Legal Talk

If truth be told, most families harbor a lot more Marleys than they do Scrooges.  It is not too late to cut the chains. Marley appeared in Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” as a ghost of Scrooge’s deceased partner burdened with chains. Marley was the first to warn Scrooge that all was not well with his world when   he gave an ominous explanation of his unusual garb:  “I wear the...

Christmas is rapidly approaching and you are in a panic to about what to get for that special someone. Rest assured that you are not alone. General Sherman found himself there in 1864 when he had not had time to go shopping for his Commander-In-Chief. His solution was to wire Lincoln with the following: “I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the City of Savannah, with 150 heavy...

If you live in Texas then you know that a bright sunny sky can shift to a blinding hailstorm in a matter of minutes.  Tornados?  Earthquakes?   Wind storms?  Texans know these can, and do, pop up with alarming regularity.   That is why most sane Texans carry property insurance.  That is also why insurance-toting Texans need to know about  the Texas Prompt Payment of Claims Act.   The TPPCA may well be...

In October of 1919, President Woodrow Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke. Rather than follow the constitutional protocol that dictated Vice President Thomas Marshall should serve during President Wilson’s incapacity, the First Lady, Edith Wilson, took the reins. While Woodrow Wilson languished, paralyzed on one side and barely able to get out of bed, Mrs. Wilson drafted official correspondence in her famously childlike handwriting, met with cabinet members, and most importantly,...

For goodness sakes’ people: Smile! All is not gloom and doom.    The future may contain huge unknowns, but doesn’t it always? The other side may seem completely wrong about everything,  but isn’t there a possibility that there may be the slightest smidgeon of right lurking under the bombast?  Your favorite sports team may seem condemned by a broken ankle, but aren’t there another 54 or so players still running around on...

Your retirement age, in case you are interested, is between 65 and 67, depending on the year you were born. So says a host of government agencies.   That does not mean that the government will force you to put down your pen and pick up a fishing rod when you hit that age. It just means that it is the key age when your friendly government will force you to...

Merrily we have drifted into the world of the internet while abandoning file cabinets, stripping picture albums and tossing piles of unwanted paper along the way. The lure of the cloud is impossible to ignore. You alone hold the magic formula of logins and passwords and URLs where your treasures may be found.  Financial documents and accounts for banking, brokerages and cryptocurrency, frequent-flier and credit-card points, photos, blogs, social-media accounts,...

Find What You're Looking For: Owning A Gun In Texas Purchasing Guns How To Get a Gun License In Texas Open Carry and Concealed Carry Laws in Texas Can You Carry A Gun While Fishing? Recent changes in Texas Gun laws Hammerle Finley Law Firm To many Americans, the “right of the people to keep and bear arms” enshrined in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution borders on the...

So you want to live with someone to whom you are not married?  We call that “cohabitating” or “inviting a lawsuit.” Whatever. Cohabitation is legal, but that does not mean it is a relationship you should leap into lightly.  Before you make the move, you should consider the cautionary tale of Stephen Carl Smith and Mary Deneve. Smith and Deneve began living together in 1991. They neither married nor signed a cohabitation...

For well over a century, idiots and lunatics were prohibited from voting in Texas. There had been some discussion about also prohibiting drunkards, but that was dropped when the legislators realized it would disqualify most of them. Texas has not been alone in its thinking. Eleven states still have laws banning “insane persons” or those who are “non compos mentis” from voting. More than 25 states ban people who have...

Talk about alphabet soup. There are at least 200 different kinds of financial certifications used in the marketplace, and it seems like more are being added every day. As you would suspect, some certifications are more meaningful than others. Here are a few of the more popular ones. A CFP (Certified Financial Planner) works with clients to evaluate their options and make financial decisions.  The certification is awarded through the...

It’s possible that when you were in school, history was not necessarily your favorite subject. But to understand express versus implied warranties, a brief history lesson is in order. Before delving in, however, you’ll be happy to know that Hammerle Finley has practiced business law since 1984. We have an extensive online library for your reference purposes, as well as a staff of highly qualified and experienced business law attorneys. The Uniform Law Commission and the Uniform Commercial Code In 1892, as the American economy grew...