4745 N 7th St. Suite 210 Phoenix, AZ 85014
(602) 566-7425
Transcript
16:30
So welcome back everyone. And I’m gonna say this every one I say it every show I said it earlier, I love my show, the information and what we do is go from soup to nuts here from one thing to the other, we’re live on Facebook, we have it all day. Hi to everybody out there like us and follow us. We will share the show later on. And what I also want to tell everybody is to please put in networking, Arizona if you’re watching, you know on Facebook, and you can watch us in here during the show live. It’s really fun to do. I have with me Rita Gara. And she is one of the partners of FR Law Group. Welcome back to the show. You’ve been on several times. Let’s talk a little bit about FR Law Group and what makes them different. Okay, why do you like working with them? And then what we’re going to talk about today.
17:15
Hi, Carol. Thanks for having me back. Happy to be here. So I think what makes our law firm FR Law Group standard standout is you’re getting big law experience but in a small, firm atmosphere. And that makes a real big difference to our clients. So you’re getting people with decades of experience, who know how to handle the complex litigation matters that may end up at our door, but you’re getting a lot more attention to detail. And one on one interaction it has that small, firm feel.
17:49
yeah, you know what, you’re the big guns, but what you do is you have that mentality of that. But you give them a boutique atmosphere, and one on one, right? Which is really nice that you can get that because if anybody ever called anywhere else that was like kind of had that mentality of the big guys. You’re not getting that
18:11
in any way. No, that’s true, and our founding partners. Troy Froderman and Scott Ryan really wanted the freedom themselves to be able to, you know, handle a case from start to finish the way they wanted to and not be dictated by, you know, a certain firm time or strict constraints or, or things like that. So I think it’s a really nice environment, not only for the client coming, but to work as an attorney because the case and the client comes first.
18:38
And we talk a lot about business law, right? And one thing I want to also talk about too is there’s everybody thinks to call an attorney when something goes wrong. But that’s not how you guys look at it, you look at it as because you do a free consultation with people. Let’s say you’re forming a business right now and a lot of people have recently right or always are, you’re forming a business, maybe you are listening to this right now. And you know, you never know when something can happen. This is something where you should get this information, have them talk to you, find out, let’s read whatever it is you’re dealing with. Let’s talk about that. And let’s stop something from happening bad before it even happens.
19:22
I think that’s such a good point. You know, nobody really wants to get the attorneys involved. Usually it’s a last resort, you get served with a lawsuit, are you at the point where you want to take action against somebody, a lot of times it’s a matter of expense. But in reality, some pre planning or pre thought and getting in early can save you some headaches in the long run or prevent you from losing the opportunity to pursue a claim. And I’ll give you a couple examples in terms of kind of what you were bringing up you know, we do we get it would not be uncommon to have somebody come in at the point where the issue has exploded, but it’s a take, for example, you’re you’re forming a business or business relationship with somebody, we deal a lot with contracts at the inception of the creation of the contract or when things go bad. And one of the things, one of the areas that I think it’s pretty interesting, and an area that has a lot of pitfalls is dealing with statutes of limitation. I think most people generally understand what that means. We hear it a lot in the context of criminal cases, how long, the prosecution has to bring a charge against somebody. But they’re also very important in the business world, and you have a certain amount of time to bring a case against somebody, and it makes sense. So you don’t want to get sued 30 years later, for a little thing that happened a long time ago, and nobody remembers the events surrounding that. So it gives us a little certainty that, you know, all issues will be resolved within a reasonable timeframe. So take contracts, for example, the Arizona statutes provide six years to bring a contract claim. But it’s three years of the contract is oral, and a lot of people don’t think about oral contracts.
21:13
But there you go, listen up everyone. You can learn something every time you listen to the show. That’s amazing. Yeah.
