The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Mitch Jackson, Attorney & Author: Covid-19 Ideas For Business Owners To Reduce Liabilities In The Age of Coronavirus

Episode Date: May 6, 2020

Mitch Jackson, Attorney & Author: Covid-19 Ideas For Business Owners To Reduce Liabilities In The Age of Coronavirus Jacksonandwilson.com [powerpress_playlist]

Let's get ready to podcast! Hey everyone, thanks for joining in to the Chris Foss Show, thechrisfossshow.com. Hey, we're coming here with another great podcast. I think I ought to try that new intro. I might get sued for the trademark on the Rumble thing, but what the hell, maybe we'll try that for a while. Let me know. You can ping me on at Chris Foss and maybe you'll like the new intro. Maybe we'll put like a whole sound effect behind it. Let's ready to podcast hey moving on guys we of course have the best guests in the world uh we know all the best guests actually and uh I've got a most excellent returning guest he's

a returning guest I'm not sure if he's up to uh SNL robe status but he's getting there uh and it's going to be pretty exciting to talk to him. In the meantime, make sure you subscribe to the podcast, go to thecvpn.com or chrisvosspodcastnetwork.com. You can subscribe to nine podcasts over there. Oh my God, one of our fastest growing podcasts is the Chris Voss podcast, a little different than this one. And also the Resistance Radio podcast, which is our politics podcast. You can guess what that's about. Anyway, guys, be sure to subscribe to all those different things

and YouTube.com or just Chris Voss. Hit that bell notification so you get all the notifications. Today I have one of the most brilliant minds in California, or what I like to think of as one of the most brilliant minds in the field of legal law, attorneys, all that sort of good stuff, a gentleman by the name of Mitch Jackson. Mitch enjoys combining law, social media, which he really rocks really well, and technology to disrupt, hack, and improve his clients' companies, causes, and professional relationships. Because of the results he consistently gets for his clients. Mitch has been named 2009 Orange County Trial Lawyer of the Year.

In 2013, California Litigation Lawyer of the Year. He's an author as well as the ultimate to social media for business. The ultimate guide, I should say, right? Am I reading that right? The ultimate guide to social Media for Business Entrepreneurs. You can check out his book. I believe it's available on Amazon. Mitch, welcome to the show, buddy.

Chris, it's good to be here. You have a lot going on. I do. A podcast, a lot of topics. What in the world do you find to talk about? I mean, come on. You must be really hurting for content. Come on, Mitch.

You've seen me on social media. I'm a big mouth. My name should be just Chris Big Mouth Voss, huh? Well, I think you have a lot of opinions, as I do, and I think there's no better place to share those opinions than on digital and social. So, you know, I got you. I get it. I'm glad to be here. A few hundred thousand people that download this podcast seem to think so, but I've seen your media, too.

And I've got to say, Mitch, Mitch is, you know, most attorneys are, you know, I'm not talking badly about attorneys, but most attorneys are pretty dry. But, but I will, but I will. Why is it, why is it that people do that all the time? You know, I know you don't like lawyer jokes, Mitch, but let me tell you this one. I just, I'm just busting your chops. But no, I mean, do you, I mean, I know one of the things that you do is you help attorneys embrace and you, you go out and you speak and in your book you talk about attorneys on how to embrace technology, but a lot of attorneys, you know,

they're trying to make this transition. You know, we, we talked to this pre-show where I grew up where a lot of attorneys, you know, you had to go be in the yellow pages, you know, if you want to advertise. Crazy. It's crazy. And so now you're helping attorneys, you know, kind of attorneys, you know, you had to go be in the yellow pages, you know, if you want to advertise. Crazy. It's crazy. And so now you're helping attorneys, you know, kind of turn, turn the, turn the way over to technology, getting involved in that and stuff. And then of course you're talking about social media. You're, I mean, I, I love your videos. You do with your walks on the beach where you're on

exercise. I wouldn't say you're giving a legal advice because technically that could get you in trouble, but you're on exercise. I miss those. I wouldn't say you're giving out legal advice because technically that could get you in trouble, but you're just giving advice and life advice and all sorts of good stuff. And then you've got your mastermind group. I've come to your mastermind group, and that was a load of fun, coming to the Brady Bunch

and having all these ton of brilliant people. So if you get a chance, check out Mitch Jackson. Mitch, give us your website so we can plug those really quick before we get into the topics. Well, I think for purposes of this show, probably the best place for anyone to connect with me would be livevideo.lawyer. That's livevideo.lawyer. It's my social media video blog, and that's kind of where all the content is that you just shared. But, Chris, I'm a big fan of lawyers. Okay, here's the thing.

