The Dumb Zone FREE - DZ 7-4-25 | Lawyer Roundtables Parts 3 + 4

Episode Date: July 4, 2025

Shows are free all this week!The part you've been waiting for. The hearing of Kemp et all vs. Susquehanna (00:00) - The Hearing Pt. 1 (24:34) - The Hearing Pt. 2 (01:27:11) - NLRB Update (01:49:23) - The Settlement ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Hello, I'm Dan McDowell, longtime professional broadcaster. Why subscribe to our Patreon podcast? Well, perhaps you support our struggle to get out from under the oppressive thumb of the man. Or objectively, if you sign up at patreon.com slash the dumb zone, you will get the two episodes per week that are available on all podcast platforms like this one. Plus an additional two episodes each week that are exclusive to Patreon. So subscribing on Patreon gets you four episodes per week. Oh my, what a bargain.

Now, on to today's program. No. Promise. Alright, Tuesday, July 8th, 1130, the dumb zone. At Waterburger and Frisco, that is at El 1130, the Dumb Zone at Water Burger and Frisco. That is at El Dorado in the Dallas North Tollway. It's the 75th anniversary year for Water Burger and to celebrate that, they are partnering with us to give away a car tray.

That's right. Dumb Zone branded. Water Burger. Dumb Zone brand on it. You're listening to the Dumb Zone, You're eating your water burger in the car. The world is right. Clayton you were saying there's a special spot on here. What? This is your sauce? They got a little indentions in the corner. You can put a little spicy ketchup packet up there. Roll around on you. The gravy goes well on the one that's a circle. Yes. Okay well that looks like it's for a cup though. Normies would put a cup there.

I would put my banana pudding shake there. Yeah. OK. What can you not do with this Whataburger tray? Get it somewhere besides that Tuesday at 1130. Great answer! This is the only place! Beat number 76.

This is the only place you can get it. You can't get it at the Whataburger store. You can't get it online. You can't get it on eBay. You can't get it at the flea market. Should I keep listing places you can't get it at the Wada store. You can't get it online. You can't get it on eBay. You can't get it at the flea market. Should I keep listing places you can't get it? You can't get it as an NFT? No.

Or an ape? Only July 8, Tuesday, 1130, Wada Burger, Frisco, El Dorado, and the Tollway. All right, all right, all right, all right, all right. All right, all right, all right, all right, all right. I never listen. I'm going to listen. I want to listen to the drums.

The key to muscles and oh, no, we're not doing that. Shout out, though, to Game Day Men's Health. Love them. Love Whataburger. We're going to be at Wadaburger next week. We want to start these by promoting that. I would like people to be out at Wadaburger, El Dorado, and the Tollway, in Frisco, Tuesday, Tuesday July 8th.

And we're giving away 75 Wadaburger slash Dum Zone branded car trays. A vision of young Jake Jake uses car trays that Whataburger came to us and said hey We want to do a bit together. What do you have in the say less? Yeah And so we got a awesome car tray, but there's 75 of them It's very exclusive in honor of their 75th anniversary this year them. It's very exclusive in honor of their 75th anniversary this year. So please come out and see us. We'll be starting at 11 30. We'll start giving those babies away at 11 30. Baby. And happy 4th of July. Oh, and happy 4th of July. I mean, I'm an America guy first. If you're out there grilling

and listening with your whole family. Yeah. What this What this is is day two of Blake put together some best of stuff. It is the last two installments of our lawyer roundtable. You're watching Karen Reed, right? Back when we were getting sued, I am watching Karen Reed. So I know you're only a couple in. I finished it. And we'll talk about it, I'm sure, when we get back a little bit, real topical.

But I don't want to talk about the case. But it is wild to watch you know I'm not saying we were being accused of murder but the like huddle up all day huddle ups with your attorneys and like these little offices and your order to take out and your it put me back in the place a little bit. But as I'm watching Karen Reed I'm thinking are we just are we really weak? Because I thought it was such a huge thing we were going through. This lady might go to prison for her whole life. Yeah, but we wouldn't have been able to.

And she's recording like a documentary during it, like, hey, hey. OK, that's a big deal. We would not have been able to do podcasts. And that's also the world needs. Yes, we wouldn't be able to do podcasts for like three months. Right. You need to think of the horror. So, the world needs. Pretty similar, yes. We wouldn't be able to do podcasts for like three months. Right. Think of the horror. So yeah, so a couple years ago we recorded a bunch of episodes with our lawyers.

People said they liked it, so that's why we think that you would like to hear it as well, especially if you, you know, these were behind a paywall before. We're opening this up for free. So. I love America. Man the trial or no? Hearing. Wasn't a trial, a hearing. Felt like a trial. Mini trial. But it was to me it was incredible and I thought everybody was incredible in that and Frank like it seemed like TV you know it's like let's take a look at

rewind the tape and what you said earlier and let's just one of the days lead him down a path or one of the days when you weren't there. It might have been when we were in Liz's office. I don't remember, but I don't know. I was so anxious and so nervous and just trying to like relieve my nerves a little bit. And I made all of them listen to my impression of each of them Do you remember this? I thought that was a mediation

It might have been mediation It was a mediation When you weren't there I mean Frank's the down home auditory lawyer Let's hear it man You know what I'd rather hear? I'd rather hear Frank go at Blake I don't know if he could just flip it like that

Mr. Jones It's always the lean forward the glasses off Yeah, like take the glass. Yeah down. Yeah. Well Bob the mediator and I were both very convinced that They were not going to go forward with the September 15th hearing And Bob's Bob's specific word to me was they shouldn't And Bob's specific word to me was they shouldn't. So, you know, I was surprised that they felt like they had to have a courtroom outcome.

And I can only assume that that's because of some dynamic between the client and the lawyer. I don't know what else to ascribe that to. And so I was, you know, we felt there, I think your team, the four of us felt extremely confident that you guys were as prepped as you possibly needed to be. And part of the reason that the prep is difficult and it does wear you the hell out like that. And it's not just you, Dan, it's everybody. Anybody who spends a day trying to get prepped for court is going to feel really tired.

And it's because what we're doing is trying to put you through something that is worse than what you're going to experience on the stand. Well, and you did. You did because I kept thinking the day we woke up while we're in court, like once before I got called up there, they got some, there's a zinger. I don't know. I'm smoking gun. I've said a lot of stuff. I don't remember anything. You know, I'm sure I said something and they pulled,

they're going to play a piece of audio that I'm not ready for. They're going to make me look, they're going to pull my pants down up here. What do they have? There is something that that How many conversations did you and I have like that? That our lawyers didn't think of. Every night, Dan and I are like, what are we not? What are we not seeing? Yes, and I think Matt's even told us once, he's like, I woke up at four,

and I was reading everything again, because I'm trying to think, what did I miss? Like, what did I? Because their behavior was so irrational, and this is the thread through all of this, is you're like, okay, you're trying to make sense of it, and it didn't make sense. And I mean, we saw with the hearing,

which I'm sure you're gonna get into, like it was a disaster for them. Maybe something was planted from one of those Reddit or My Ticket Confession was like, they've got a, they're gonna put a, they got a boot or they got a Trump card or something was like a. I don't want a boot. So no, I'm like they've got a they're going to put a they got a boot or they got a card or something was like a I don't want to boot we have we have a rag tag group of lawyers that don't know each other they've never worked together they I don't know them they have like this huge high-priced firm that

if when I told McCool who they're from, he's like, oh, that's a big time, oh my gosh, this guy's an NLRB expert, you know? Like, oh my gosh, you know? Who's Matt Brunig? He's this guy who bothers people on Twitter. And it's like, I don't know, maybe, they've got to have some kind of, you know, it's intimidating when you see a group of guys walk in with their briefcases Oh extremely and it's it's true and they've got money to you know, there's no end to their

Money, they could let this go for two years. That's what Liz would tell it like hey, you know Do you guys have the money to let this go for two years? I don't know if you know no we don't and they're you know this go for two years? I don't know if you know no we don't and they're you know so anyway but it never came it never what there was never the zinger that you know we can start talking the trial now and I don't know if you want not trial sorry the hearing but to me like I mean I don't know what you guys were surprised with but when they brought up like you know did you ever think of geo fencing your podcast and I'm like no like I think what they're referring to is kind of a technology what I'm what I'm aware of it was with the scooters when you have a scooter in Los Angeles yeah you can drive around but when you get close to the Staples Center,

all of a sudden it just stops working. There's some technology in the air that makes it, okay, I don't know how it does it, but I guess they can shut down something, right? You can be in a room where no cell phones will work, because they have a... And I think the most common iteration of it is online gambling, right? Like you can't go to Pennsylvania's you know you can

gamble online in Pennsylvania at like it's just like the lottery. So they're they were saying you should have yeah done something to make your podcast not be available to anyone. Basically they were saying that but you should check the IP of everyone who comes in and the location of the IP and only In the DFW area. Yeah Exactly, okay. Yeah, they're third way between saying you can't podcast at all and saying no We're not saying that he couldn't pot test at all, but he couldn't podcast in this area Yeah, yeah

and and the that was a surprise that had not been in any of their pleadings that had Not been in their their complaint. So we want surprise it did come as a surprise and I sort of wish I Sort of wish we would have seen that argument before because it Afterwards I looked into it and it was ridiculous argument. The only way you could actually do that is if you control the means of broadcasting. In other words, you can't do it. We controlled Patreon.com. Exactly.

If you put your stuff on Patreon, you can't geofence. You can only do it on your own. Yeah. Like hosted website. If you own the means of broadcasting broadcasting whether it's the radio station or you know they use geo fencing a lot in in in advertising like they'll shoot out ads but we only want ads around our store to cell phones that are around our store that kind of thing you can do but you have to be in control of the means of broadcasting and when you guys put your stuff on

control of the means of broadcasting. And when you guys put your stuff on Apple Podcasts or Patreon or YouTube, you don't have any control over who does and doesn't see it. Well, what they were trying to do was, look, we know they didn't have anything. That was the closest thing that they had. And we know that they hadn't thought of it before then because they never mentioned it in mediation. And what they were trying to do is create a situation and this goes back to what you were talking about Dan. It's not a contract. It's not just a contract. That's never how these things go. There's a baseline requirement of reasonableness of whatever relief the judge is going to grant. And so, showing unreasonableness in related matters is incredibly important

to your case. That's why we were hammering you on that so much. And so, the what they were trying to do with that last ditch desperate bullshit geofencing question is to try to get a hook into the judge to say, okay, maybe I'll issue a very limited preliminary injunction that says you got to geofence your podcast. Now, if that had happened, we would have like had the argument about that's not actually possible, Your Honor, and you know, all that stuff would have would have gone from there. There was no reason to really deal with it, especially after Dan swatted it into the second level of the seats.

But that's, you know, it sucks and it's not explainable in rational terms, but it's just they showed up with a bag of nothing. Nothing. they showed up with a bag of nothing. When I liked your one thing that was new before the second hearing was they designated a potential witness. I forgot about that guy. And we were a little worried. We were like, what is this? So Frank took his deposition, you know, was it a couple days before? It was Friday before Monday hearing. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, they, for the listeners, they designated an expert who was an expert on the listening habits of audio listeners, all forms, radio, podcast, streaming, books on audio.

He was a surveyor and he did tons and tons of surveys on what people spent their time listening to and Essentially what they were designated him for was to say that any podcast It competes with the ticket because Your your regular with the ticket because your regular audio consumer only spends a certain finite amount of time in a day consuming audio content of whatever kind and therefore just because podcasts were an audio form that was eating it that would be eating into the tickets audience again because there's only a finite amount of time that people spend listening to or

consuming audio products and it was super general it had no application to this case whatsoever and what I mean by that is he hadn't done any analysis didn't have any data on Dallas FortFort Worth as a market, sports radio as a sub-market, and what kind of impact podcasting in general was having on the specific market of DFW sports listening. So in the law, we call that an analytical gap. He has an opinion that's probably a valid opinion, but it doesn't apply to the facts of our case.

And his, what I know Phillips wanted to jump on is he called this whole concept the share of ear. And that really got Phillips gushed from the very beginning. It's still so funny to me. Though it being essentially you can't listen to two things at once, and I can't remember exactly what the judge said, but at the end of his testimony, she was kind of like, OK, why did we do this?