21:19
And those things not knowing that can affect you, for example, if you weren’t, if you had no idea, there was a different statute of limitations for oral versus written and you had an oral contract, and you thought you had six years. And you’re in the fourth year, and you’re thinking, You know what, I am going to bring that claim, you’ve lost the ability. So but where it’s important in the beginning, as we were kind of talking about, is another thing that a lot of people aren’t aware of and it’s important, whether you’re the one who’s going to benefit from it, or the person who’s going to be on the receiving end of it is, Arizona law recognizes the ability to contractually shorten statutes of limitations. So again, to go back to the contract statute of limitations, it’s six years. So if you and I enter into a contract, either one of us has six years to bring forth a claim on a particular issue. Well, at the beginning, when we’re entering into that agreement, I could seek to have a provision included in that contract that says, No, we’re not going to do six years, we’re going to do one year. And it’s important to know because that might be something you want, you don’t want to have, whoever you’re entering into business agreements with have that opportunity to have six years to bring a claim, you might think that’s too long. And if the law recognizes your right to do that, maybe that’s a good idea for you. The person on the other end certainly wants to know that as well, because they’re giving up five years worth of an opportunity to bring a claim. And if you are, if that’s something that’s important to you, that would be something that you could come in and talk to our attorneys right at the beginning. But if you don’t know that’s an option. It’s not going to be there.
23:00
And like people say, you don’t know what you don’t know. Yeah,
23:03
right. Absolutely. Absolutely. So their
23:05
phone number to call it 602-566-7425. Their website is frlawgroup.com. They’re located right here in Phoenix, they’re local, but they also help people nationwide. So they are available. And the main thing is, don’t wait, obviously, and to call somebody, especially when you’re dealing with somebody in business, if you’re in business with others, if you are in business for yourself, there’s a lot of good things about that. But you still might have, you’re still in business with anybody that you’re dealing with. Okay. And the same thing. For now, when you think about the people that if you’re working with somebody, and you’ve decided to be in business, quote unquote, with that person, you better believe you better have something there and talk about these issues. oral contract, which I’m sitting here thinking, how can anyone have just an oral contract? I thought, you had to have things in writing, or you know what?
24:03
Yeah, and with that, it depends. There are certain types of agreements that have to be in writing. But you know, and speaking of this, this comes through to and not just a business context, although in a contract sense, it’s important in other ways that we see, so part of our practice, we deal a lot with insurance claims. And we talked a little bit. I think about this in one of our other segments, other segments, but so just as you and I, if we’re going to enter into a business agreement can contractually shorten our statute limitations. You know, when you and I talk about and we’re thinking of maybe a smaller business arrangement, but we also see it in insurance contracts. And so here you have people you have the insurance company on one side and the individual looking to get insurance and the bargaining power between the two is a lot different than maybe you and I getting into a contract where we feel we’re on equal footing. So it’s important to know things like that about the statute limitations. For example, if you’re going to get insurance, a lot of insurance contracts shorten the statute limitations within their contract. And you got to think about the last time you bought insurance. Did you read every provision in that contract? Probably not. And so that would be something. So we had a case with a homeowner. And the statute of limitations was shortened from six to two years. And it’s, you have two years from the time of the loss, or the injury. The date of accrual, they’ll call it so when that initial loss happened. And in this particular case, it was a significant loss to a home. Are you immediately thinking, you know, I better go and read through all the terms of my contract. I mean, you might at some point, get there when you’re looking to figure out coverage, but you’re not thinking this is going to end poorly, and I need to sue my insurance company. So I better get a lawyer. You’re thinking I need to find a contractor to redo the home and all these things. Well, if that issue takes two years to bubble up, you’re out of luck, because the date or the time started, the clock started ticking, the date of loss.
26:14
Well, I’ll tell you something, this is where the consultation comes in. This is where it comes into, do things early rather than later. And you know, knowing how they’re worded is so important. And we believe me, you don’t understand it the way they do. They went to school for that. Their number is 602-566-7425. It’s frlawgroup.com. They do free consultations, hang tight. We’ll be back in just a minute.
