filed. We just read your personal bankruptcy, although it's also a Chapter 11, is not a subchapter five. So it's not on the same timeline. Line. And you said, yeah, and I'm going to have a mediation and we're going to have a slumber party and everyone's going to get together and talk about it. Well, OK, great. But that means you're on a different track because that's not permissible to slow things down under the subchapter five.

0:22:58 Thomas: Realize there was a slumber party track and bankruptcy, if we, if we do bankruptcy, you want to do that play video games, sweet.

0:22:59 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. The U.S. trustee goes on. "But even if the cases could run on similar timelines, joint administration is still more likely to cause confusion than create efficiencies. Unlike most jointly administered cases, because of the differing subchapters of Chapter 11 that each debtor has elected to file under, the dockets will have multiple motions and applications that apply only to one case or the other that involve highly significant issues. A jointly administered docket presents the risk that the creditors and other parties in interest may be less likely to understand understand both the rights and responsibilities of each debtor, as well as how the rights and remedies available to the creditor or party differ in each case. For example, the U.S. trustee was required to appoint the committee in the Jones case, but is not permitted to do so in the FSS case."

0:23:04 Thomas: Oh.

0:23:51 Andrew: Thus, the appointment of the committee only applies to Mr. Jones's personal bankruptcy, and any pleadings filed by the committee will only be in reference to Mr Jones's case. So what is a committee of creditors? It's exactly what it sounds like when you have a Chapter 11 reorganization, you get together and assemble the people who are owed the most money. Right. And that becomes the committee of creditors. And they then have a representative in the bankruptcy who argues on their behalf. Right? Right.

And that makes sense because you want somebody who has the interest in getting paid in their, you know, zealously advocate. You got everybody else has got, know, somebody you present in the bankruptcy. And by confining it to a committee of creditors, you make sure that, A, each large creditor is not in there, you with their own counsel, which would make the proceedings way more complex, but also that you're not just sort of hypothetically adjudicating out the people who stand to get repaid without hearing from them. So that's what a creditors committee does. You have a crediters committee in the Alex Jones case. Abolition of the creditors' committee is one of the things that subchapter five did to reduce costs. So Right. You don't have one in the FSS case. You do have one in The Jones

0:25:15 Andrew: Case. Yeah. And then they go on to say and subchapter five provides free speech systems with the exclusive right to file a plan, while in Mr. Jones's case, he will lose that exclusive right to file a plan after one hundred and twenty days unless such time is shortened by a court order.

0:25:15 Thomas: Okay, so These are not compatible, these are Mac and Windows, this is not the same person, so not going to save any, like, effort or trouble or money to do them together or whatever, okay.

0:25:33 Andrew: That's exactly right. Exactly right. The U.S. trustee continues, because it gets worse. "Beyond the confusion it would create, jointly administering the cases appears to provide little, if any, value and will not promote judicial economy. The court may always schedule hearings for both cases at the same time when appropriate. Alternatively, administering the cases separately could produce other efficiencies. For example, if the cases are not jointly administered, FSS's counsel will not need to appear at a hearing on employment or utilities in Mr. Jones's case, thereby keeping costs down. There is no evidence that there would be any significant cost savings through joint administration and no evidence that joint administration will lead to an expeditious resolution of this case, which would provide further cost savings. And even then, even if the debtor ultimately reached a multi-party settlement to deal with the debts of both debtors, any plans reflecting that settlement would need to be balloted separately because the different confirmation standards of each subchapter."

0:26:39 Andrew: So again, in a Chapter 11 case, you produce a plan of reorganization, and then that goes out for a vote amongst the creditors. And without getting even more into the weeds, the voting standards are different for Subchapter 5 versus a regular Chapter 11.

0:26:57 Thomas: The electoral college and the other is a voting system that makes sense, Alex.

0:26:58 Andrew: Yeah, kind of. Yeah. Yeah. So different confirmation standards for each plan. "Filing a plan on the docket in each case would thus not add any significant additional cost to either debtor's estate and will better allow the court and the parties in interest to understand and track the confirmation of each plan." Thus, we object to the consolidation. And I spoiled the punchline here.