I married a lawyer. I married my girlfriend from law school. She's been my wife and partner for 30 plus years. My daughter is a first year lawyer up in Los Angeles. I see all the good things that hardworking lawyers bring to society to make the community a better place. And so, you know, to this day, 34 years of practicing, I'm more excited about getting up and doing what I'm doing today than I've ever been. And one of the reasons is social and digital. And when you look at what everyone's going through right now with COVID-19,

right, it's just changed our lives forever. It's changed businesses forever. Let me just first say, you know, everything I've been doing, everything we do has been about taking care of our clients taking care of our family and friends we wish everyone you know safety and good health I mean that's the most important thing right now and that's where my focus is I know we're going to pivot a little bit and put on our business hats and talk about maybe different ways smart business owners as as they're starting to open up their businesses,

which is what we're seeing across the country, maybe we'll plant a few seeds to help them do so safely to avoid liability. And just so we're clear, I'm not sure it's the right time to open up businesses. That's a conversation for another, for another time and place, but for companies and small business owners that are opening up, I think there's some things they can do to protect themselves. We're really in this, in this, uh, I don't know if we usually call it a triangulation. We're in this triangulation of where people need money.

They need jobs. They need income. They got employees there. They, you know, they have a personal effect to feed their children. Uh, there's, there the virus which you know is unmitigated unregulated does whatever it wants and we're kind of at largely at the mercy of that uh uh you know for i mean there's some things we can do but there's no guarantees you can wear a mask and if you breathe in the right air it gets behind the mask or you touch something and then take your mask off, touch your face, you know, welcome to the virus. It's crazy. And so one of the reasons I wanted to have you on, you posted on Facebook, and you post a lot of great stuff on Facebook. People should follow you there as well.

I believe it was like a, and the word escapes me, but it was a release, I think, for businesses and things like that? It was. It was just an approach. So we've got some friends here. We're in California, and we have different cities, different counties in California are starting to open back up. They're starting to designate what's an essential business, what businesses are being allowed to open back up, where you have local police departments looking the other way, you have the local mayor looking the other way, things like this. And so it is happening. And what I thought I'd do is, number one, on the record, I think it's too soon, and I'll just leave it at that.

But having said that, for companies and businesses that are opening up, we talked about some different business methods, approaches, and tips they want to pay attention that are opening up. We talked about some different business methods, approaches, and tips they want to pay attention to when opening up. For example, if you're a small business owner and you're opening your doors next week for the first time to the general public, you want to revisit what type of business liability insurance

you already have or you need to get and whether or not that general business liability coverage will protect you from claims being brought by customers or clients for becoming infected with COVID-19. They incur medical bills. They are hospitalized. God forbid somebody passes away. If that client or customer claims that they received that virus while in your premises, what protection do you have under your insurance policies, if any? And look, causation claims like that are difficult to win in court. But what I don't want to see are my friends opening up businesses, being brought into litigation, having to use all their time, all their expenses,

all their money to take care of the litigation expenses to fight claims that either don't have merit or there's a stronger chance than not that that customer was not infected in their barber shop or in their donut shop, but in fact, you know, at a gathering down at the beach a week earlier or two weeks earlier. And if you have business liability insurance covers that covers you, then your insurance company and your insurance company defense attorneys will be running with the ball on that and not you. So that's the first thing I've asked my friends to do was to make sure they've got liability coverage. Are you, are you seeing any insurance? I haven't shopped for insurance on this, but, uh, um, uh, hopefully insurance companies are picking it up that,

or you might have to buy a blanket policy and make sure that it's covered under the blanket policy. But that's really good advice. Every policy is different. And what you want to do is see under your existing policy if you would be covered. The question is, you ask your agent, am I covered if somebody brings a COVID-19 claim against me, alleging that either I or my employees infected them with the virus? If not, do you offer any type of rider, any type of additional insurance coverage to provide liability protection? That's the first series of questions I would have with my agent or with the new insurance company that I think a lot of people haven't thought about. And whether or not full, complete, and adequate coverage is out there, I'm not really