Yeah, because I felt like he was confusing like an economic concept of competition with a legal concept of competition, right? Like they all seem to be mixing that up. It's not enough to say that someone who's listening here might listen less. It has to be that the form of what you're doing is also competitive, you know, not just in a market share sense, but in similarity of what you're doing exactly. Yeah. And also you guys are convicted because customer is the

advertiser. That's the actual consumer market. It's not the listener and you weren't taking advert. I thought the whole thing was really cool. Oh that was another point. I think that was the most central point. Who's the customer? Correct. Yeah and that we're taking customers away from the ticket. Well no. Yeah. We clearly told customers that wanted to pay us. We're not in that business. There were a couple of other, you know, there's times where I think all three or maybe all four of you guys said that you do this routinely. I know Dan and I do it with the show, but we just get out and you're like, man, why didn't I say

this? Why didn't I think of this? There's been like 20 different things. And I'm like, why didn't I pass Frank this? No, why didn't I tell Liz this? The part where they were complaining about us having confidential info because of the ratings, I mean, they literally have instructed an employee to post the ratings on the internet. And I have at times pushed back on that a little bit because I feel like to me that's like actually my work info that I don't know that we should be putting that out there.

You know sometimes it doesn't look great on us, usually it does, but I just I always thought it was weird that we like have a like a surrogate part-time employee who posts our ratings on Reddit and then they're going to go in front of a judge and say, well, these guys have ratings info that is somehow proprietary and exclusionary and not even think of the fact that I know there's a guy that you've had posted on the internet. Also anyone could buy these. You can't buy them.

I mean, Barry Horn used to do it every month or at least every three months So it's you know, that's not confidential. I'm sorry It's the third party that sells it to anyone who wants to buy it You can buy it for sure But it just it made me insane that it's like you actually have a guy post it every month well, it used to be the law in Texas that Confidential information was one of the only things that could support a non-compete and that that law unfortunately has changed a little bit but they were trying to make the argument that you guys had

confidential information and I have been having this argument with Cumulus for years now about there is no such thing as confidential information that you would give to a radio host Like if you had kind of confidential information, that's the last person you'd give it to yes, please don't give it to us We are We are we are reckless and their their response to that if you guys remember from the negotiation was that If you guys know the details of a remote or a promotion that's totally confidential because the your competitors

could make hay out of that which also isn't quite true but again these are things that you're about to advertise like you don't tell the host right it's confidential there's a promo that will be coming out. It's pretty public. Here's my court notes, and then anybody jump out. So this is the hearing, the actual hearing, which at the end of it, I believe the temporary injunction was denied by the judge. I have that written in my notes.

Correct. So this is Friday, the 15th of September. by the judge. I have that written in my notes. Correct. So this is Friday the 15th of September. At first, everybody's sitting around whispering. There was a squeaky chair and they had somebody come in to remove it. I forgot. Which I... He's very meticulous. I just thought it was just odd, but that's annoying to the judge and I guess, you know. Then we start with let us pray. Which I certainly grew up understanding that there's a separation of church and state, but then I suppose when you...

If you take a look at your money. Swear on a Bible and God, yeah, just let us pray through me for a loop. Oh, okay. I guess we were sitting in, there are pews, you know, there are, and there's a box of Kleenex in every, in every, in every aisle. The judge started out saying she was not happy with the filings yesterday. That was the stuff about Philip on his podcast and us playing nasty audio or something. I don't know.

Then it was the plaintiff opening statement. To be clear, she wasn't happy with their filing. Yes. She also, she wasn't happy that we filed. By trying to play a little both sides like, hey, but, you know, regarding their filing, Philip, why are you spouting off on your podcast? That's kind of what she said. Happy but trying to play a little both sides like hey, but you know regarding their filing Philip Why are you spouting off on your podcast? That's that's kind of what she said she was upset that you were doing it

But she was upset with their filing and she didn't like that We were going tip for tat and so I'll take the hit for that because Philip was very against filing anything Oh, we we filed a response. He read her right and he was like the judge is gonna know this is you know BS and she's not gonna pay attention to it but because of how like serious the allegations they made in there were I just felt like you know we can't not say anything we have to like defend ourselves you know and so we did we filed a short like one or two page thing but you were right Philip we should not have. And for people who have read the transcript that's what she was referring to when she said that the she felt like the kids were fighting in the sandbox.

By the way this is fast-forwarding but fast forward a couple weeks later when we're now in another mediation and actually came to a settlement by the end of that. It was a big news in the courtroom when they found out somebody had bought the transcript because it's apparently a high dollar item. Yeah, that had to have been at least $1,000. It was $1,700. Yeah. To buy the transcript. We've since communicated with that guy.

Yes. But it was not at RB Hust. I want to be clear about that. I was surprised that someone, yeah, just for fun was like, I'm immediately going to request the transcript. Yeah, and I need to read this. It would have been a lot more in state court. I believe he put it out. He put it out on Twitter and whatnot that day, right? Yeah. Yeah. If you'll remember the judge, when we first started the mediation that day, and for the listeners, what happened was the judge had volunteered to serve as a mediator

After our hearing to try to get the case settled and we took her up on that the day that it started she announced to us Somebody has requested the transcript Do you does anybody have any objection to us? Releasing it and I think the only thing was you guys like am I supposed to yeah Well, the only the only issue was... What kind of you guys, like, am I supposed to look to? Well, the only issue was it contained, like, your salary information. Yeah. She wanted to know whether we wanted that redacted.

Yeah. I mean, if we're talking about that the judge actually helped with the, you know, we're the ones who requested that. You know, because when this all ended, she said, all right, both parties, you know, she was like, look, lawyers, why don't we, it seems like in this case, we could just have the people get together and decide, blah, blah, blah. And I think she correctly read it.

And not that it was you guys. You guys were our defense team. We weren't on the offense. But it was kind of like, hey, what if it seems like the individuals here, you know, the local people there and at the business and then us, like, seems like you kind of all want this to go away. So why don't you guys, and yes, I'm the one who called Dan Bennett. I was going to say, I think it speaks to the integrity of Bennett that you know for whatever you get crossways and Negotiations or whatever, but it wasn't like he was just not gonna answer your call. No, he's ready been in court for

Right now we had been through the hearing and we already had done the whole thing that we didn't want to do and he was Still like yeah, I want to be right. Let's let's this out. And yeah, to Dan Bennett's credit, for sure. I'm not sure everybody would have done that. Absolutely. You're absolutely right. People are always asking me, Dan, is it true about Community Mechanical? Are they really that great?

Is your HVAC company that? They are. Why should you sign up for it? Let me do a little shoddy for you, why sign up for preventative maintenance? Well, how about the fact that when Community Mechanical came out, they found an exhaust duct from my furnace, which was disconnected. Hadn't been up in the attic in quite some time. They just did prevent it. Again, they're just looking around, is everything OK? That's all. Everything was not OK.

Basically dumping carbon monoxide into the attic, that could have been very, very bad. You wouldn't hear me saying this right now. No. If it wasn't for communitydfw.com. Just dead. That sounds like they did a little maintenance that was preventative.

And if you do that, then Community Mechanical will gift you $50 in DZ merch. But if you do, sign up. Excuse will gift you $50 in DZ merch, but if you do sign up, excuse me, get a new system with them, they'll get you a sit-in. So if you'd like to come watch the show at the den or at the studio downtown, they'll do that for you at Community Mechanical, communitydfw.com, call or text 469-667-7290. Okay, we unpause here. No puppet or maybe this is a whole new show. We don't know where It's a marathon session

with our awesome dream team of attorneys and Blake will just tell people to go back and listen to episode 1 for the introductions to all that What a jerk me You were the one that was the jerk. Just put them in the show notes. Put them in the show notes. Say your names again.

Who are you? Brian Colley. Liz Griffin. Philip Kingston. McCool Kelker. OK. And then Bernix Gough. And you?

I think our audience knows our voices. OK. And then you? These three or four people that they're hearing, they may just want to get voices straight. I thought we want to reset everything Jake Kemp. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'm Jacob Matthew at all. I know I will say this I've never hung out with all of you guys and At the end of it not been completely exhausted and I think today is yeah proving I thought oh

We'll do this in two hours proving. I thought, oh, we'll do this in two hours. We'll go get something to eat. Like, this has been a long, long session and I'm sure in the next, if we can wrap this at a half hour, hour, it'll, I'll be exhausted by the end of it. So back to, we're back to the middle of the hearing. Not a trial, the hearing. But I do want to say this. This is another thing and it's, it's a bit self-serving, but obviously we didn't want the trial or the hearing to ever happen. We tried to push that back. We tried to do everything we could. We didn't want this negativity. Once we did have the hearing scheduled, now this is the difference in personalities. Philip was ready to call a bunch of witnesses from former coworkers of ours.

We're going to compel that. What do you call it? Sapina. You send a sapina. They're going to have to be up here. We're going to tell... They'll tell the truth. The people that we had called trying to get this pushed forward know some of the things that we could publicize

that would look very bad if we had to go to a hearing. And then there's other stuff. And it's all just subjective look bad, maybe not. But in my mind, I don't want to be negative towards these guys I've worked with for a long time, even the ticket in general. I love them. So, you know, and that's when I think maybe the weekend prior we stepped forward and said, Hey, wait, wait, like we have, we've already been assured, you know, Frank, Liz, Philip, Matt, they're all like, we've got a great chant.

Like, the fact that they are going through with the hearing, it's a bad job by them. We're going to do fine. We're going to come out of that fine. Like I guess what I mean by that is they will not put a restraining order on you. You're going to be able to podcast. Now, there might be a trial though at the end. And that's where we kind of said, hey, let's hold off the big guns. Like you obviously could just destroy them right here, but you also thought, well, I'll also win if I just use one gun. And that's like, say, you know, Adam Romo was the guy who was going to testify. I had other advertisers who I could have gotten to court, but I knew I better save that for

a trial. So that's all I just wanted to state. If anybody disagrees, agrees, remembers that. Oh, no, I remember that. And I think I may be remembering wrong. But I think at that point point we were not at all thinking the case would settle anymore because we did not, we didn't know the judge was going to say at the end of the hearing, I can get involved, you know, in, in, you know, settlement conference or something.

And so we went into the hearing being like, okay, well, we're doing this hearing, then we're doing discovery, then we're going to try. And I'm not criticizing you, Philip. You're an awesome lawyer, and you want to win. And you want to ensure that we're going to win. And so I'm going to call all the witnesses I can to win. Well, also. I think I have a 90% chance of winning. If I call these other people, I have a 95% chance, and I'm going to do it.

It was less about that than about causing pain. And this is the thing that you were very resistant to the entire time. Litigation, really, any kind of negotiation is about the use of pressure, positive and negative. And what we knew is that they were hypersensitive to negative press. And so if we put Bob on the stand, for instance, we could have gotten some really kick-ass Testimony that would have cast them in the shittiest possible light and that's what I was trying to do and I Have a personal relationship to deal with yeah there as do what did same with some of the advertisers?

I didn't want to call in like hey, I you know Yeah, I'm just trying not to and then we have another example of me Listening because yeah, and this right and those he's so pliable Yeah, those people if we called in people that worked for the ticket They have to go back and work for the ticket and for the same people who were in the same courtroom with them who also had to testify and that that was just something that And that really was why like when everything broke down for me that night that Frank is talking about, that was what I was envisioning.

Because as Liz said, like, at that point I thought, alright, well, we're definitely doing this. It is kind of interesting that, to me, the radio station works really well, because in large part it doesn't have a ton of oversight from the way that the rest of corporate radio works. You know, I know that there are other radio stations that try to do this whole like we're rebels against you know the man the ticket just is but there were some things it was kind of like alright well it was clear the people who are representing them really want to know? Right, it was clear in our even negotiations that some things that the parent company doesn't know, they don't have huge communication.

They're not really aware. What other people are doing on the side or whatever. It was kind of like us, one of the whole podcast thing was a hypothetical. We'd like to be able to do something. OK, so you're going gonna do a sports podcast then? No, and Then that's where Dan Bennett would jump in and say yeah

But actually the ticket isn't totally sport like he had to explain to the higher-ups several times He had that was in contract negotiations that led here. So it's it's like no no, that's You know, I think but it's kind of the gift and the curse, right? Yes. Oh, yeah. It was so weird that there was so little communication from ticket level people up to the supposed brains behind the corporation.

Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I've never worked anywhere else. So I don't know how most most of these organizations flow charts work. But in any case, I feel like we were to the point where we're saying we were trying to be somewhat cool. Yeah, it was a theme the whole thing all the way through. Dan was like, it's the be cool strategy. And they just, and we talked about this, you know, the reason they thought y'all were doing nefarious things is because they do

nefarious things. Like they're assuming your behavior is like their behavior. And so, you know, I don't, it was, it never got through to them that we were trying to be cool. I think it got through to some people, but maybe not to people at upper levels. So we're in a hearing. You nailed it that time. We prayed. You have the plaintiff opposing statement or opening statement.