Here, the subchapter five trustee notes that, we that that subchapter five trusty, quote, "appreciates the goals of maximizing efficiencies and providing notice to all parties in the cases that are unquestionably related. However, on balance, the subchapter five trustee believes that the potential confusion or possible conflicts of interest outweigh the benefits of joint administration." So, it's not a great sign that the two trustees, working to two different ends, have both said, oh yeah, this, yeah, exactly right. And I continue to watch and await. Look, we know what's going on here. We have seen there's a separate action to claw back fraudulent transfers in Texas. We have seen the alphabet entities and what look like facially fraudulent accounts of debts by and between, you know, PQPR systems, LLC to free speech systems. All of these are entities that are owned either 100 percent by Alex Jones or by by and among Alex Jones and his his parents, and other holding companies that have those three individuals. There are no outside individuals. It's just Jones, mommy, and daddy. And if we can disentangle this, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court can disentangle

0:27:50 Thomas: Jones is full of shit.

0:28:40 Andrew: It. So continuing to update you on Alex Jones, I thought that was also a good opportunity to kind of talk about the SBRA, dispel some myths about bankruptcy, and there you go.

0:28:52 Thomas: And make huge announcements about prime numbers. Well, couldn't happen to a nicer guy anyway, and

0:28:55 Andrew: And Being wrong about prime numbers or being in bankruptcy. Keep going.

0:29:02 Thomas: Yeah. And

0:29:04 Clip: Oh, no associate of this firm has ever failed the bar exam. No kidding.

0:29:10 Thomas: Now is time for T3BE, time, six, bar exam, where each week I attempt to answer a bar question, and sometimes I know the right answer but I choose the wrong one just to make sure you guys are paying attention. You like that old teacher, "I was just making sure you're paying attention, everybody." I had the right answer last week, but uh, you know, just, just in case, and uh, turns out you were paying attention. So that's good. All right, so I don't need to do that again, all right, so let's have it, let's see if I can uh, recover some dignity here.

0:29:28 Andrew: Right. Right, yeah. The Dan Quayle defense. Yeah, exactly. All right. Right. Thomas,

0:29:39 Thomas: What?

0:29:40 Andrew: If the seller of a real property under a general warranty hears from the buyer that a party is attempting to evict the grantee, what must the seller do? A. Nothing. The grantee now holds title. B. Perform under one of the future real covenants. C. Nothing until the person attempting to evict succeeds. Or D. Nothing if the person attempting to evict succeeds. You know maybe if you had made fun of me about five not being a prime number, I wouldn't have given you a real property question. Yeah, it kind of is.

0:29:51 Thomas: The, oh my God, what, what did I do to deserve this? What? It's the holidays. Oh, I see. It's my fault. Can' make heads or tails of this, Andrew. This is a weird... I, we got terminology problems, I'm also, I'm really trying to figure out what this situation even would be in layman's terms. Okay, I'm gonna go real slow and see if I could figure it out. Seller of real property, okay, so someone is selling some sort of real properly, we don't know what, under a general warranty, don't exactly know what that, that means, uh, not sure, but, uh, we'll have to guess.

Under a general warranty, here's from the buyer, okay, so the person who's going to buy the property calls up Mr. Seller, under general warranty, whatever that a party, what who would that be? That's the, that A-party is attempting to evict the grantee, there's like nine different relationships to the, I don't, I don't know what that means, I, this is just a word, this is a word salad. Do you know the specific definitions and some weird rule that I don't know, I, I really, I, I can't even get through this question with like a plausible read of what it is.

The grante now holds title, that mean, like, now as in as a result of this title, or that means like the grant he currently holds the title, so therefore for the seller can't do anything. Oh my god, this is, wow, this is a doozy, this is one of the hardest ones, I, like, I seriously, I'm having a hard time even forming a picture of what is happening here, which is, I mean, usually I can come up with something.