sure. It's going to be state-specific. And by the way, why don't we start off, and we are going to talk about waivers and hold harmless agreements and disclaimers, which is something a lot of business owners haven't thought about. But let me start off with, although I am a California lawyer, I'm not your lawyer and I'm speaking to your audience. No legal advice is given. You know, seriously, you guys, this California State Bar requires me to say that. But I do want to have an open conversation with some things that you guys may want to look at. If you have a question, contact an experienced lawyer in your state to get that question answered. Okay, but the first topic would be business liability

insurance, Chris, and business owners need to really check into that before opening their doors. The second thing is to check with their state health and safety requirements. What does your state require you to do, generally speaking, to protect your customers from exposure to any kind of virus or disease, much less COVID-19. And states are rolling out new requirements, you know, things that we've all heard about on the news, washing your hands, wearing a mask, maybe wearing gloves, staying six to ten feet apart between the person working behind the counter and the customer or the client? Are you satisfying all of these state mandated and in some cases, federally mandated safety requirements? When you're watching this video or listening to this podcast,

has your state, has the federal government rolled out some type of new immunity law where i'm hearing conversations taking place and i'm not a big fan of this we can talk about it where if you open up your business and a claim like we're discussing is brought you're immune from liability they can't legally bring a lawsuit against you. And there's discussions taking place at the federal and state level, whether or not these new laws will roll out. What are the pros and cons? What are good and bad about these laws? Well, the good part, the good thing about an immunity clause, an immunity provision is that it allows business owners to open up their businesses without having to worry about being sued for transmitting COVID-19. The bad

news is, and what I've seen as a trial lawyer, is anytime you have an immunity, I feel like the business owner, the product manufacturer, whether it's big pharmacy, whether it's big insurance, what I see them doing is not using that immunity to provide a better service to the customer or client, use that immunity to protect their quarterly and annual profits and returns. That money's not put back into the business to make things safer. And so it's one of these things where each state needs to carefully look at immunity laws, immunity rules and regulations to make sure that's best for their citizens. And as a business owner opening up their doors, you know, pay attention to what's happening with the laws in your state, because if these laws roll out, then

it may give you an opportunity to go back to your insurance company and modify or change the amount of liability protection that you have, which may actually bring down your insurance premiums. So just pay attention to all these things. And I would say also document that. I mean, document the, you know, you have a six foot, six to 10 foot rule, washing your hands, masks. You know, I would have employees be signing that. I'd have, you know, notices put up in the business to say, hey, we are supporting this. I actually tweeted out something from a pizza shop in Ohio yesterday where they literally said, we don't care about PPE, come shop and buy our pizzas. We believe in the

constitution. Some of the issues that I'm seeing surrounding this is people don't realize this isn't a constitutional issue. This is a health department, you know, coronavirus thing. It's a life or death issue. If I was running around with Ebola infecting people and it was an airborne infection on Ebola, which it's not, and, you know, you were melting down inside like Ebola does, you would want me in quarantine. You wouldn't want me running around going, yeah, my constitutional rights.

So it's really important people do that distinction. I was reading the kind of viral news right now. There's a gal somewhere back east who has a hair shop, and the court actually told her to close and to follow the health state guidelines, and she went, no, my constitutional rights, blah, blah, blah. And she went, you know, my constitution rights. And so she stayed open against the judge's order and the judge imprisoned her for seven days.

And, you know, she's saying that it's a freedom thing, but it's a health and public department quarantine thing. And, um, so people need to realize that. And,

and, and I love your points that you brought up, uh, in your posts and then on, on some of the notes that we have here. So moving to that next note, you talked about the importance of writing this down, signs and everything else. Sure. And it's a two-edged sword. So think about this for a second.