Then you have our opening statement. So remember they're the plaintiff. They are, you know, they're trying to stop us. We're just Little Red Riding Hood. We're doing nothing. Also known as defendants. We're just Little Red Riding Hood. We're doing nothing. Also known as defendants. We're the defendants. Then it's, so apparently the way this works, it's the plaintiff goes first calling witnesses.

And that was a question, right? Did we know whether they were going to call their people or our people first? Is that a choice? It's their choice. Okay, but okay. We talked a lot about it. Because thought maybe, you know, conjecture, they'll call Jake first or me first. I don't remember what we thought, but what they did was they called, it looks like... I don't

remember if it was Dan Bennett or Jeff Catlin first. It was Catlin. Cat was first? Cat was first. OK. So then I'll just tell you my perspective of this, never having been in a trial. So somebody, maybe Liz, had given us Post-It notes. And so the bit is, you've got Post-It notes and a pen.

And I have them all here. I have my stack here. Of all the Post-It notes would if we heard him say something or something was you know I? Think Frank could use this information or lit You know I would write jot something down and I'd hand it over to Liz and then she'd hand maybe decide okay This is worthy of Frank or maybe it's not worthy of Frank or I'd hand something just for Jake Or you know it's a picture of a wiener. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, we went through a lot of post-its. Yeah, it's in, maybe we'll post these someday. I don't know. I think that's probably not legal, but I don't know. It's my notes from during, it was. Okay. You could have been a. I mean, who would I ask?

Yeah. You don't know any lawyers I mean, who would I ask? Yeah. You don't know any lawyers. I don't know any lawyers. Yeah. Had to do with show budget, paying for our websites. I'm just looking at different things. Ratings.

They were saying us leaving was hurting the ratings. And we're like, well, Norm left the week before. Are you saying Norm leaving didn't hurt?'t hurt that could have hurt the ratings and obviously the ratings have been fine quite fine since we've left so like none none of their original arguments held up and would have looked even worse had a trial gotten there in june december i would think is ok now you've come off three number one books and uh... these guys were doing a referral hot you know whatever so well it you know i think that

the key part of that testimony catlin's cross-examination under frank was very useful for us because i think he came off as not being very forthcoming with the court. And he did a really good job of reading him and you know, adjusting. But I think, I think, you know, we finally, it took a bit of doing, we finally got Bennett to admit that at a sort of a normal number of listeners for midday or wherever is like maybe a hundred thousand

people. At any given point in the day that's a pretty good estimate of how many are listening and so at that point y'all had... And that might even be adding up a few hours, I don't know. Yeah. Because I always thought at one particular time it might be like 25,000. But still. But I'm talking out of my rear end. But at that point we knew exactly how many listeners y'all had and it was like 3,600. Yeah. And so we're like, well, Mr. Bennett, where did the other 95,000 go? Yeah. You know, because that's what they were trying to do is say.

And certainly our 3,600 at the time were not. All listening. All men between the age of 25, 54 who lived in DFW we could prove that if it ever got to a trial we would have been okay here's the guy in France that listens here's a lady and you know a woman in DFW doesn't they don't care that that's not in their ratings at all they don't remember our names. Liz, hell yeah. Was that in court? Yeah. Twice in court and then you did it. Once on the podcast. No, Philip did it twice in court and then you did it. And I have been waiting for this because for my own ego, I would like to clarify this. The whole time I was like on paper paper it looks like I am just sitting here in a

skirt for window dressing because I had no speaking role and we had discussions about this and Philip wanted me to have a speaking role. You are Aaron Andrews our eye candy on the sideline. You're not making it better. That's what it looks like and I know and I know you guys know and hopefully from my participation in this conversation it's clear that I had a substantive role but um, but you know Philip you wanted me to maybe question Adam Romo or give you know one of the arguments and I pushed back on it because that's not my role. Like I'm an appellate attorney.

You guys are the trial attorneys. So I knew it's not going to be best for you guys. I wanted you to argue the judgment as a matter of law. Oh, yeah. Which we wound up not even getting to make that motion. Yeah, I was going to argue if we had a chance to argue the NLRB preemption piece, but we decided not to because it was clearly not the time. Well, you certainly saw the way Jake and I reacted to your suggestions. We took them more often than not.

No, I know. I'm just saying. You were the voice of reason amongst a lot of this kind of stuff. I know my value. Okay, yeah. I just want to make clear for the record. Me forgetting someone's name is, that's the badge of honor for you. It was the coincidence that the only people who have forgotten names, it's always my name,

and twice for Philip, it was in front of the judge, who was a female judge.'s always my name, and twice for Phillip, it was in front of the judge, who was a female judge, so I know he didn't do it on purpose. Right, no, she hates me. And we just spent two days together the full day, so it's not like, you know, we don't know each other, but it was. It was such a brain fart.

I was really like struggling. Well, cause you turned around, and I didn't know what you were doing. I was like, it took me a while to be like. I didn't know what you were doing. It took me a while to be like, uh, Griffin. But I did not want to take Adam Romo. I didn't want to make an argument because I knew that is not what I'm good at. That would not serve you guys best.

So it's fine however it looks. My best spot is sitting here paying attention, which I can't do if I'm trying to prepare to question someone, and then passing notes from the appellate perspective. So what happened was, so they get to say stuff to Jeff Catlin, to Cat, our immediate supervisor at the ticket. They go back and forth, and then we get to cross-examine him, right? That's always how it works, I guess? That's it. Okay. So right away, or did they do their thing with Kat, then they

did something with Bennett, then they did us, and then we go back and call Kat back or you get to respond right away? Yeah. They do what's called direct examination first. All right. That's basically put their witness on to tell their story and then we do Immediately after they're done with their direct examination. We start cross examination That's how it went for each witness direct cross the direct cross and I feel like this is where I Would say I think they're lawyers you guys have already made points of saying boy I'm not sure the lawyers did a great job in this particular case. This is one where, so now their big thing with Jeff Catlin was, these guys are causing

terrible harm. They need to stop their podcast because of all the harm. Well, where's the evidence of that? You can't just say that. Okay, well, look at all these emails that they got. And they would say, hey, I hate Cumulus, I'm going to follow Dan and Jake. I can't believe you guys couldn't get a deal done. Dan and Jake forever.

Like a lot of good things about us, that's why I like to look online around that point. A lot of vitriol towards the company. And so then they were saying, OK, let's put up the, and it's like a movie. And there's a big screen. It's a lot more like a movie than people. People are always like, it's not like a movie. It is.

Yeah, it's this part. So there's a big projector screen, or I guess computer nowadays. But whatever, it's up on, we can see it up there. And it would be like, all right, let's take a look at this email. And this was from Steve. And then it'd be really funny because there'd be like some funny bits in there too. There was the highlighted parts weren't the funny bits.

No, there were some things that I fanaty. I feel like they probably could have cropped out. That they didn't. But it was, again, a litany of those emails. And then at the end, it's like, you see, your honor, these terrible guys. And one, I think some of it was like some audio they played of us of, you know, that Ocas Singh in studio and all that. That might have been when you were up there.

The point is, okay, so this is their big evidence. Reddit, message boards, and, you know, emails that they got that were very angry. And so this is why these guys are just... Look at how they are imploring their listeners, the people to stop listening to the ticket. And so this is why you got these... And then you notice something while they were doing this. And now we're passing notes back and forth and whispering. And so you felt pretty good about when you did step up to do some cross-examination. And now this is where I think it was you were,

it was like Matlock. It was a sick reference. That is super current, topical, and sick. Well, he just seems like the country lawyer. Oh, he's just, you fit like an old glove. You're just a very comfortable guy. Philip looks like he's a... You though, you're like...

I'm a friend. No, I'm just saying, Philip looks more... He bailed out on both descriptions. Philip's like a litigator. He's like, I'm just saying, Phillip looks more, you know. He bailed out on both descriptions. Phillip's like a litigator. He's like, I'm lawyer. You know, and you're like, look, I'm just a guy. We're all, let me, we're just talking here. You just had this friendly feel about you that, you know.

Till it's time not to. Very comfortable. Mr. Catlin, did you say that, and then you pull up one of the emails. Can you read that passage again? Yeah, Dan and Jake and the Cumulus bat. Okay, let me, you also pointed to this email, did you not? Yes, yes, and then you pointed to this email, and then you summarized it with, so you're asserting that these, and this transcript is available, you're asserting that these people left because Dan and Jake started a podcast.

That's right. Okay. Dan and Jake started their podcast on July 27th. Can we go back to email one? Can you please read the date that you receive that email? And it would be like July 18th. And now we know where you're going and everybody knows but we still are doing it. We're still in the performance and you know it's like we could have ended it right there. All right.

Can you bring up email two again, please? John Bailiff, whoever brings it up. Can you read the...and then you made him say the date of each of these emails. To me, that was a...to me, I would say not a blunder on Kat's part, but a blunder on the lawyers. How would lawyers who are paid, you know, he's not paid big money to figure out what's going to fly in court,

but some people are and they would see that, know all the dates involved and still say, yeah, let's go ahead with this. This is a good, this is our strategy. Yeah, I was, when I heard his direct testimony, I was dumbfounded because they specifically blamed the two of you for the narrative that the ticket is cheap. I forgot about this part. Yes.

Yeah, open the door and and so you know I started with the The drop when we had to explain the drop the station a cumulus station Yeah, and I got him to admit that's been a drop for decades That's played when there's a reference to the ticket being cheap But then I I had to go through the emails. So you know, and you're right, Dan, what I was doing was I was setting him up. So you remember your testimony that the emails you got led you to believe that Dan and Jake were the reason that listeners think you're cheap. They're responsible for the cheap narrative.

Yes, yes, yes. And then I hit him with the dates. Because they did, it was the clip of Alkash saying you've, they lowballed you or whatever on your contract. Yeah, and so then when I hit him with the dates and all those emails predated the very first episode of the dumb zone. I got him to admit which he had to that None of the emails were proof or that the emails could not be proof That Dan and Jake was the genesis of the cheap narrative The only thing I'll say about the email some of the email said yeah, you guys are too cheap. Yeah, hey these uh Like when we got that binder of evidence,

we all got one and took it home. It was weeks before, because I think we got it at the first hearing setting. So we knew two weeks in advance what they had planned for their exhibits to be. And they knew from us too. And it was weird to me too. I don't know.

Dan and I talk about this sometimes. And if you're, we kind of touched on it with you guys and the message boards or Reddit or whatever. It just felt to me like they're not, a lot of times management is not really in the position of getting the volume of feedback that we get. Like I get tons of people, and you know, it's not as bad now, but used to.

I mean, I would have somebody tell me to kill myself every day. It was just like part of the deal, you know, it's not as bad now, but used to. I mean, I would have somebody tell me to kill myself every day. It was just like part of the deal, you know? Sorry about that. I mean, at some point you're just like, well, the fifth time it doesn't even hurt. It's just noise. Yeah, whatever. Like I get to do this cool job because I'm a public figure. I mean, I would imagine every single person who's a public figure,

that's part of it. Right. So they get a lot of positivity because they're in charge of the ticket. Exactly. And then for this first time, here's 20 exhibits of, hey, we got a mean email. And I was like, I think I said to you guys multiple times, I was like, this is just Tuesday to me. How did you actually submit mean tweets and mean emails as like, we're being irreparably harmed here I'm like this is just my life it's all of our lives like if you're doing this job I thought that was really I don't know if I want to say soft but I would say

tone-deaf at a minimum was it at this hearing or before that the judge I think she said on the record that the court had received an email from the public. She sent it to us. She forwarded the email to us from a listener who emailed the court's chambers. Yeah, that was... Didn't know how to handle that. Emailed the court's chambers basically saying that they should rule for Dan and Jane. But before we get off the... I promise that's not my IP address.

Before we get off the issue of the emails, cause that was my favorite part of the cross-examination. I want to give some shout outs to Jacob and Denver. Yes. Who is sub E 4 28. Uh, Michael Marks, Travis Williams sub sub E 1571, Brian Thompson subbie 232, Michael Bublik and Eric Frazier who were the emailers. He reached out to all of them and found their subnumbers.