0:31:58 Thomas: I guess maybe it's like, well, yeah, they're attempting to evict the grantee, so it hasn't happened yet, so you don't have to, therefore you don't have to do anything. I mean, I guess that's, I guess I can understand what that's saying, it might be plausible. Okay, Be, perform under one of the future real, this is, this is a, okay, so, ha ha, funny joke, Andrew, this is a fake question, this is like me trying to do the riparian water rights. You just tried to find the stoop. Is it April 1st? I thought we were in December. Perform under one of future real the covenants, I couldn't even tell you what that's supposed to be. See, nothing until the person attempting to evict succeeds. Well, that's what I thought A kind of was, but. So, D, D, nothing if the person attempting to evict 60, if nothing, if the person, okay.

0:32:48 Thomas: I think not D, I don't know. I don'T know why that's as best I got is not D right now.

0:32:55 Thomas: This is, this is a joke. I seriously, I have no idea what is even happening here. This is unbelievable. DON'T, who's being granted? It's somebody selling it. Who's the grantee? Why are they being granted something? I don't understand this. Andrew, I tap out. Is that the, uncle, I give. Forfeit. No? Okay, I'm not hearing anything.

0:33:16 Andrew: No. No.

0:33:17 Thomas: That sounds like I can't do that.

0:33:17 Andrew: Forfeiting.

0:33:19 Thomas: Yeah, the bar, I think that I tap out, the Bar just wins. I submit to the Bar.

0:33:22 Andrew: It's got the like Ted DiBiase million dollar dream strangled, yeah.

0:33:27 Thomas: Yeah, I've just tapped. I'm turning, my face is turning purple and I'm like, uh, are you, are you gonna allow this to continue, Mr. Torres? I've, these he's already dead, um, the doctor is his mom, that's what it is. The grantee, could the grantee be the seller? No, I don't know. Let's see. Here's from the buyer. Their priority is attempting to evict the grante. I can't figure out what, there's a grantee that's living on the premises, I guess, but somebody's selling it.

Why are they a grante if you're selling it to somebody else? Don't, what is happening? All grantee, how is the grantee not the owner, that's what I don't get, how is there a grantee who is not the seller, and now I'm reading a nothing, the granteen now holds title, is like, a is like, stop trying to sell something you don't own, which that, you know what, I'm gonna go with, a screw it, I don't know, I have no idea, I'm between A and B is trying to make me think it's something but it's just a trick, I think, I think B is just word salad, that's not anything, I'm doing A, and actually C, and I'm gonna go with A, the two different nothings I'm gonna go with a final answer, that was the, I'm just, I'm

0:34:40 Thomas: Shook, I don't even know what this was.

0:34:40 Andrew: All right, so, Without prejudice to whether you are correct or not, and I mean that with all sincerity, I really, really want to encourage non-lawyers to play along with us this week and share out this episode on social media, include the hashtag T3BE, include your gastro reasons therefore, for as always we will pick a winner, shower that winner with never-ending fame and fortune.

Here is what, what I'm going to say as a comment again, uh, that, that does not determine whether you are correct or not, this is a question that is, I think, trivially easy for a lawyer to answer, but almost impossible for a non-lawyer to answer because of one of the premises that we said at the start of the show, right, which is, yeah, by and large, common sense gets you 70% of the way there, unless it's one of these like goofball real property questions that depends upon you knowing the meaning of terms from 17th century Saxony, or 13th century Saxton, so hard question, totally unfair for you, totally easy for, for a lawyer to answer? So, uh, if you're, if you're a lawyer, maybe give this one a pass, uh, on social media, and if you're a non-lawyer, you've never played before, uh, take a stab at it, and we will break this down in more detail on

0:35:41 Thomas: That's funny 70

0:35:55 Andrew: The Thursday Lizisode. So Oh,

0:35:55 Thomas: And I think that also means if you're trying to answer on, uh, you know, social media, you don't get to look anything up, because screw that, I don't get to look anything up. Come, come on, no cheating, no cheaters.