Let's say you're a small business owner. You have a donut shop. And so you have a sign out front talking about the health safety issues that COVID-19 exposes all of us to. Enter our donut shop at your own risk, that type of sign. Okay. Generally speaking, what I found with local businesses is we're going to do business with our friends that we're seeing every day, the same coffee shop, the same sandwich shop. A sign is not going to keep me from walking in. If I've made that decision to go out in public and buy a sandwich, you know, I appreciate the fact the owners put a sign out there, but I'm still going to walk in. But I think having signage

is important both out front in the lobby, depending on what type of company you have. I think what's also important is when you're selling tickets, you're selling product online, you're inviting people to come into your offline local sandwich shop or donut shop. Also online, share these waivers, these disclaimers, these hold harmless agreements that we're going to be talking about in your online links, in your coupons that customers are bringing with them into the store. Also, if you're a doctor, a lawyer, a CPA, an accountant, think about including hold harmless release and waiver provisions in your retainer agreements. We are not meeting with clients one-on-one right now. Everything we're doing is virtual, using Zoom, working from home, the whole team,

Chris. And I have lost a few clients because I've refused to meet with them across from a conference table. I'm not willing to take that risk. I don't know where they were this morning or last night or last week. The health and safety of my family, my in-laws who are in their 80s, is 1 million times more important than that case. Having said that, we've also brought in a lot of new business because we offer our services via zoom, via bomb bomb and other live video services. So it's something that we've always done and it does help us separate ourselves from everyone else. Um, but if you do meet with the client and let's just say it's a month from now, and more

and more businesses are opening up, you can have a provision in your retainer agreements that limits liability from COVID-19 infection if those agreements are done, if those provisions are written correctly, and they're allowed to exist under state law. Not every state allows for hold harmless, disclaimer, and releases. So you need to check with a lawyer in your state. But the point is, is oftentimes in writing, we can have a meeting of the minds with our client or customer so that we both know what's part of this business transaction. It's not only me providing you with a fresh sandwich or with an estate plan, but there's also a meeting of the minds that by you coming into the firm and us sitting down for an hour that we're both exposing

each other to different viruses and diseases that we otherwise wouldn't be exposing ourselves to. And I do see these provisions becoming more prevalent, not only in the next month, but over the next 10 years because of what we're experiencing right now. Everything's going to change. Now, having said that, imagine having the signs in your sandwich shop and somebody walks in and they see Chris behind the counter making a sandwich, coughing, no mask, rubbing his arm across his nose, wiping it on the roast beef, wrapping it up and giving it to you.

You eat it, and a week later you come down with COVID-19. These signs are a two-edged sword. In other words, as a business owner placing these signs in the general public's view, you're putting them on notice that you're aware of the risk to infection. There's a higher standard of care, a higher duty owed to your customer, and it will be easier for an infected customer to bring a claim against you under that set of circumstances. So you've got to walk your talk is what I'm getting at. Walk your talk. Do what you say you're going to do. Don't just agreements, releases, and liability waivers, depending on what you do for a living, but in your business transactions. And what are those?

Those are written documents, short or long. They are state-specific. Not all states, not all occupations, not all businesses are allowed to use these types of documents. There are public policy issues. There are other legal issues that you want to check with a lawyer in your state. But if you are able to include a whole harmless agreement or a waiver in your business transaction, then what that is, it's a document that says if Chris is infected and he comes after me and I'm the sandwich shop owner, or the corporation that owns this sandwich shop franchise. This document allows my lawyers to go into court and basically have the lawsuit kicked out of court, because we have a release, a hold harmless agreement, and a waiver

of liability. He's given up his right to bring a claim against me. Now, there are exceptions. There are ways to attack these documents. And these documents don't always apply under many different circumstances. So once again, I do think that businesses should start incorporating these documents into their everyday business efforts. But each state is going to be different as to who can and can't use these types of documents. So I know I put a lot out there, but I also want to plant some seeds and get people to start thinking about just doing business the right way at arm's length and in an intelligent fashion. You made me realize a few things. I need to actually, uh, add, uh, enter

your own risk and, uh, hold harmless policies to the beginning of every podcast and my Tinder profile. You know, there's a whole, there's a whole nother thing right there. Absolutely. When you tap, when you tap and swipe, right, you're assuming any and all risk and liability. If you're listening to the Chris Vaughn show right now, you are legally obliged to hold the house harmless. So let me – It's crazy. Isn't there a factor in the law?