And I want to give a special shout out to Michael Bublik because his email made Kat testify in trial that makes me feel bad. Hahaha! He did say that! I forgot that. So I just wanted to give a shout out to those guys because they played a role in the trial as well. Also, you had like a Colorado lawyer who also helped you out a little bit. I can't remember how. He ran down some case law for us. He just had limited time to help us and we did actually have like a discrete task he could do so that was great. Okay so anything else you want to bring up from that particular cross-examination or we move on to? I mean did we hit the highlights for me? Did you get all your highlights in there? I felt like

there was a lot floating around Twitter that were... Yeah, there was more, you know, the one thing that... When were you great, Frank? That's kind of why I'm trying to be a little bit humble. What do you reflect on? There was one, the one thing that stood out to me the most is when the judge has to interrupt a witness and ask them, did you mean to say that? It's not going good for you. When did that happen? I forgot that. Yeah. Because my question was something to the effect of, you got all these emails these people are mad and They're mad at you for filing a lawsuit and they're mad at you for the things that cumulus did

Not the things that Dan and Jake did so none of these emails None of the angst that is reflected in any of these emails is Dan and Jake's fault Isn't that true? And he said yes, and she said, wait a minute, what did you say? Yeah. Yeah. They didn't get woodshedded like us. Like I keep saying, I do think, you know, I think we had constant communication with our lawyers and stuff and I think their lawyers like flew in and flew out and I feel like we were extra extra and stuff and I think their lawyers like flew in and flew out and and I feel like we were extra extra prepped and I just feel like those guys weren't I don't think they spent near the time that we did

preparing for every possible scenario question that could come at them well and I'll tell you that that my opinion I meant to say this earlier but that's one of the highest compliments you can give folks like me and Phil is that yours your no no I'm a preparation as a witness yeah but you were sitting there with the notes notepad well yeah you're right no you're right all of us but that's one of the highest compliments that you can give that your woodshedding was worse than the actual cross-examination at the hearing. Way worse.

That's what we want. And that means that tells us we did our job. Yeah, because you're trying to come up with everything they might even say. Absolutely. Even a, you know, tell us all the skeletons, see what are they going to come at you with? Yeah. You guys did make it easy though in that, you a lot of times you you have a case and you have a client you love but you don't necessarily have the best facts and so you know it's not as easy to work with

but you guys it just everything we kept finding just made things better and better for you guys so other than presentation you really you didn't have anything to worry about content wise. I thought whenever we were getting ready, one thing I noticed myself do, and I don't have all my post-it notes, but I think I might have gone first. You did? No, no, no. I mean like the weekend prior, like in preparation.

And like she gave me the review or whatever. And immediately it was like if you see somebody make a pizza once and you're like, oh okay, yeah, now I'm based. When you started I was like, mm-mm. You knew? Yeah. Like, I'd done it twice and at that point

I was already like, I'm a chef now. You're grading me? Yeah, there was a couple, uh-uh, shouldn't have said that. Well that's why we do it. Did it not like that try to get it right, but I think ultimately you were the obviously the star So they called cat then they called Bennett and then I guess Philip cross-examined Bennett damn Bennett right what do you like to reflect on? That yeah, you're always shy to brag.

Yeah. I think we got key stuff out of Bennett, partly because he probably doesn't need as much prep as a witness, but I think he also wasn't prepped. But I'll bet he's done stuff like that many times on his metric board. The thing that was interesting to me, and I pretty quickly figured out why it happened, I had a lot more to talk to him about because I was gonna walk him through

the entire complaint that he swore to. And get him to say, you know, now that you've heard this evidence, you know that's not true, why did you never change this affidavit? Why did you not alert the court that you'd put false sworn testimony into the record? All these things that you do to destroy a witness who's gotten caught doing stuff like that. And she didn't want to hear any of it.

The judge kind of said, yeah, we get it. She did not. No, she, I mean, she, it was worse than we get it. It's what are you doing? I don't care about that, you know, and at first I was a little bit irritated and then I pretty quickly figured out All of the testimony was more than she wanted to hear. Mm-hmm Sometimes I am I allowed to say this sometimes. I felt like she was kind of doing something else The judges do that. Yeah, a lot, a lot of the time. Cause they have their screens up. I don't have so much going on, but I was just like, sometimes I'd be over there

and I'd look over at her and I'm like, I feel like you're reading. She did have like an Oculus on. Yeah, no, I thought that was weird too. Yeah. She was a Apple vision. That is a joke. That is a comedic vein. I, well, cause you know, like the criminal thing that y'all had to watch, like

the, the things leading up to that. I'm sure we're coming through her screen, you know, like the criminal thing that y'all had to watch, like the things leading up to that. I'm sure we're coming through her screen, you know, during the hearing. Well, and I think I'm very proud of the job we did just from, you know, a lot, you know, trial skill perspective. I think we did a great job. I really think that she was, she knew before we got there that morning exactly what the outcome was going to be.

Now, you know, we lawyers love to think that we're the outcome, you know, and maybe we did. I think Frank's closing was remarkably detailed and reframed some issues in some ways that the judge had not heard before, which is a really great strategy. It's a great thing to do if you can in a closing. So like I feel I feel very proud of the job we did that day. I just think that us knocking down Cumulus's witnesses more what wasn't gonna help and she didn't want to hear it. So that I thought that was just very strange because normally when you've got a witness who has let the court stew on

Stuff that is demonstrably false that goes super bad for that witness and whatever party brought them and She didn't care and it didn't matter. Hmm That's interesting. I agree with you 100% I think I think she had her mind made up going into that hearing. All the stuff we talk about, all the great cross-examination, good openings, good closings. I agree with you. We did a very good job. I agree with you. None of it mattered. I think she knew going in how she was going rule and she ruled directly from the bench. And the part of her ruling

which was very interesting which we had talked about early in trying to put the defense together and we never really developed it because it was the first argument to come to mind. She was extremely concerned about the First Amendment. She was not going to tell somebody they can't podcast. Especially on the disparagement issue. She really honed in on, you know, you got to prove to me that they intended to hurt you in what they said and she just didn't see it. Well, and you know, the thing that's refreshing from our perspective as lawyers about Judge Scholar is that with the way the news today is, whether it's true or just a perception, and it is true with certain judges, they've become politicians. There are lots of judges on the appellate bench especially, who are not ruling based on real legal thinking

or facts or anything. It's highly partisan and it's really disturbing to people who practice law like we do because it makes it impossible to predict what the hell they're going to do, including follow the law. She's like, that's not her she's very old-school she's like she's concerned about the First Amendment because she's concerned about the Constitution and whether we raise it or not she's like I'm not I'm not messing with these guys First Amendment rights that's that's how it's

supposed to be and it was nice to see that in a judge yeah I thought the whole way through and what you said about she didn't want to hear it on the witness, you know, the witness issue. And I think that's because since it didn't impact the legal issues, she didn't care about it because it's not about ego. You know, I think how you said a lot of judges will, they want to hear that. But I liked that about her, that it was just, it was straightforward. So then, like I said, the Dan Bennett testimony and the cross-examination, now it is our turn for us to call who we want to call. Or no, no, no, they are still calling people, right? They called Jake.

They called Jake first. Right. Amongst Dan and Jake and I got to tell you, although I did feel good about things, I was confident. I was happy you went first. I'm sure you weren't. Nah, but we, for whatever reason, it kept... What was your mindset knowing, you know, you're a guy who, I don't know if you puked that day or did you yeah? Did you puke before I know no, but this was all affecting you You know is a heavy heavy scene

So how did you feel actually once you actually went up there and got up there? You know what was what was kind of cool about it. I mean I definitely felt You know physiologically affected afterward but a cup so like the mornings that we had to go down there like Dan came to my to my house in the morning and he was like you know he's there I'm sorry this is so stupid but it was just like you know it was like 630 in morning. My kids were up and like Dan was there. Uh, like with me in the morning. And it, I don't know. It gave me some level of like confidence.

That come out playing with, playing with the kids? Yeah, you're like playing with my kid before school or whatever. It's uh, we rode together and Then yeah for whatever reason like I don't know how we arrived on this But we we felt like it was pretty likely they were gonna do me first And I don't know what the reasoning for that was probably they're just like well This is the one who's soft as evidenced by the last 30 seconds. I Wasn't really that nervous going up there, but definitely by the end of it. I wasn't really that nervous going up there but definitely by

the end of it I was like damn that was intense. It felt like it took like six hours even though it was probably only like 30 minutes. It felt like I was answering a lot of the same questions like over and over and over and then at some point I feel like what they're trying to do is reframe something a fifth different way and this time get you to answer it differently and incorrectly So you just kind of like got to try to be on your toes a little bit I Didn't feel a strategy you were prepped for of course. Yeah. No, I knew that I wasn't gonna handle it as well as you did

Because again, I was trying to be way more like robotic and just buy the book and like I just want to get out of here Be honest be truthful, but say what I know, say what I don't know and get out of here. Whereas I knew the only reason I was like bummed to have to go to the bathroom to throw up afterward was because I was like damn I got to get back in there before Dan's up there because this is gonna be fun. Well, and I want to say this. I knew that was gonna be like a very different approach from the way that I did it. Now I do think you're soft but you're referring to yourself as soft and it's self-deprecating. I think you're an emotional person. Yeah. I think that's one of my detriments is that I'm not. Well

it's not a detriment. It's just everybody's different. And yeah so I don't think that makes you softer worse in any way either. But you also got emotional on the stand. And if I'm doing my post-game analysis of it, which I am, I would say that kind of didn't hurt our case, because you weren't actually not robotic. You were trying to be. I was trying very hard to be, as I am now. But I think you may have cried on the stand. cried understand Oh, I choked up. Yeah, you had some points It was I don't know if it was just the part about your kid or about When they were when you were talking about your your colleagues at the ticket they were alleging. Yeah that you're you're doing things

Actively to hurt those guys that you've sat in the you know control room with for ten years whatever you know like the That really bothered you like I think it's still bothers sat in the control room with for 10 years, whatever. That really bothered you. I think it still bothers me. I think it makes me look like a bad person a lot of times how I'm unbothered by certain criticisms or the way. But you take that so hard. And I don't want mine or whoever thinking

that I would be negative towards your. Yeah, I think that's what it was about. They were kind of alleging that we were criticizing the moves Mino or whoever thinking that I would be negative towards like your I'm yeah criticize I think that's what it was about They were kind of kind of alleging that we were criticizing the moves that they made yeah when we said we thought We're so happy for everybody that got elevated the only one thing is we thought Monty I think Monty is great and was I I would have had him as a host I that's doesn't somebody else can't be even, you know? Right, or add another host. Fine, do that. We were making enough that I'm sure they could

do that. Well, I don't know if you know this, Jake, but... But I think that helped with even the judge, her opinion of you, like, this guy is not actively trying to F this station. This guy loves this station, whereas she might have thought I was doing bits half and four, you know, back and forth. Why would that be? So you may not know this, Jake, but Frank had that all mapped

like Frank knew what he was doing, getting you to he knew you were going to get choked up and he warned me about it, but he knew you were going to get choked up. And he warned me about it, but not you, so that you would get choked up. Yeah. And that was one thing that even today, I sort of second-guess myself sometimes, because I didn't go over with you or I didn't prepare you for the fact that I was going to ask you a question about your son I'm

it's gonna get me and the reason I did it was because if you'll remember at the end of your direct examination they were insinuating that number one, you could just move somewhere. You could just pick up your family and move. Right. And you're not hurting because you write for D Magazine.

Yeah. Your wife has a job. Yeah, your wife has a job. You'll be fine no matter what happens. Yeah, and you write for D Magazine and make $200 a week on writing an article about a Cowboys game and that angered me and that's why I brought up your son that's to send the message that you had of a you with a family with with issues and that's why I brought it up to this day I still question whether I should have I think it was good well I think you can pretty clearly say that for the trial type thing it wasn't a gun it

wasn't like that's the only time I've cried in the last X amount of time so you don't have to feel bad about it and and also I thought the only time I've cried in the last X amount of time. So you don't have to feel bad about it and And also I thought the only time you've puked Crier and a puker. Yeah, that's right I'm uh, I'm sure that my body's really working all that well No, and I could tell actually, you know, cuz the thing about that was like man I hope this judge doesn't know me like I know all you guys knew like boy. He's not like faking this but you know, I hope this judge doesn't know me. Like I know all you guys knew like boy, he's not like faking this. But you know, I was kind of worried that,

you know, the judge was gonna be like, what is this? This performative? Yeah. And so that was a little bit concerning to me, but I also, I could tell, you know, one of their attorneys, when I did start to like struggle a little bit, you know, he was like, you know,

we can stop for a minute if he like I don't think he thought That it was performative at all. But yeah, I think there's anyway anyone doing that would would question the authenticity but the The downside of it again was that when I walked in there, I was already like Dan was already like mid show You had left you didn't come back till I was already up there. It was like 10 minutes. Okay. Yeah, but at that point it was I don't know. I wish I wish we had pictures cuz I just wish Blake could see I Don't know. Oh So funny to me to walk in there. Because he's in a suit. It was like ill-fitting suit.