0:36:04 Andrew: Yeah, No, obviously, that's Yeah, yeah, No cheating, yeah.

0:36:07 Thomas: Cheaters do actually prosper, but not for the now, not this. All

0:36:09 Andrew: Yeah,

0:36:12 Clip: And thank you, Let's go!

0:36:14 Thomas: And now it's time to thank our new patrons at patreon.com/law, enjoying the goodies, the ad-free episodes. And by the way, there are more of those than ever. Slightly early Tuesday episodes. I've been posting those, I don't know, six hours early because I can. It's a little weird because again, we have so many posts, but still a little early. And also the Q&A last week and a lot of awful movies. So many benefits, so many great reasons to be on patreon.com/law. Andrew, why don't you start us off reading our new patrons?

0:36:45 Andrew: Big Thanks to Anti-Markovnikov, Peter Gavin, Justice for Ketchup, Ketchup. I guess now that we don't have, you know, a president in the Oval Office who puts ketchup on his steaks.

0:36:59 Thomas: Oh, maybe. I think it's the backlash to the back. You know, like when the backlash goes too far, like people have gone too far in the anti-ketchup. Yeah, I agree.

0:36:59 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, ketchup is great on French fries.

0:37:08 Thomas: Ketchup, it has its uses. I'll enjoy it as a part of a balanced breakfast.

0:37:10 Andrew: There you go. Exactly right. Daniel K., Ted Ross, Certiorari always makes me think of Saoirse Ronan.

0:37:20 Thomas: Or Sorsha, I think it's Sorsharonin. Yeah, I did, by the way, same, exact same patron. I think that every time.

0:37:26 Andrew: P.S.

0:37:26 Thomas: Also, a good, good movie, takes place in Sacramento. It's really funny, there's a lot of scenes from right around where, where I live.

0:37:27 Andrew: Watch Ladybird, which apparently I have not just a Freud. Neat. Uh, Thomas, this is for you, please stop using that golden girls remix - hurts my poor ears.

0:37:35 Thomas: Oh. Never. Never.

0:37:42 Andrew: I find the most erotic part of a woman is the boobies, fantastic, Zap Brannigan right there. King of ACEs, Paul Orphanos, Meraki, Poor Ian, Richard Davis, Ben Severson, Raiju, David Benjamin, James Foster, Kelli Strong, Dabiyyah, and DoD is my new shooosh!! Yeah, it's great stuff. So take it away, Thomas.

0:37:46 Thomas: And Thank you to Two, Natrasha, or I'm not sure. I I Actually DID move to Canada. Charles Jones, Donna Treadaway, Optimus Prime, Hero, three blue, red, white, legendary artifact creature robot, more than meets the eye. Two, blue, read, white. You may cast it. Oh yeah, they did the magic Transformers crossover.

0:38:15 Andrew: Yeah. Oh, they dare doing. Yeah, magic transformers. I hope I get that for the holidays.

0:38:34 Thomas: It's a good idea. Patrick Hourigan, Xzorba, Janet Beebe, Isaac Thank you, you new patrons. Hope you enjoy the goodies. I

0:39:11 Andrew: That is that Aaron Gray from the, uh, Buck Rogers TV show? Oh, Silver Spoons. I had such a crush on her when I was growing up.

0:39:18 Thomas: I don't understand any of that, but yeah, sure. Uh, is this an old person thing or

0:39:20 Andrew: All right, fair enough. It's an old person thing. It's one of the few remaining old people things from that, separates you and I. Anybody but who grew up watching the old Buck Rogers TV show will know that Aaron Gray reference. She was Commander Wilma Deering. Anyway, fine, whatever.

0:39:22 Thomas: Oh Okay. I'll Just wait until you die. I, nothing, yeah sure. Thing I haven't heard of, I agree. All right, thanks so much for listening, everybody. Thanks, new patrons, uh, and we'll see you tomorrow for our usual deep dive.

0:39:39 Andrew: All right.

0:39:50 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.

0:40:24 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.