To my understanding, there's a factor in the law where if you try and do diligence, it gives you a little bit of credit or some leeway and liability if you try to do the best job you could. Like if you just didn't throw careless to the wind and the judge goes, you really didn't care, or you were posting signs that you didn't care in your front window. You weren't following the OSHA laws of putting up the,

I don't know if it's OSHA or it's the health department, but the employees wash their hands stuff. And you've got to show that you at least tried, right? And I think there's some factors in the law for that. There are. So there are different theories of liability. There are negligence-based claims, whereas the owner of a business, you have a duty to provide a reasonably safe premises.

Did you breach that duty? Was that breach the causation of the other person's harm or injury? And then were there damages? So it's a four-step process in most states. If you're reckless, if Chris is behind the sandwich booth, like we described earlier, and you've got somebody that told you they had COVID-19, they've been out for two weeks, but you dragged them in, okay, and made them serve sandwiches to their clients, you know, were you being reckless?

I think, yes, you were as a business owner. Were you intentionally exposing customers to COVID-19? Yeah, I think probably there's an argument that it was an intentional act. And let's just take a step back. Back in around 2007, 2008, I was trying a case in Riverside, Chris. It was a wrongful death case involving Riverside Police Department, San Bernardino Police Department, something like that. And we were trailing. There was another case in front of us.

And this is relevant to what I'm talking about. And the case in front of us, and I watched the jury verdict come back, had to do with somebody, a gentleman being sued for giving his girlfriend or fiance of many years herpes. And the allegations were that he knew he had herpes. He didn't take any precautions to protect her from exposing her to herpes. He gave her herpes. It harmed her in many, different ways obviously but also i think

it was a reproductive type of issue and the jury came back at something like 6.2 million dollars okay because he gave her a virus that's the bottom line he knew he had it he was reckless he didn't take reasonable precautions and he gave her the virus. I was sitting in that courtroom and I watched the verdict come down. We then tried our case the following two weeks and our case came back with a $5.5 million verdict. So that courtroom was busy for about a month, right? But the point is, is I watched a virus verdict go down, which held up on appeal. And so I could see that happening today with anyone. If you've got COVID-19 and you're reckless and you're careless or you intentionally disregard someone else's rights, you may be exposing yourself to liability.

And you know what? I'm okay. I mean, I think you are liable. You got to be careful with what you do. So hopefully these talking points will help business owners make good, smart decisions that not only protect their customers and their clients, but also protect them because I'm a big fan of small business. You know, I started my practice out of the back of my car with a couple of cardboard boxes back in 1986, playing basketball down at main beach all day, making a couple of phone calls. Frankly, I was done. I didn't have anything else to do back in the day. I had a couple of clients. Most of them were out on the court shoot playing ball with me. And, um, so I'm

a big fan of small business and entrepreneurs. And so I just want to make sure that when they open back up, that they do so in a smart, intelligent way. And that they protect their rights and they protect their business while also protecting their customers and clients. Yeah. I mean, it's up here where I'm at in Utah writing a book right now. We actually have two outbreak hotspot cases that just the couple of days got put out by the health department. One company forced an employee, told an employee, you know, we don't care that you're sick, get into work. They hosted birthday parties.

And in Utah, we have a lot of families, big families, let's put it that way. And so they, and so this employee went to this birthday party, whatever they do at events and stuff infected the, everybody. Uh, we have another business that, uh, uh, they totally communicated, I guess, according to the health department that I read this morning, uh, they totally communicated that they didn't give a crap about any PPE or any sort of, you know, it's all just silly hoax. Uh, one of their employees got sick. They had him tested.

But after that, they still let the employee come to work, I guess. So now 63 employees are infected. The health department has, you know, these guys thought they were smart to get fired up and going. The health department has shuttered their business for an indefinite time. As they should have yeah that just sounds reckless you know and irresponsible to me real quick if you don't mind me asking i don't want to what you're writing a book what are you writing what's the topic of your book it's going to be a book uh kind of stories of my life lessons of my life how i built my companies from since i was 18 uh it's going to be kind of like Harvey McKay's books.