You're in a suit. Yeah, just. When you present, I mean, I know it's the first time you've testified it. And I wonder about this. I'm much more like Jake in terms of anxiety, emotions. But he acts how I would think someone that's an individual that hasn't been involved in a lawsuit before would act.

And I've always been floored by how calm you were throughout every every up-and-down with everything and so like are you are you feeling the anxiety or do you not feel the anxiety like you definitely don't show it but are you anxious yeah like in my head I was waiting for the zinger I knew they had something I knew it and how am I going waiting for the zinger. I knew they had something. I knew it and how am I going to react to that? That I just know they've got it because I was not impressed with what we thought they had. And I'm like, that can't be it. That can't be it. And again, Philip, great prep, I guess. I mean, just because you tried to, you were

also trying to think, well, what could they have? What could they do? You know, is there something I forgot to tell Philip? Because I don't remember things. And I mean, they've got a piece of audio, they've got something, they've got, there's going to be a zinger. And I was worried, yes, I get, but I like over prepping.

I mean, I over prep for our little stupid show, I print things off, they make fun of me for all the stuff I do. I got the sense on Sunday, maybe even late on Saturday, on the first prep weekend that you had figured out the game and your kind of whole approach to the thing just changed because I was like, God damn it, he's not going to follow any rules. I know he thinks he's an expert because he's already figured it. He's figure out this game.

And I by the time we got to the actual hearing, I was like, yep, you got to let him freelance because this is he's got what it takes. Were you afraid he was going to say you can't handle the truth? We were very close to doing some. Yeah, there were he he was restraining himself from doing bits Yeah, I mean and you can it is to be said the one You know the one thing about Dan's face is that he always appears to be having a slight smirk He does this you know and so it was just a question of if that was gonna be like off-putting

But he I mean you just did great. I like it. It was easy. Certainly off-putting to my mom growing up. Yeah, for sure. Wipe that look off of you. Slap that grin off your face. But yeah, that's what, when I walked back in there after the bathroom, and I just saw him up there, looking like I've seen him in every meeting we've had with our boss, where he's clearly, clearly not going to listen to anything we're being told.

It had to help what... I was like, damn, okay to listen to anything we're being told. It had to help what... I was like, damn, okay, I'm back in the game now. It had to help that I went last too, because I was unimpressed with their side's... That you saw the worst of what... Their side's testimony. I saw how it happened, you know, how they tried to hammer Jake or whatever, and I don't know, I just...

It felt... Well, we tried to tell you all felt like at that point it was like Now I get to experience that I'm now This is a rare occasion that I should try to you know While while being wary of what do they got sure they got to have something but like you treated it like a theme park Like I want to I want to now You know know what this is like. And it was very interesting.

I was involved in an interesting experiment. That was very clear. We tried to tell you all from the very beginning of this case that this is not the kind of case from cumulus's side where you can hold stuff back and surprise people with it later. You just can't do it. You know when you get the complaint,

that's everything they could find. And we were holding things back that we could have done. True. Or used. Although Frank just pulled out the big gun on Jake. And then he said, let's just ruin this guy for the next three weeks. Did either of you have a favorite answer that you gave?

Vanilla Ice. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Again, I couldn't really tell how down for bits that the judge was going to be. But it is true that my former manager, or excuse me, agent that we referenced before was the manager and agent for Vanilla Ice. So when they asked me about it. before was the manager and agent for vanilla ice so

when they asked me about what was the context yeah they asked me who negotiated my last contract and they're like did you have an agent work on that and they're like what is his name and I gave the name and was like they were like oh he's worked in the entertainment industry for some time correct and I said yes I believe he actually used to be the agent and manager of vanilla ice. Okay, so they, okay, they let you into that. Which does indicate that that was a long time ago. I don't think they were.

No, but they, it wasn't, they set it up for you. Yeah, I didn't just. You didn't even know they were going to. No, I didn't just throw it out there. I think they probably thought I was going to say he's been in the industry for a long time. Yeah. But for me to illustrate that.

Right, that timestamps it. Exactly, right? We don't. It's me to illustrate that. That time stamps it. Exactly. It's not big like last year. No. No. And then for Dan, I mean, come on. It's on the pillow. Yeah.

What can you... The geofencing part? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't really... Seriously, I got to go back. I say I'm on over Prepper and I didn't go back and look at the transcript this morning or anything, but I didn't go back and look at the transcript this morning or anything But well, it was remember what to me what was awesome about it was

And I don't have to like use their names or anything, but the attorney that was talking to you I Believe actually said like can we strike some of this like he got so flustered by whatever it is that you are That he was like I don't even want that out there. Well, he did tell me, I asked the questions here. I know, but he also like at that point was like, I... Because I'm also a person that interviews people and I like to... I know. Yeah, the question you asked him, y'all were going through the geofencing stuff and you

just refused to believe that that existed. And you said, I don't think that's possible on podcasts. Have you ever seen a podcast do it? Well, as we were going through the discussion, because I had never heard of it before, I was thinking in my head, had I been him, what I would have done if I could find another person that has done this, I could then say to us, yes, this is done.

Speaking of what your mom wants to slap you for, exactly how it went, if I recall correctly, was he said, have you heard of another podcast doing that before? And then you said, have you ever heard of a podcast doing that before? Would you just rephrase, or not rephrase, just say the exact same thing that your mom said back to you,

but put a little bit different emphasis on a different word. That's when they really are like, I'm going to smack you. Yeah, that's not a good idea sometimes. And I feel like in that moment he wanted to. The one thing I do remember going back and forth on was, Have you ever heard heard he thought I would nod along and agree with him on certain things and if you guys remember the term goodwill yes oh so what Philip trained you very well on you listen to the

question before you answer but logically I don't know what goodwill is no one does I am a I am not someone who really believes in mystical things and somehow I do kind of feel like karmas. I don't know, I try to spread a little. We'll give an extra dollar tip here or there and then you think hopefully that comes back to you somehow. I don't know. That's called buying off guilt. Okay, is that all that is? That's all that is, trust me. Okay, but like as far as like goodwill, I can't remember how the phrasing was, but it had something to do with all the goodwill that the ticket gave you. By us working at the ticket, certainly it's a big time radio station and stuff, but if

you just start working there, all of a sudden now you have all this goodwill because the ticket in general has goodwill and now you have taken away that goodwill and we're using that to attack the ticket he's like you would agree that you know you've gotten a lot of goodwill from the ticket I think that was kind of how it was phrased I was like no I do not think I would agree with that and that's threw him off, like whoa, whoa. I thought that was just gonna be a, of course we could all agree with that, I mean it's the ticket.

And I just kept going back and forth, like well no, I mean define. If he was actually surprised by that, Dan, then that was his first employment law case. I'm not sure though, I can't remember if I asked him this or was just thinking this in my head, like did we ever get a goodwill bonus? It's like Dana and I always talk about. Let's go down and cash our goodwill check. Right. Goodwill bank and pay our goodwill mortgage with our goodwill dollars. Yeah just our you know you got a

lot of good feedback on Twitter today. Oh fantastic. Let's go to my engagement check. Good feedback, mailbox. Yeah. And see if I could pay a bill with that. So I don't remember if I asked him. No, you did not. Because if you did, I would have fallen out. Remembered that one?

Yeah, I would have fainted. I would have been laughing so hard. But I might have said we got bonuses based on ratings. Then you brought up like Stern. Yeah, oh yeah, Stern. I thought that was a great point. Howard Stern, if, you know, a lot of hate people or a lot of people hate Stern or whatever,

you know, you're just saying that he just has goodwill. Right. Because he has great ratings? No, I mean. Like great ratings don't mean goodwill. Public enemy number one, yeah. So where did the pillow quote come from? Was it the goodwill or the geofencing?

Geofencing. Geofencing, yeah. What does the pillow say? You wanna read it, Frank? Where is it? Because I think you were asked, have you ever, did you look into geofencing before you started podcasting? Frank brought us a pillow.

And this is the quote, Blake. So yeah, I guess you were just going on about geofencing and you told the lawyer, I had not, did not look into something I had never heard of. Right, it was after I said I had never heard of it then he said, did you look into it? Yeah, that's exactly what he did. I literally had never heard of it before he mentioned it that day. Yeah, and he thought it was gonna be a good punctuation of his line of questioning.

After asking you all these questions about geofencing, he thought it was a good punctuator to say so you never looked even looked into it and your answer was yeah I didn't look into something I didn't know existed hey McColl who's been a he's a a big listener and certainly a consultant on this whole thing. You certainly read the whole transcript. Do you want to give any thoughts on just the hearing in general? Yeah, yeah. I didn't have the wherewithal to go through the whole thing, but I think it's just really

great when you're able to answer the questions but sort of I Don't know you you're I'm not saying my part in general just anything No, no I know but but I mean the part that does stand out is that you know this thing is as serious as a heart attack and you're able to sort of Be like totally accurate and kind of irreverent at the same time, which I think is really effective, right? I mean, you especially, Dan, have a very effective way of making fun of the person who's asking stupid questions.

And I think that goes a long way in undermining the credibility of their case. So at the end of the case, are we at the end? He only asked that so that he'd get another compliment. And Jake, you're but I. What for? Stop it. No, no, no. But I really mean, I mean, you know, we see business disputes a lot in these cases.

And I feel like the only time I see people kind of tearing up on the stand is if it's in like family court, right? And if it's like a divorce and I feel like, especially your separation from the company, you know, I mean, like, I know people love to say, oh, well, it's just business or it's not show friends, it's show business. But like, I mean, I, you know, it's compelling that you would have like an emotional attachment to the people that you've worked with for 15 years. Like I think that humanizes your, your side of it. And frankly, I think it's kind of crazy

when people don't feel that kind of emotional attachment. Kind of was like a divorce case for you guys. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And to the listeners, people call these cases business divorces sometimes for exactly this reason. And this is a highly unique situation, highly unique. Yeah.

Any other radio station in town or probably any across the nation? Construction company or something. But yeah, even this radio station among radio stations there is very unique. So at the end, I'm just looking for my notes. The judge did come out and say, I'm ready to, I deny the temporary injunction, which I guess was they wanted to stop us from doing our podcast until the trial.

So there's still a trial. But all this was was just the temporary injunction. This isn't like we now don't have to go to trial. No, there's still a trial on the books. But we'll give particularized finding in the next two weeks. This is what she says At this point I wrote this note I want to stand up and applaud her like I just felt like I didn't know I don't know what she would say and you Know and but it's felt like a weight lifted. I don't know what you felt like at that point no hundred percent

And it's kind of like a thing where you feel really, really happy. Like let's say you're with your mom and you and your brother are getting in trouble, but she just starts like, I know it's your fault, but if you start celebrating too much, then you might catch some of it too. So we all are just like solemn.

We're just sitting there straight faced like that. I wanted to hug you all. And I don't hug. But I was, I do think we prepped you for this. But I was very, very excited. Did you? Do not change your face. Did you? I kind of, I always do. No, you probably did. If that's something you generally say. But I don't think you needed to, to stop us from, yeah. But I don't think you needed to to stop us from yeah And then yes, then she did kind of say some things like You know That we could approach you know Maybe lawyers should step out of this and maybe you guys should talk behind their lawyers backs

I think there's a settlement to be had here. She kind of intimated that she doesn't think this should go to trial. That I think you guys should somehow approach the behind the scenes. Let's get rid of the lawyers here. Let's get rid of the suits. And yes, she said she would, if we wanted her to, get involved in settlement talks. And I wrote in parentheses, what does that mean? I did not know what that meant, her getting involved. But I liked it because it did seem that she was pro Dan and Jake, or at least pro our defense of what they were bringing. I don't know that she liked us in particular,

but it did seem like she liked our case from the beginning. And I thought, okay, that's good. She should get involved because she'll really push them to not take this to trial. She liked your legal case. That's what I mean. She's pro Adam Romo. Yes.

Boy. I feel like she, by the end of it, I don't know. I kind of felt like Dan and I were almost like the Blues Brothers. Like, what are we doing here? Like, how do we end up in this place, like standing up looking like two morons? I feel like.