10:26-13:39
So we’re going to keep on going because we’re live on Facebook, okay? Yeah. For you, when you talk about these contracts and things like this statutes of limitations on them and you’ve had people have that happen where they just didn’t know this? Absolutely. And then they’re just like, this is it. Absolutely. So then it’s an uphill battle and another reason why. So in terms of getting to see that attorney early would have been, so in this one particular family case, at the date of loss, for example. When they had the catastrophic issue, lost their home, at that point would have been perfect to call an attorney and say, I don’t know if I need anything, like we’re going through the process, but this is an area where there could be issues and then that attorney is going to go and read through the requirements, all the provisions that are pertinent to your loss and then can say, Hey, as issues develop we might have an issue here and get that suit filed. Now, it’s not always an absolute loss, but you don’t want to risk, leaving it up to the court to decide, if in fairness. Right. They’re going to overlook that rule. Right. Because ports have enforced those provisions limiting the statute of limitations and then sometimes they have found, for example in the case of an insurance company versus an individual, that maybe bargaining power was a little bit inequitable and did you really bargain for that provision? So they have allowed in some cases to extend that statute of limitations, but again you’re already at this point spending money on litigation to get that answer. In terms of these statutes of limitations is it just mainly in contracts or other areas? No. And that’s the next area kind of wanted to get into, so one of the other areas that is really significance and involved would be discrimination claims. So you think it gets really confusing, so in a discrimination claim you have multiple different types of discrimination that could be taking place. You can have discrimination based on race, discrimination based on religion, or create discrimination based on age, discrimination based on disability and there are different federal protections, and there are different state protections, and it depends on which state you live in in terms of. And I think people need to listen to that very important because in the last few years, all of that’s come into play quite a bit, yeah I don’t think it did as long maybe ever since you know, I don’t know it just seems like in the last couple of years race, you know, how you’re taking care of somebody, in business specially. You can get yourself into a pickle. Well, I think that’s also interesting too, that we’re seeing in terms of issues, which is kind of a really interesting wrinkle and I think we’ll be dealing with wrinkles for.
29:53
So welcome back everyone. We’ve been talking a little bit about statutes of limitations when it comes to business and I was just talking to read at the break to Facebook, and about other areas besides contracts, because, you know, obviously we understand that we can know that’s where they’re coming in. But other areas of where somebody that statute of limitations might come into play when it comes to someone’s business.
30:18
Yes. And so one of the one of the areas that people can really find themselves in trouble and really could have used the benefit of some legal advice is, if you’re facing discrimination at work, and we were just talking about, there’s a bunch of different ways you can be discriminated against whether it’s race, religion, creed, pregnancy, discrimination, or
30:43
a woman, honestly, that’s happened for I’ve seen, things have changed, right? Some to the good but ever since the last. I would say in a few years, it seems more so that people seem to know the system better than ever now. And you could get yourself into a pickle. But their statutes of limitations, which is this, I think, in this area is even more important, because let’s say you get rid of somebody, you fire them, could that come back and bite them when they don’t know that they’re right?
31:15
Well, and what’s interesting is, and I’ll give you an example of some of the things that I think are kind of interesting coming up now, that are kind of new is think about what’s happened in the last few years with COVID. Our working dynamic and the way we do our jobs, and many different fields in countries has changed significantly. And we have a large group of people who were hired to work remotely. And now they’re competent to saying we need you to come back in. And so there’s issues coming for some people who perhaps have a disability and working from home is a really good option for them. But coming into the office for a variety of reasons might be an issue, and then you’re going to look at well, was I hired for a job that could be remote? Or was I told that at some point I was going to have to come in? And at what point does this rise to level discrimination. And you know, you have a couple circumstances where people are just outrageous. But a lot of times it’s less overt. And so it’s really good idea to come in and say, you know, it’s kind of one of those things like I can’t maybe give you an email chain, but I know what’s happening and I feel it happening and attorney can kind of help you go through will tell me kind of drag out the circumstances or the details of what you’re going through and decide whether or not there might be something actionable there. But here’s the crazy thing about discrimination cases. And we’re talking about this a little bit on the break, there’s so there are many different laws that protect against discrimination. But you’ve got federal laws, and you’ve got state laws, and you’ve got laws to protect against disabilities, you got laws that protect against retaliation, harassment, you know, whatever it may be, and they might all have different time frames within which you have to do things, not just file a lawsuit. So for example, the state of Arizona requires if you’re going to sue, and this is just to bring a charge against a state agency to bring an action against the state agency, you have to file a charge what they call a charge within 180 days from the day your injury accrued or from the date it happened. And you can imagine, depending on what type of action you’re bringing, let’s just say it’s discrimination case. When was that data first injury? If it was harassment, was it the date somebody first said something to you in a harassing manner? Or was it the date it ended? Or was it you know, can you establish that this has been a continuing pattern, and the damaging thing is, if you don’t guess that correctly, and file your notice of claim within 180 days, you lose your ability, you forfeited your ability to bring that claim. And if and if you’re talking about a situation where you have now lost the ability to work, and you can’t get your job back,