It'll be, if you read him. Swim with the sharks. Swim with the sharks and never buy a shark. But they don't teach you at Harvard Business School. Yeah. I've read Harvey's books. So it's going to be a lot of his stories. There's actually going to be my favorite attorney story

that I learned. If I could go back, honestly, I started my first company when I was 18. But honestly, if I could go back, I would have become an attorney. I love the Constitution. I love the rights. I love the aspect of it. could go back honestly i started my first company i was 18 but honestly if i could go back i would become an attorney i love the constitution i love the rights i love the aspect of it the science of it the the the cerebralness of it it's there's never a dull moment never don't i mean so look at what's happening right now well this is kind of a dull moment for me well i understand that i

understand people have never you're the one who brings all the enlightenment and joy to the podcast. That's why I have never been accused of being the, yeah, you know, I'm sorry about that. It's interesting though, because I was talking to my daughter about this when she was thinking about law school and I said, AJ, here's the thing. Everything's changing. Every single year, something changes, whether it's technology, AI, Bitcoin, live video. Now we're looking at pandemic liability, pandemic law, as far as how can we protect business owners. There's always something fascinating going on. Whistleblower statute law, right? Constitutional law, political law, governmental immunity. There's so many things going on right now that we weren't even talking about three years ago. And I think that's why I

like practicing law is because it is interesting and there's never a dull moment, Chris. And despite all the jokes, despite all the bad news people seem to talk about. I have never been around a more interesting, fascinating, dynamic group of human beings, just so you know. It's like anything else. You know, the good, hardworking lawyers aren't the ones that make the front page of the newspaper or a blog post, right? In other words, you don't get credit for doing the right thing and working your ass off each and every day. The people that get a flashlight shined on them are the ones that do something silly, say something wrong and end up in jail. But this is a fascinating time. And real quick, before I forget, for anyone listening that wants to either have a lawyer create these documents for them, a hold harmless agreement, a waiver, and a release of liability, or do it themselves. I have a couple of links that I can share with your audience.

So you want to have good documents. The documents you're creating are only as good as the information you put into them. If you're a lawyer and you want to provide your clients with these documents, you want a source where, hey, where can I put together a template waiver so that when the next 20 clients come in, I can create a quality document for them at a low price. There's a really cool service. I have no business relationship with this service, but it's cool. And it's called Documate, D-O-C-U-M-A-T-E dot org, dot document.org. And it allows business owners and lawyers to create a template document, allow their clients to go online, fill it out online, and it creates a final document. So I think lawyers and professionals

can use that service. Consumers can use LegalZoom.com. They can use RocketLawyer.com. And understand once you put these documents together, using those online cloud-based services probably would be a good idea to have a lawyer look them over to make sure they comply with your state law or any new laws that roll out between now and when you watch this video or listen to the podcast but i think those are services that will allow you to put something together uh that that should work pretty well as long as you you know it's the garbage in garbage out type of scenario so be careful with the information you put in but that should get people going in the

right direction as far as creating the documents that they need. I used to ride and race motocross for about 38 years, Chris, and down at Elsinore, the track we'd go into when you drive into the track, you paid them your 10 bucks and then you had to sign a release, a way of liability, right? So of course, day one, day two, I look at this clipboard and I tell the guy, you know, this isn't going to hold up under California law. Just so you know, I'll sign it. I just want to ride. I don't really care. And I'm the last guy that would ever sue you. I don't, you know, it's not the way I roll. I love playing with toys and I think we should be able to hang glide and race motocross and ride jet skis without having to worry about suing the manufacturer or the person who

rents us this stuff. But I said, dude, this thing's not going to hold up. And he goes, really, what do you guys do? Now, the first couple of times we went through, we're like, we're in sales. We don't like down the track. We're just low key. We don't want people bugging us. But you know, by the third time, 30 bucks into this, right? It's my third time that week. I'm like, you know, this is what we do if you want me to redesign the waiver for you i'd be happy to but you've got to just give me the green light every kind of time i come in he goes done deal so so we took their waiver and we uh had a we we complied had them comply with california law so they're protected if somebody gets hurt

at the track it allowed us to have access to that particular track while we were still riding and racing. But the same thing applies with business owners. Whether you're selling a sandwich, selling donuts, cutting hair, you want to make sure that maybe when people sign in on your sign-in sheet, they're also acknowledging a well-written waiver release and hold harmless agreement. I think that would be a really good idea. Definitely, definitely. I mean, it's just so important to do these things. You have to think about them as a business person, and you have to think about them ahead of time.