But by the end of it, I feel like she was like, all right, at least these guys aren't like BSing. We've run through so much time today. I think we should do a separate thing with Adam Adam Roma at some point in the future to honor him Because I'd like to bring him in but yeah, it's it's we've been sitting around a long time It's it's been a very long time and if you're listening to this, maybe you already know this is day four of or day three or whatever of We should say this

How many people are gonna unsubscribeubscribe during a week of spring break? I mean, you should just put up a disclaimer at the beginning of like, it's not getting better for the rest of the week. Wait until next week. If you don't like this first step, well, compared to us just doing nothing, right? Like compared to a week off. I know, but it's better than nothing. It's not as much y'all talking as annoying people.

I think people find it interesting. I can't remember if it was me or if it was you, but at the end, the end end, didn't I ask her if she'd take a picture with me? You did. I don't know. Like I'm never going to see. She's like, not now, Mr. Kemp. I'm never going to see this person ever again. Right now.

They obviously had like a top 10 most impactful decision in my life. We're dressed up. Yeah. Like if there's ever a time. I put my makeup on. This was the last day of the settlement. Yes.

Did she take a picture with you? No, she was like in another setting. No, she was, at first I thought she was gonna do it. I know. And then she said, well. It was kind of like Ralph Northam almost hitting the What is the moonwalk whenever he got accused of doing blackface? Yeah, he's like, oh wait a minute No, so she said she's gonna give a detailed description. So now I

Think that was I'm not a lawyer, but I'm going to give my opinion because I give my opinion on everything that That she was saying to them Do you want all this my real thoughts public or do you all want to come to a settlement? That is what she was saying. Here's a here's a couple of guys Here's a couple guys who've been wanting a settlement the whole time the fact that we don't have a settlement She's only surmising this net must not be because of these two guys. So they didn't want to force this hearing.

The hearing took place. It did go as poorly for you as they thought it would. So now I can put all my thoughts in writing or you guys can come to a settlement and none of these thoughts will ever get out and there will be no official winner or loser because it was a settlement and Everybody can come to their own conclusion on who won or who lost but all I know is we were doing something We got sued for doing it told to stop and then we had a settlement that concluded we could do that exact same thing.

So that's just my view of the whole thing. And nobody won and nobody lost. What did Dan and Jake earn in the settlement? Well we find out in the next episode. As well as answer a question or two from our listeners, as well as update you on where the case is now. Yes, it's not 100% over, as there still is a case in front of the

National Labor and Relations Board that still has a chance to make history. Fairlease.org, Jake. Fairlease.org. That is where you can lease a vehicle fairly, and then you'll be organized. Organized. I don't know, I was trying to make a reason that they're

called fairlease.org basically that's where you should lease a vehicle right it is it definitely is they're affiliated with the Credit Union of Texas at Fair Lease which means if you you know like support in Texas support Fair Lease buddy Travis over at Community Mechanical he's worked with Fair Lease on upgrading their fleet. So if you're into the commercial game, Fair Lease can take care of you. Or if you're just in a bad lease,

Fair Lease will talk you through and help you through buying out of that, lowering your payments. Call to action. Go to fairlease.org. Click Request a Quote. Then select the dumb zone on the How Did You Hear About Us page that pops up on the left it's uh... we need to do that folks

yet now i mean if you're listening to this right now and you go click request a quote and then you select rush limbaugh it's a little bit of a robust really at all fairly start or what what do we want to jump to you then for uh... because many of the small people where we're at on that. The withdrawal request and all that. So, OK, yeah, I mean, we

yeah, I don't know. I don't know what we're allowed to say. Well, yeah, I'll set the background for this. Shut up, man. We'll we'll we'll fast forward and then come back sort of. OK, we'll be back to the okay. We'll be back to the here We'll time shift at the end of the deal No, the settlement was the settle one of the terms of the settlement was that they would drop the lawsuit and we would request to just dismiss the complaint filed with the NLRB yeah, and

That's where Matt comes in. Yeah, so once you file, I think I said this at the very beginning of all this, once you file something with the board, you know, technically it's theirs. Like you are not the plaintiff in a case that's brought by the board. The NLRB is the plaintiff. You are a charging party. But it's really not up to you. That's just like you can't just go in discretionarily and say, I just want this out. Once it's at the board, it's up to the board.

The board does have rules about what a settlement agreement needs to look like. So it's not just kind of random. They tell you, hey, a settlement agreement needs to satisfy A, B, C, D, can't have this clause, can't have that clause, whatever. You told me that that's because we could afford some pretty good lawyers, but some people that go to the NLRB, they're like, hey, we have this dispute. I can't fight this on my own, right? They could be coerced into a settlement that is really not legal, but then that's why the individual who brings, this isn't us, but can't just go to the board

and go, hey, I withdraw. And they just go, oh, okay, everything's fine. They have to actually see the settlement that got you to withdraw and to make sure it's fair and you didn't get coerced, like, hey, I'll make this really hard on the rest of your life if you don't accept this settlement. Yeah, there's two concerns. The one is just the power imbalance because some people can, you can bring charges to the board without a lawyer.

And so they're really worried about that situation, how you could get hosed. But the second thing is that they view, the agency's view is that their job is to enforce the National Labor Relations Act, that they serve a public purpose and they're not here to just settle private disputes. So they kind of don't really care that much about your private dispute. They care about making sure the law is followed. And so if you're just in a normal like district court case, if everyone agrees, even if the law is not being followed, it doesn't really matter because an agreement has been reached. That's not their job. They're our regulatory agency. Their job is to make

sure the regulations are complied with. So if you send them a settlement agreement that does not involve compliance with the National Labor Relations Act, they're going to reject it. And so we send this withdrawal request in and we have this issue where, and we discuss this again and again and again, to my mind, as someone who has worked in this area of law for 10 years, it does not look like it's fully compliant with what the board's going to require. The other side seems to think that it is or seems to think like it's fully compliant with what the board's going to require. The other side seems to think that it is or seems to think that it's going to get through. So we agree.

We'll submit a withdrawal request. We'll do everything in our power as far as like submitting documents, whatever they need us to do and give them a chance to do that. And I did not believe that they would ever do that. But you know, who knows? We tee it up for them. It's up to the regional director there in Fort Worth. It'll be his call. And we sent it in. And what about three weeks after we sent it in, we get a little notice from the regional director who says that he wants to get on a Zoom call with everyone about this. And I've never had that happen before in my life. I've submitted many withdrawal requests and usually two to three days,

you get a form letter says, request accepted. We get on the Zoom call and he says, he's got grave concerns about whether this complies with the board settlement authorities. And he wants us to submit statements about our view on the legal question of whether or not it complies with the board settlement authorities. So we've all submitted those and it's been what? I don't know, six, seven, I don't know how

long exactly. And they still haven't come back. So my suspicion here is that they're going to reject the settlement, they're going to reject the withdrawal request because again, if they wanted to accept it, they literally could just fire off a form letter anytime. I've gotten many of those and the only reason for delay would be if they don't intend to accept the withdrawal request. Board case survives I guess is the point at the moment. And Matt, at the close of that zoom call he said something that if again there's so many points in this case where if I had been on the other side and heard what they heard I would

have you know had fear reactions and like this is one most ominous things I've ever heard a judge or a regulator or an adjudicator authority say he's like okay you know submit your stuff and Smith or reply by this time or whatever and and we're not gonna call it a motion to sh- we're not gonna call it a show cause hearing but let's treat it like that. And that's like, I seriously I was like, oh my god that is awful. That's just like the implication is that it's a show cause hearing why you haven't violated the NLRA. Like it's again, it's him tipping the hand and giving us kind of

extreme confidence in our case. Yeah. I mean, to even call the meeting with the RD is crazy. and then for him to come on and say I don't I pretty much Don't think this is compliant and I'm gonna need you to send stuff to try to convince me of that is pretty bad now there was one funny development here and I think is worth talking about just briefly because it's the most amusing thing that's happened the case to me is that You know as part of this, the regional director comes to us and says, I need you guys to send me a position statement.

Just send me basically write out a brief, basically, like an informal brief that just answers the question, does this comply with the board law and settlements? And so we're in a tough position because, I mean, legally, I don't think it does. But obviously, they're saying we agreed to try to get this thing withdrawn. So what are we supposed to do if the regional director comes to us and says, I want you to give me legal analysis on whether this complies. And on the one hand, it's like, OK, well, I'm not going to lie to the regional director of the NLRB. On the other hand, the other side is going to say,

oh, you agreed to try to get it withdrawn. And so maybe that includes you have to take the position that it complies. We eventually decided to just give legal analysis and just say, here's what the law says here, the cases here, the sites, you know, doesn't look great. And at that point, they threatened to pursue to do something kind of strange, but to basically go back to the court and start complaining about what we're doing at the NLRB. And I sent them a letter explaining that if they did that, that that would itself be an unfair labor practice,

because it would be threatening. It or actually, I said that even threatening to do it was an unfair labor practice because you're sending us legal threats, just like the cease and desist letter, you're sending us legal threats to retaliate against us participating in board processes, which we have a right to do. And I sent them all these citations and case law on this.

And I told them that if they did not retract the threat within a short period of time that I was gonna bring a charge and do all sorts of stuff. And a few days later, apparently, they called Frank and said, well, we're not gonna do that. Who had not been involved for quite a while. They just called you out of the blue, right? Yeah, I had not been involved at all in the NLRB stuff.

Remembering that. They refused to talk to me. They didn't wanna talk to you. Yeah, I had not been involved at all in the NLRB stuff, remembering that. They refused to talk to me. They didn't wanna talk to, yeah, they didn't wanna talk to Matt, so they called me as sort of, Oh, they didn't wanna talk to me either. We're a football team. We don't wanna ask mom, let's go ask dad.

Yeah, and so all of a sudden, out of the blue, I get an angry phone call that we violated the terms of the settlement agreement, and I hadn you know, I hadn't had anything to do with any of this. And so I said, you know, let me, let me go back and see what's going on. And then, um, then as I recall, Matt told me, well, that threat, can you put it in writing? Send me an email.

Send me an email telling me exactly what they told you because this is retaliatory and I'm going to file a charge. And so I call the other side up and I said, hey, look, this is spinning out of control. Matt is wanting to file a retaliatory claim for you even threatening to do this. Let's try to stand down." And he said, well, we just can't let it go. Let me talk to my client. And a couple of days later, he calls me back.

He says, we're not going to do anything. The, uh, do you remember the Simpsons episode where sideshow Bob keeps stepping on a rakes every time he turns turns around, there's another rake, and it waxes. That's how cumulus is with unfair labor practices. They don't know. I don't know. I don't want to spy.

It seems like they don't know the relevant law. I don't know that that's particularly unique to them. And I'm not trying to both sides it here, but I just think in general, the American corporation is like, but what if we just pulled one over on you all the time? No, I think Matt has, I mean, I mean, I could be wrong about that. No, I don't think so. I think Matt is like really, because I had, we had a kind of a segregation of duties, but I felt like I had to learn at least enough to be conversant in the NLRA

law. And Matt was a terrific instructor on that stuff. And Matt and I both had this thought. These big firms, the Jones Days, the Littlers, Morgan Lewis, these firms that give people labor and employment law advice, in large measure they're giving advice that could potentially be characterized as illegal. And so the American corporation does have a very warped view of how it's allowed to engage with its employees. Yeah, I mean, the only way that I even learned that any of this stuff existed, because I'm

friends with Matt for a little while, was a few years ago, we referenced this on, is it, it's not yesterday, but three weeks ago's podcast. All of our days are on that. Okay. By the time this airs? Yeah. Yeah. But just like the first time.

A recent podcast. And then several times that I was told that I was not allowed to discuss my salary with anybody that I worked with and I just assumed that was the case and Then I mentioned it to a couple people and one of them being mad and he's like absolutely not That's that's not how it works. Yeah that instruction is itself illegal. I'm aware. You can bring charges on it. Yeah I know. No there's a lot of there's a lot of rules in workplace activity but the problem is the penalties are so minimal and it doesn't make sense for people to bring these claims and that's part of why like

I said before I've been criticized in national media for some of the stuff is I'll bring claims on stuff that is illegal but that no one would bring because it makes no it serves no purpose there's no damages there's no nothing it's just a waste of everyone's time and I just do it for fun the in this case the interesting thing is we have a unique case at the board again we tried to withdraw it I submitted the request I've done everything that we can do to withdraw it and it's out of our hands but I told them that I wanted to withdraw I. I submitted the request. I've done everything that we can do to withdraw it. And it's out of our hands. I told them that I wanted it withdrawn. I think Jake did too, verbally. Correct.