34:10
and the consequence is devastating, that’s happened to them. Now, a lot of people are listening to this. Well, a lot of people go on to Google, and they try to find a lot of information there. And they end up not talking so they think they got all the information. What are your thoughts on that? So I
34:31
mean, it’s a dangerous game, and you’re gambling depending on what your issue is, and what kind of you know, what damages? How you have been damaged? What are we talking about? What’s at stake? You are gambling that you’re going to get it right. And so that’s really dangerous. And you might not even know the way especially if we’re talking about instances where you could have a federal cause of action a state cause of action you may not even be aware of how the two intersect, and so, to come in, especially a firm like ours, where we’re offering a free consultation, you come in when you know, you just it’s up potential for an issue, hey, I’m concerned, what are the things I should be doing? What are the things I should be collecting? Sometimes companies have internal grievance processes. Are you doing that correctly? Are you doing anything that’s going to hurt your chances of having your claim recognized? So it’s really about and I don’t think anyone can argue with, you know, you’re better off with the more information you have,
35:32
I will say to, and I think I said this to you earlier, we, our world has changed, very much so. And you have to protect yourself. This has been, you know, this is huge. It’s not like, you know, a gentleman’s agreement, I know, or you have the oral kind, right, the contracts, but it used to be so different, you hired people, it was no big deal, right? Now, it’s a huge deal. There’s so many things that you have to offer that you really need. But also you need to protect yourself, the minute you start hiring other people. And it’s, I don’t care if it’s just one employee, or if it’s hundreds of employees, now you’re dealing you open yourself up to so much. And because we live in this different kind of world that we live in today, it’s so important for both sides really to be protected. And again, we will stress this, you should not wait till the till that problem happens. You can call them and they’ll do a free consultation with you. Let’s sit down. Let’s find out where? What do you do? Find out about their business and find out about, you know, what you’ve done, and so they can help you put things in place? God forbid, right? Absolutely.
36:46
And the biggest thing is what options do I have? Nobody’s saying you have to act on those options, but as informing yourself so that when the time comes, you haven’t waited too long or lost your opportunity or done something to put at risk, you know, strength of your case.
37:04
I like to say this, arming yourself with absolutely good information to make good decisions. Absolutely. I think that’s what it’s all about. And I think that with anybody that you hear here at this show, you know, it’s all about that. But you know, another one of my clients once said to me, you know, we were talking. It’s one thing to listen. And it’s another thing to do something about it, right? And a lot of us are procrastinators, right. And it’s so important to please, please, please, and I’m talking to myself just as much as I talk to everybody out there, get on the ball. And don’t just say, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m gonna do that and put that number on the refrigerator, on your desk, which a lot of people do. And then you finally get around to it, or when it’s too late. Yeah, right? Yeah. So their phone number to call is 602-566-7425. They’re located right here in Phoenix, but they help people nationwide and you can check them out on their website, which is frlawgroup.com. For you, when people come into, first of all, let’s talk about a story that maybe if you have one, that you help somebody, before anything happened, can you remember anything like that?
38:16
Well, you know. I have a story of somebody who was involved in a contract with a contractor. And, you know, again, to touch on some of the COVID things we’ve all been dealing with. There’s supply chain issues, there were delays. But then there were also a lot of people who are, you know, maybe the people they were working with and taking on too many jobs. And so the question becomes, when is this an actionable thing, and I had somebody contact our office and we met, reviewed the contract a whole bunch of documents and kind of worked through options and what we could do and then she had educated herself and then said, All right, well, I’m going to you know, sit tight and look for this, this isn’t that and then the issue was resolved. But she was aware of
39:10
the information,
39:11
what she could do to protect herself what steps there were available, and then was able to wait to decide if it was something she needed to incur more expense on and escalate things or not in in her case, it didn’t escalate and then
39:25
what I believe that I am gonna have to tell people this, when you have a law firm such as FR Law Group that has the big guns, but what they’ve done is created this boutique firm, for you to be able to get that type of mentality to be able to protect you. Again, we want to stress this before anything happens. They’ll do a free consultation. It is so worth it just to make that phone call, and then maybe give them an hour or so. And you never know what that one thing could make such a big difference and again, I stress this be prepared, be prepared because we do live in this different world today. And it’s not like it used to be and I know a lot of people who are the baby boomers on up like me that can relate to it, you know, and so please we want to make sure that people are covered and that’s what they’re here for. They do free consultations. They’re located right here. So they are local, but they do help people nationwide. Check them out on their website, it is frlawgroup.com where you can call them directly and get a free consultation 602-566-7425.