Because I'll hear a lot of people being like, hey, I'm going to sue, they have to win, blah, blah, blah. And you're like, no, you don't understand. Whether you win or lose, whether you're suing or being sued, you still have to pay attorney's fees and court costs. And so it can cost you money. And I've had lawsuits when we got sued with our businesses that regardless of whether they settled and no one admitted fault and no one paid either person um uh or or we won or they won you know there was always that cost of attorney's fees and um well there are valid costs

you know when you're get yourself in the thing the better point is don't get in don't get sued in the first place so do the preparation do the pre-work you know lay it on good foundation inevitably if you build enough business a big, you're going to get sued. I mean, it's just inevitable in my book. Three times. Before the internet, before social media, the average was three times in your business life. You're going to find yourself at the receiving end of a claim or a lawsuit.

I think that number is going to double or triple because of how easy it is now to start an online business. Anybody in 15 minutes, without any experience, because of how easy it is now to start an online business. Anybody in 15 minutes without any experience can set themselves up for business. And I see the liability level increasing. And you made a good point, especially when we talk about intellectual property and copyright stuff that I see all the time. That's what I talk about with social media, social media events and things like that. And that is maybe you do have the right to use something under the fair use doctrine. But what I've seen in the real world and how this works is that if a big company feels that they don't think you have the right to use a piece of content,

whether it's written, audio, video, music, whatever it might be. It could cost you three years of your life. It could cost your company hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in court, many sleepless nights to prove that you were right. Yeah. Right. And you just don't want to put yourself in that situation. So I'm hoping that if companies take these steps and are the recipient of a claim or a lawsuit, for example, if I was the defense attorney, there would be enough here for me to make a good, sound, reasonable argument

to number one, just have the other side walk away early in the case. Number two, maybe win a motion for summary judgment, which means have the case kicked out of court. Or number three, if we did go to trial to get a defense verdict for my client, where the jury comes back and says that our clients didn't do anything wrong. Real story. I've got a friend that rents jet skis down in Dana Point, California. And years ago, he rented a jet ski to somebody who signed a written waiver and release. I'm not going to tell you where that waiver and release came from, but it was a good one. She went out in the Pacific Ocean and unrelated to his rental company, some idiot out there was operating another watercraft under the influence.

And he bombed her. And when he hit her from the side, he took her leg off. Devastating, tragic accident. So his company was sued for renting her a jet ski and failing to warn her that there may be intoxicated jet ski drivers out on the Pacific Ocean. This was the case. And so we got involved and I was able, obviously, to get it kicked out of court based upon that written waiver and liability release, in addition to common sense. And my argument with the judge was, look, that's just like allowing this lawsuit to move forward is like allowing someone to fly into John Wayne Airport,

which is our local airport in Orange County, rent a Hertz Rent-A-Car, back in the day, we didn't have Uber and Lyft back then, and then drive out on the 405 freeway and get hit by a wrong-way driver, intoxicated driver in Hurt, and suing Hertz Rent-A-Car for failing to warn that person that there might be drunk drivers out on the 405 freeway. And the judge says, you're right. Case dismissed.

So by documenting the rights and liabilities between you and your customers and doing it, like Chris said, before happens yeah uh it can help avoid being in this mess in the first place or more of it keeping people like me out of your life right well you want Mitch in your life there's a lot you learn I learned from you Mitch I'm not only in life and everything else and follow you but I do have to admit half the reason I watch your live videos when you go for your walk down on Dana Point Beach and stuff just to see the background it's just for the scenery man I'm just checking in to see what's the reason I watch your live videos when you go for your walk down Dana Point Beach and stuff, just to see the background. It's just for the scenery, man. I'm just checking in to see what's going on. I miss that so much. I mean, we are social distancing here in Southern California. We're staying inside. We're doing everything that we think that we need to do, which includes, Chris, I'm not out running right now. I'm putting in an hour a day, putting an hour a day. I've got a 20 year old life step down on my man cave, which is for the, it's like

a stair step, you guys. And I'm putting in one or two hours a day on that. And it's great. I'm lucky to be able to do that. But for those of you that know me, I love running, running around town. I mean, we've got some beautiful seamy down here and I miss it. But the reason I'm not doing it is I am concerned about airborne contamination. And I don't know who was there five minutes in front of me or one to two hours in front of me before I ran through that spot. And the scientific information that I'm reading and seeing that I think is accurate is that in some cases, almost like a hairspray, like an aerosol spray, the COVID-19 virus, it can remain, depending on the situation, airborne. And so for me, I'm just staying away from that. But Chris, I miss that so much. And I love, I love sharing my experiences.