One of my main reasons is I thought if it doesn't get withdrawn, then there could be future litigation. And we can't afford that. But here's the, uh, the nature of this... No offense to you lawyers, but, uh, you know, we... I just, you know, I fear litigation and I don't want to spend more money on lawyers. Most of the NLRB cases, the remedies are no good, but you can get money from unions for doing it because they have a lot of interest in protecting their members and stuff like that, right? So it's, it's kind of a client relationship there, but for individuals it's very tough. But this case is very unique

because if you file a lawsuit against someone to enforce illegal contract clauses, the lawsuit itself is a violation of the National Labor Relations Act, and the damages for that are your attorney's fees or any litigation expenses. So this is a rare case where you could get six figure damages if the case goes through, usually a thousand dollars, $2,000 is nothing, but this could be a very expensive case on their end, which is creates some very interesting stakes. And I think their posture is a little bit different than what you would normally deal with, with an employer who just basically doesn't care whether they win or lose.

And so, like, it's worth pointing out that before we got to a final settlement with the judge, we were probably a day or two away from having multiple members of Congress send letters to cumulus demanding that they obey the law. I forgot about that. Yeah, I'll say, yeah, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib drafted a full blown letter that was going to be written to the CEO of Cumulus, the head of the FCC, the NLRB and the FTC about this case. And you know, because all that effort is being made in the regulatory agencies to cramp, to cut down on these on this non-compete stuff. And there were other members that were signed on. And yeah, I mean, it was gonna blow up even beyond the Washington Post piece, you know,

like, you know, this is a great vehicle, in part because you guys are independent now. I know you guys are now struggling with the question of, well, you know, you still have to deal with other market actors, but you were able to fight it out and were compelling because you were independent. And then I tuck tail and run. The NLRB case is still going. So that's the relevant one. It still looms.

I just want to drive home what an amazing thing is that what Matt is describing that you guys are willingly wanting to withdraw this action and the government has still stuck with it. I mean, I've seen it on the criminal side, right? Like you'll have a complaining witness in an assault and then they'll come back and they'll say, no, no, no, I don't want to prosecute my boyfriend or whatever. And the government says, hey, no, we have, we got a compelling interest to protect the public and prosecute this bad guy. But the stakes are high typically, right? It's like somebody who is at danger of being physically

assaulted or, you know, there's, there have to be certain circumstances where the government says, okay, I understand you don't want to move forward, but we're going to move forward anyway. And so Yeah, one in this case, unbelievable, that in this case, that one thing to remember here is that, you know, because they're a public agency, they're thinking about the other workers at cumulus. And in their mind they're saying, okay, so these rules are probably in thousands of contracts. So maybe you're cool with it,

but those are all illegal contracts as far as we're concerned. And we have a case that is a vehicle for clearing up all those contracts. Cause that would be the remedy. It's not just money. They would have to seize, they would have to excise all of these terms

from all of their contracts and all of their handbooks if they were deemed illegal under the NLRA. So from the agency's perspective, it's like, okay, Dan and Jake, that's two people. There's over 3,000 cumulus employees. So weighing these two, it's not that hard to say, okay, we're going to keep going with this even though you want to withdraw because we want to protect the other you know 3,000 workers. This is now I'm just asking opinions and I know you like objective facts Matt but do you guys think without if Matt had not implored us or Madden and Phillip you know when we first got the cease and

desist to file an NLRB thing, it feels like that helped us a lot, knowing that that was part of our arsenal. Like that, had they not, had you guys not done that, you know, obviously the facts are still the same as far as looking at our contracts and so that probably would have gone positively but it feels like that also looming is kind of what I don't know if this is my opinion it kind of really helped it get this settlement in the long run that that that thing's part of this yeah and and I'll give my perspective on that because like I said earlier when I came into this thing I knew nothing about the NLRB I knew nothing about the NLRA

You know I came in to help with the the district court litigation on the issue of the validity of a non-compete Clause under this factual scenario, and that's what I devoted my time to But and and if I'm gonna to be quite honest, I kind of minimized DNLRB stuff. I didn't think the judge would buy it. I didn't think that's how we were going to win the case. But, you know, again, that wasn't my daily wick, so I let Philip and Matt run with that stuff. But I agree with you 100%, Dan, that in the end, that NLRB complaint was one of the most important things that pushed a settlement in this case.

Because once Cumulus, once Susquehanna realized the box that they were in, and it took a while. It did, yeah. It took a while, but once they realized the box that they were in, I think then they realized, oh crap, we've stepped in it here. Yeah, the development of it was really funny throughout the case because, you know, I'm the only one on our team that does the NLRB stuff. They didn't have a labor lawyer on their team until a couple weeks in. And so I'm just sitting here, everyone's talking about the state law stuff. And in my mind, I'm like, all that matters in NLRB stuff. And no one else knows or their side doesn't care.

And I'm just sitting and it's just progressing and no one's paying attention to it. And then all of a sudden that at the end of the first mediation this bomb goes off and it just seems like everything turned on its head and it's like oh man all NLRB all the time at this point so yeah at the very end it's the whole case shifted from being about the validity of the non-compete to how the hell do we get these NLRB charges withdrawn? That's the whole case turned on its head once they realized the NLRB stuff was problematic for them. And then it became how do we extricate ourselves from that? And that was a difficulty. It was a difficulty in

getting the case settled because how do we go about doing that? Well, and Matt saw that as the big danger from the very beginning. And if you recall, before the first day of mediation, he's begging them to talk to a real labor lawyer. Yeah, I think we might've provided a Rolodex. I gave them a list of littler labor lawyers who practice in Dallas before the NLRB,

because you can pull all those emails and phone numbers before the NLRB because you can pull all those Emails and phone numbers from the NLRB website I'm like these people have have represented Starbucks at the Dallas at the Fort Worth, you know We call one of them, please and they they didn't do it Okay, so that's where we are at the NLRB. It's a hand up. I'm a dude. Dudes are not always great at taking care of themselves. You feel like there's something wrong and you're like, that'll probably go away. It doesn't always happen. And Game Day Men's Health can help you figure out if you've got any issues you need to address then they'll address them You're feeling sluggish

Not getting as much out of your workouts. I know for me the stage I'm at in life Being able to exercise very big part of my mental health Dan. Oh, yeah, and being able to do that Is fueled by game day men's health? Yeah helps you stop feeling sluggish, like if that's what you are. You slug? Yeah, well I guess it happens once you get in your 30s, 40s, 50s. Testosterone replacement therapy is their main game, but they also offer medical weight loss, peptide therapy, ED optimization, vitamin therapy, and more. Listen, I was in there the other day, and right there on the sign next to vitamin therapy, it said hangover cure. Whoa, oh, the IV thing.

Let's just be honest about what it is. It works. Yeah. So, check out gamedaymenshealth.com. Okay, so now let's get now to the settlement. So now we did the two week thing we already mentioned. I called or we called, you know We called behind the scenes Dan Bennett. I've been talking to him for 20 years,

so I think I actually made the call. But it was our thing. At some point, I was on with you. Yeah, we might have just, hey, Dan, I got Jake on the line here. Yeah, I think we did. And he was super cool about it. He was like, I hate this.

Right. He also wanted to get rid of the lawyers being involved and said, all right, we just want to move forward. We want to get this done. yeah, the lawyers being involved and said alright. We just want to move forward We want to get this done. Let's let's get this all out of our hair We don't want to be in the paper every day actually being in the paper every day did not hurt subscriptions If there is a trial that popped up right now, we'd get a thousand more subscribers, and it would be very beneficial to us In a way but then we'd have to end up paying you guys more so then I guess really it wouldn't

weigh out but but if they stayed on it should we celebrate DF number one I think we know that person right didn't we yeah y'all mentioned we've been in contact with that no. No, no, no. The lawyer from Atlanta. I wanted to bring this up. There's no way he's number one. We probably shouldn't say that. Definitely not. We're not going to say a name and this is not revealing things from mediation, but I just thought it was so funny that during mediation, you guys, you tell this thing. guys you tell this thing. I think I said it you know Bob the mediator came in and said something about oh they're saying this was on your on your podcast or whatever and and I said well that's

because fill in the blank I won't say his name listens to every second of the podcast. And I think you went and looked it up. And sure enough, he was like, yeah, well, because we knew someone had to be listening, you looked up, but then you want it. You're like, can we comp him a month? Yeah. And we feel like that offer still stands. Not right now. At least that's up two months ago. He was still subscribed. Oh, there's 100% chance that he's gonna have to listen to all five hours of this.

Yeah. Yeah. Appreciate your support, pal. So then we, the judge did get involved. We then had to get the suits again. I got like one. So look, I got the suit out. I got different color shirts. I know women don't like this. I can wear the same thing five days in a row, but it looks like I'm wearing something different. And oh, you do the same? Yeah, I have two shirts,

but I have like three copies of each. Okay, well then I applaud you. You fit right in here. But now, yeah, so now we get, we actually get to the settlement. I don't know that we have to get to details on that, but that, you know, we came to the agreement that basically we're gonna keep doing what we're doing, Playboy.

Well, I think one thing to point out is the judge did get involved, and we held the mediation with her as the mediator in her courtroom. Right, she was the difference to the whole thing. That's why this thing got done. Now, we had to have- What might have gotten done with the other part. We didn't have we had the

advantage of we'd had a ruling on the hearing right the time we were in her court. So anyway, now we get to we wanted to we had to what it was it deliver a joint statement or some kind of a like part of the settlement is you have to put out a statement. Well, you may not know this. I think I reported it to you, but maybe I didn't. They did not want to go back to negotiate with the judge. What to do a settlement? Yeah, we had to we had to talk them into that. You all you all said, Look, let's get in touch with her quickly. And let's try

to get this done. Because we all agreed that having the help of the judge is going to be great. And everybody assumed that once she had said, you're not getting an injunction, I mean, that's the end of the case. There's not going to be a different outcome at trial. That's over. Anybody who does this stuff knows that that's over.

So after we got the judge back involved to say that she would do it, I reached out to Pernini to say, hey we want y'all, you know, we want to go back with the judge and try to get this settled. And he was not interested. He was like, when are we doing discovery? Which is part of a trial. And so I think y'all talking to Bennett is the only thing that made that happen. Well, no, because remember we, when we didn't get any feedback, I think we just went ahead and reached out to the court coordinator and said we would like to take the judge up on our offer and we copied them and they didn't, if I remember right, they didn't pipe in and say we don't want to do this.

And so the judge scheduled it. Yeah, well, we had to put out a statement. Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, they put out a pretty, the word would be like anodyne, just like tweet. It was very like. I think it was, ultimately it was agreed upon, like the thing they put out is agreed upon

and then you wanted to do your own thing and so that was negotiated. There were just some back and forth about how we could and couldn't address it. Yeah I did think it was a little bit odd too though. You wanted unfrozen caveman lawyer humor. Yeah. They might not have understood the humor or just didn't want it. Sure yeah and I think you know the other thing that was obviously... They're trying to explain to, okay, so SNL, no SNL. Yeah, so remember, so there's this guy,

he's dead now, but Phil Hartman used to be alive. And then the other thing too, obviously, that I was so glad when it was over, but just the way that that posted on social media, that was an interesting... Oh, they posted? Theirs? Yeah. They posted their statement. I think that was part of the agreement.

Well, they would have to put it out. But they chose to put it on Twitter. Right, as opposed to possibly saying it on the air. Or some sort of press release or something like that. So you put it out on Twitter and it was like alright, well within a very small amount of time the the responses to that were turned off and then everybody started quote tweeting it but there is a million responses yeah

of you know people that were not for cumulus aside so anyways but yes that was humorous because we did follow that, like I think texting each other. Yeah, it was like, when is it going to get pulled down? Yeah, yeah, yeah. How long are they going to wait before they pull it down? Or when will they turn off the comments? Yeah. When will this happen?

Yeah. And eventually both those things happened. It was amusing. There was a humorous vein there. So now we scheduled this for a few hours, and here we still are five hours later. And I know Blake got dropped off here, so he's probably dealing with an irate wife

with a rolling pin and a... Did you get dropped off? Yeah, I did, but don't... Is it all good? Don't put this on me. Okay, no, I just want to know, do we have time? Do you want to try to feel some of the discord slash... Yeah, you know, that's gonna be a can of before we before we do that, I just wanted to say one of the one last thing that goes along the lines of when I was talking about, you know, Jake's outburst after the settlement was pulled out from the rug was pulled out from under us.

The second biggest moment in this case for me was the day after our hearing or the day after the settlement, we had a Zoom conference or sort of a debriefing because not everybody on the defense team attended the final settlement conference. I think Phil was on vacation and Liz had another work engagement and so they weren't there the last day. So we had a kind of a final farewell zoom call the day after the settlement was reached and Jake got on that zoom call smiling for the first time in months and it was just it was just so refreshing. It was so good to see him in genuinely good spirits for the first time since I met him when I first became part of the case and and that's the that's the lasting memory I will have of this case.