I don't know about you, but when I'm out doing something, the endorphins kick in. So I'll go for a run and I, and something will come to mind. And as I'm running, I'll start thinking, wow, there's maybe something here the consumer might want to know. And so I'll just go ahead and either stop and pull up the phone or if I am planning ahead, I'll pull out the GoPro, shoot that five minute video and I'm, and I come back a better man and hopefully share a little bit of legal information with the consumer.

But I miss that. And I'm not sure when we're going to be back out there as of today. Hopefully someday soon. I sure hope so, man. I know our beaches just opened back up, but we're not going down there. Yeah, I've been watching some of the beaches uh the protests going on there i'm just like i i'm really surprised that a lot of police officers aren't have don't have mask yet but maybe i shouldn't be because of the supply but

i i anytime i see one of these police officers that are face to face with this you know some raging protester um and and and i don't see in police. It doesn't have a mask. I'm just like, oh my God, I really feel for the guy. Yeah, I don't get that either. It's out there on the front line of the thing. So you've given us some great tips today. I certainly appreciate your insight, Mitch. And like I said, Mitch has a lot of different aspects and assets you want to take and follow online, follow him on Facebook and everything else. So anything more we need to know, Mitch, before we schedule you for the next one in the year?

Well, I'll tell you what. I want to see, and once again, we are talking business, right? Business and law. I want to see everybody survive and businesses flourish. Once again, I don't think it's the right time, but when it is the right time for you who's listening to this podcast, watching this video, when it's the right time for you to open up the doors to your business, think about some of the things that we've talked about. Make sure you're complying with your local community and local state laws, rules, and regulations, and put the customer and client's best interests first. And I think if you do that, everything else will fall into place.

I think we need to make good long-term decisions right now, Chris. Short-term decisions have never been good in the law, in business, or on social media. Long-term decisions are the way, in my opinion, to live your life, especially now. And I encourage everyone to make good decisions and always put customer and client's best interests first. And if you do that, everything else will fall into place. Definitely, definitely. And, you know, the other thing is too, is we don't, I think you alluded to this earlier in the show, Mitch. We don't know. This could just be like a two-year thing, but something worse could come. So it's probably good to lay down this foundation of documents and liability insurance, et cetera, et cetera.

Absolutely. I agree 100%. Well, thanks, Mitch. Give us your plugs one more time where everyone can check on you in the near webs. Well, I'll tell you what. The social media side video, if you guys go to livevideo.lawyer or streaming.lawyer, you can always catch up with me there.

And from there, just click, follow, connect, and we'll make it happen. And I have a Wednesday night legal marketing show, Chris, which is fairly new. We're three or four weeks in, but it's really picked up some traction. It's Wednesday nightlegegalMarketing.live. So if anyone out there is a lawyer and would like to learn how to use social media and digital to build their brand, build relationships, connect with us on Wednesday nights, and I think you'll find it interesting.

Awesome sauce. I love Mitch. He gives me the greatest advice and just following him on Facebook and everywhere. He's inspirational, a brilliant guy, speaker, author, all that good stuff. Check out his book on amazon.com. What's the name of the book again, Mitch? Do you want to plug it there? The book, yeah. The book is The Ultimate Guide to Social Media for Business Owners, Professionals, and Entrepreneurs. And Chris, I had, I don't know if you and I knew each other back then, but I had 46 experts from around the world contribute chapters to the book. And my favorite part, by the way, is the third section of the book, which is all about communication.

What we do as trial lawyers and bringing that communication persuasion approach to social media, that's my favorite part, and I think everyone's going to enjoy it. Definitely so. So check those things out. Follow Mitch online. I highly, highly recommend you. He's one of my favorite people on Facebook. Thank you, Chris. Be sure to refer the show to your friends, dears, relatives, dogs, cats, mistresses, pool boys. Let them all know. Sign up for the chrisfossshow.com podcast.

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