I wish I could have of this case. I wish I could remember our drive home. It's very kind of you. Cause we drove there together. Oh, we had the very awkward hug in my driveway cause it's on a decline. A decline. So you were like blowing me. I was like leaning down trying to,

I'm taller by barely, but also he was like just lower. And his head in his chest step brothers. Yeah, and our ties are all jacked up Yeah, so we got a ton of questions a lot of them have already been answered But I'll just ask a couple of them And a lot of people wanted to know at what point in the case and this is for anybody that wants to take it At what point in the case did you feel like you were going to win was there a moment when absolutely yeah we didn't win absolutely after our meeting with the judge in chambers I mean we won the that was it injunction order I suppose that's

true yeah that wasn't the trial but it it was, yeah. I'm getting the air draft. From the outside looking in when the complaint was filed. Seriously. Seriously. I don't mean to sound real arrogant, but I agree with McCool. This never scared me. Well, I agree that that was what you were telling us the whole time. The whole time, yeah. Yeah.

And it never scared me, but there were so many ups and downs where I thought, like, this is so, I just, I, Philip and Frank, you guys deal with individuals a lot, so I guess maybe it's, you're more used to it, but I cannot tell you the weight of responsibility I felt of just, like, we can't, you know, we we've got I can't believe this is not gonna settle because these guys cannot handle this for another six months So, I don't know. It was just yeah, it was crazy to be in that environment I've never had to deal with I don't know how family lawyers do it or how criminal lawyers do it. I I couldn't do it No, you're you're absolutely right. You know Philip was obviously

from the very beginning, bullshit lawsuit, we're gonna win this thing. I tended to agree with that, but going back to what you said Liz, the awesome responsibility that I felt because these guys were, y'all didn't know it and I didn't ever want to say it, but if you didn't win you guys were looking down the barrel of paying legal expenses for two of the top two of the largest firms in the nation in the world and then a third firm that's probably equally as expensive oh we did talk about. And it was my ammo a lot of the time of like are you guys do you want to keep going with this? And so even though I

felt confident the enormity of the stakes for you guys made this a heavy weight on my shoulders and I think we all felt that way. Yeah bankruptcy court was one floor down. We were fine. My only fans is killing it. I want to ask the super team this. When you know I first read Dan's contract and felt super I felt totally fine right. But then seeing Jake's contract and the additional revisions kind of more explicitly saying that podcasts were, I don't remember what the text is now, but it felt like Jakes was intentionally restricted as to podcasts. And how did you guys square that circle? Or was that a concern for you guys during the hearings? Well, we had plans for how to do it. And there are definitely good legal ways to do it, not

definitely good legal ways to do it, not the least of which is the fact that Susquehanna was the employer, not Cumulus, and Susquehanna had no, really no commercial podcast business whatsoever. So we felt like that it was clearly an overbroad deal, but like Frank said, by the time we had our first chambers conference with the judge. We didn't really care what you know how to answer specific questions about the contracts anymore and because it's the judge recognized some aspects of damages and Evidence in this particular context that we're going to be Challenging for the plaintiff without revealing her language in chambers.

When I think her comments on the record after the hearing, you know how she said, I'm gonna issue a written ruling, but she did issue some comments on the record. I think she made some comments about, you know, them not being able to show they're a reparable harm issue and issues with damages. Well, and from my perspective,

I wasn't as concerned about the language in Jake's contract because it was the same language as Dan's except it had a comma including podcasting. I wasn't as concerned about that because in my reading of Texas, the Texas non-compete statute is it doesn't matter what the contract says. It's gotta be reasonable given the circumstances. So I know a lot of people online got hung up on the fact that Jake specifically mentioned podcasting,

so game over, Jake loses. Yeah, we were very dumb. Yeah, and my answer to that is I didn't give a, I don't give a damn what the contract says. The courts have to have to gatekeep these for reasonableness and any, if it were just a matter of what's written in the contract, then the scope of that non-compete is, is as expansive as a creative lawyer who owns a software program. They could make up anything. So the risk in going to trial for both sides we could end up paying a ton well obviously we would end up paying

a ton more money to you guys but we could end up losing and then they, the risk for them, they lose and they can't have those contracts anymore. And they have to change them across the board for however many thousand or hundred or whatever on-air employees. So that was an interesting dynamic too, just even thinking about that. Like obviously we didn't want to go through six months and then appeals and all that kind of stuff. No.

Not just you, us, all of us. Sure. All of us. I mean, Liz has a real career. She thought this was going to be an afternoon of work for her. That was the worst part of it because I was the only one out of the whole group that was not my own boss. And so, all the time whenever we're trying to just jump

on something, or I was trying to make it work, but at the same time, I had a whole other day. Because that was, like you said, that was one of our, we'll get into this at some other point, but the negotiations, Jake's contract was written differently than mine. But we were still both doing the exact same job in the exact same way that we were both doing five years ago.

But then three years ago, they started changing the contracts. Now, this current one they were trying to offer us listed as competing YouTube, other things that had never been invented yet. It said that. That is correct, yes. Like, other pos- like, they were just trying to cover themselves for the future even

though we didn't do any of those things while signing the contract and we were told by McCool and many others that hey these this is just too overly broad and vague and then when we were in the negotiations we said hey this is too overly broad and vague. No it's not. yeah, but this won't hold up in court. Yes, it will. OK, but there's no argument for that until you actually get to court. And now you do have a third party neutral observer saying,

they're peace. And again, we didn't win that, but we did win the injunction part. And had it gone to trial, I think we all felt good. It would have probably won, but it could have been very painful to do that. You know. Okay, so, sorry. That's just stemming, I think, off of what McCool said, but who knows? Nobody remembers what McCool said. No, I'm just kidding.

And yeah, like we said, we've been going for like five hours, so a lot of these questions have been answered already, so I don't want to make you say the same thing twice, but Frank, you'll know what this means. If you guys could just give a short TLDR or just a brief synopsis, explain it like I'm five, just the average person that rolls into the situation, what was this about? Just explain it to a non-lawyer person,

exactly what happened. Well, you mean what the entire case was about? Yeah, like if someone knows like, oh Cumulus sued Dan and Jake over. Oh, okay, yeah, I mean Cumulus sued or Susquehanna Radio, the parent company, sued Dan and Jake to prevent them from starting their podcast business.

And what the process, the way the process works is they file a complaint. It's basically breach of contract, breach of the all these agreements. But the most important part of it is they're asking the court to shut that down. It's causing irreparable harm right now that can't be answered in money damages. So court, you should shut them down right now, not let them do it until we get to a trial and an ultimate determination on the merits. And this was because they started it within their non-compete window? Yes. Okay. Yes. And I think, and that that raises another issue on the whole be cool thing. I really wanted to point this out, Dan, because I thought it was a very magnanimous gesture

on your part. When we were pounding out the final details, you thought of this. Every one of the deadlines in the settlement agreement were supposed to expire on January 24th. You told them that you would extend the non-compete to January 31st in observation of the 30th birthday party that they were having in January. Yeah, I think both me and Jake were talking about that. And I thought they didn't ask for it.

You voluntarily offered that as a goodwill gesture. There's your word, goodwill. What is that? I didn't have any goodwill to give. As a goodwill gesture for them. And that's why you had the oddity in your contract that some of your restrictions expired on the 24th, and some of them expired on January 31.. And so ultimately Dan and Jake not won but did not get shut down because...

One. Well I'm not giving into Dan's worrying on this. We won! And ultimately y'all won because they could not prove that this was causing harm to Cumulus or Susquehanna. Well they didn't win because when you're trying to get a preliminary injunction, there are four factors, four things you have to prove. The judge essentially said they proved none of them and irreparable harm is only one of those factors. They still had to prove that what they were doing was that the number one, that the non-competition agreement was valid, in other words, it was reasonable in time, time, scope, and geography.

But then they had to prove that they were suffering from irreparable harm, that the prejudice to the plaintiffs outweighed the prejudice to both the defendants and the public, and that's all getting into the weeds. But essentially, the judge held that they proved none of the factors that they were required to prove. One of the elements that he was mentioning is likelihood of success on the merits and so that's why we got into all of the issues of who that's that factor is the issue of who won likelihood of success on the merits because what what a judge in this scenario this is the judge has to kind of predict what's

going to happen at the end of the case in ruling on whether to grant the injunction so she's kind of putting her finger in the wind, giving the evidence, and predicting who's going to win at the end. And because they didn't prevail on likelihood of success on a merits, we can say she was saying we would likely won at the end. Did she say that on the record though? I thought she was focusing on erupting. She just said they didn't prove any. Okay. I do remember her going through because I'm like, oh so can you like bat 250? Well yeah, no, for a preliminary injection. You're like, no you need all four.

If they fail on one, then you guys don't get enjoined. And we'll end with this. Lucky Dishes wants to know, with all of the changing technology and stuff these days, has Dan changed his ways and started to look into things He never knew existed like geofencing I'm not looking into things that restricts What our reach is I'm looking at things for the people all of the people. Yeah You guys are the best You really are like I don't think.

I think Jake got more emotional than I did. But I agree with everything he said. Like you guys are now among our best friends for life. I mean it was just such a... To have gone through that. Yeah, for you and me, for all of us. It was just...I don't know that many people... I know people have their businesses get sued.

People go to court. But there was just something deeply personal. I don't know that many people, I know people have their businesses get sued, people go to court, but there was just something deeply personal about the way this one all played out. I don't think any of us will ever forget. When Liz or Frank, you guys are, not that you're not, Phillip, you said it too, just the whole, it was more than just trying to win the case it was also about you know how is it affecting us or this or that like that I knew you guys cared I feel like yeah you weren't you weren't flying in from another city to just

defend us like you were doing it's like you were one of us I will I will I will say without a doubt that this I'll just call it a victory like Philip, this victory for you guys was the most rewarding win I've ever had in a 25 year litigation career. I will say I'm very glad that I got to be a part of this and have this experience. And it was really like it was being in the trenches and I had withdrawals after, you know, we had our farewell because you were used to being with people like, I don't know, four or more hours a day for like six weeks. And so it was crazy. If I lose this Colleen case, I'm going to call you. Okay.

No, I felt the same way. I would just like randomly text these guys individually like, hey, you up? It's going on, man. It wasn't a boogie call. Miss you guys. I will say I've had a lot of cases that I felt like were super important for people who I also care about the way I care about the two of you. But stopped in the grocery store, stopped at the gas station,

stopped walking the dog by people I don't know, do not know, thanking me for helping you too. That's more than Dan gets. I never get recognized. I mean, I started listening to you guys in law school. I lived at home like a huge loser and would have to drive 30 minutes to SMU and that's how I started listening to the ticket and that was, you know, in 2006. So, Dan, you emailing me back in July was like, it literally is the highlight of my professional career.

Well that's sad for the rest of your career. There's still time. And tech just hit the ugliest field. And that reminded me, I do want to give a shout out, we mentioned it that a DF bought the trial transcript. His name is Benton Williams. He's a diehard DF and you called him to invite him to one of the livestream football watching parties. He couldn't come, but he immediately texted me and told me that that was one of the one of the live stream football watching parties he couldn't

come but he immediately texted me and told him me that that was one of the highlights of his life that you called him so I just wanted to give him a shout out and you as well and Benton called me before he bought the transcript I think at you know going to see if we needed it or whatever and Benton I didn't call you back because I was catching up on every other thing that I hadn't done in the three weeks before, and so sorry about that. Sorry about us.

We'll try not to get sued again. Well, thanks, guys. Want to do this again tomorrow? Ha ha ha. Brake. Jake, that's the sound of a car crash. Oh, no. What would you do if you got in an auto accident right now? I would make sure I'm okay, get my wits about me and then I would call 214-817-333-3333.

All three's, Frankle and Frankle, because they could what? They can take care of. Help you get what you deserve. Yes, that's right. Insurance companies want to keep that from me. Maybe they want to blame me. They could even want to blame me for this accident. I know it wasn't my fault. But I don't want to deal with it. That's the main thing. I don't want to deal with it.

When you call Frankel, you're not going to talk to some spare like Blake. No. You're going to talk to a partner. A big shot. Somebody awesome, like awesome. Somebody with a watch. Yeah, they're gonna treat you right. At Frankl & Frankl. Personal injury attorneys. That's where I ended. I thought we were ending. I know but it wasn't 60 so.