Trial War Stories

Trial War Stories - The Plight of Elmer

• Andrew • Season 1 • Episode 1

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A Family Farm, a Father’s Last Wish, and a Courtroom Battle That Changed Everything 🌾⚖️

In this episode of Trial War Stories, host Andy Goldwasser sits down with trial lawyer Adam Fried to unpack one of the most unforgettable cases of his career: The fight over Elmer the Farmer’s legacy.

Elmer wanted nothing more than to live out his final days on his farm. But after being placed in assisted living against his will, Elmer signed papers that changed his entire estate plan — cutting his daughter out of the inheritance and leaving everything to his son. What followed was a high-stakes courtroom showdown over capacity, undue influence, and the ultimate question: who gets to decide a person’s last rights — the family, the doctors, or the individual himself?

Adam shares the strategy, chaos, and turning points of the trial — from expert battles over dementia, to cross-examining doctors, to showing a jury of farmers why Elmer’s choice made sense. With themes of family betrayal, self-determination, and the dignity of choice, this story goes beyond the transcripts and verdicts into the heart of trial advocacy.

🎙️ Trial War Stories brings you inside the courtroom with the lawyers who lived it — the pressure, the strategy, and the human stories that define justice.

👉 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more real trial stories that shaped the careers of great lawyers.

I'm super excited to be here today, talking about a fight over a family farm that led to a trial war story. And yes, the farmer's name was alma. Every trial lawyer has that one case. The one that pushed them to the edge changed how they practice or kept them up at night. This is trial war stories. And I'm your host, Andy Goldwasser. I sit down with great trial lawyers to unpack unforgettable cases. The strategy, the chaos, the pressure and the moments that turn the tide beyond the transcripts and verdicts. And now to the show. I'm here with Adam Freed. I've known Adam for a long time. In fact, Adam, we met in sort of a crazy way. Then we. We sure did. Why don't you tell us how. Tell everyone how we met. Of all things. Well, let's just call it a brawl. We had a little brawl, and it wasn't in the courtroom. No. We started out getting to. We got together in a roundabout way in high school, gotten a little fraternity fight of all things, and then reconnected after law school. And I've known you ever since and gotten to now be an office mate with you, which has just been fantastic. But Adam's an interesting guy. He's the kind of person. He's one of a kind. Once you meet him, you love him. He dresses interesting. He's an just an interesting, interesting person. So the first question I have to ask Adam before we get started. When you walk into a courtroom, you're known for your fedora hats and your crazy socks. When you walk into a courtroom like a trial, are you dressed the same way? Put a tie on. But I obviously wear a hat. You wear a hat. Until I walk into the courtroom. Then I pull it off. And that's my question. When you get in that courtroom, do you. Are you still wearing the hat when the jury walks in, or is your hat set aside? My hat is set aside for the, purpose of making sure that the court understands that I respect their their their place of business. I love it. And so where do you put your hat when you walk into a courtroom? On my table. Right. So, Adam, also, not only is he a unique dresser, but he's got a unique practice. And, Adam, your practice is state litigation. What the heck is a state litigation? The simplest. And the farmer story is about inheritance. And so we practice in the field of fighting over inheritances. So when family members are fighting over a will or trust, that's what you do. We can fight over a will or a trust or the management of it or the enactment of it. So yes, that's exactly what we do. And does that involve a lot of times fighting over whether someone is competent to enter into a well where they were coerced in some way or the other? You know, we have a huge aging population in America and a huge transfer of wealth. And so every once in a while, a will or a trust gets prepared or a beneficiary designation under, difficult circumstances. And those circumstances may lead to a dis inheritance of a family member. And in which case we may challenge or defend the case on undue influence grounds or lack of capacity grounds. So I find your practice so interesting. And when we talked a little bit about this podcast and trial war stories, I asked you, do you have any interesting cases? And immediately you said, Elmer the farmer. And I said, that's it. Drop the mic. We don't need anything more. Tell us about Elmer, the farmer's case. Well, Elmer was in his 80s, I believe, when he passed away about a few years before he passed away. He was put into a, assisted living facility by his daughter. And all he ever wanted to do was live out his life on the farm. Didn't care about the risk of living there. And he felt that his daughter abandoned him at the end of the day. What he did was he signed a document that disinherited her. And that's where the battle started. So I got to ask you, how does or how did Elmer's daughter get him into an AA facility if he didn't want to go? These cases are all about human existence. And when you have an older person who is less than capable of taking care of themselves, there's a chance that they'll be considered to be self neglecting. Or maybe they're going to be exploited. In this case, Elmer was at home living on the farm, and he had fallen down and, injured himself. He thought the Ohio State football team and beat him up. And that's what he was saying anyway. We couldn't tell if he was joking or if he really meant it, but he was hallucinating and he was, suffering from paranoia. He had other issues going on, and he was missing his medication or doubling down on his medication, which led to a bunch of hospitalizations, relating to his cognitive, issues and ability to protect himself. Did did a doctor say that he's competent or that he's incompetent, or that he needed to go to this facility? What was that about? Well, in the context of him living alone on a farm with all the dangerous equipment, and the inability to regulate his own medications, his daughter working with the medical team, placed him in an assisted living facility. And he didn't want to be there. He did not want to be there. He was in that facility doing push ups, taking the chairs and curling with them to show the staff that he was ready to go home. His daughter, he felt, had abandoned him there, and that was not how he wanted to live out the rest of his life. So the case name is file versus file, though the daughter's last name is file, though, I take it. Yes. Who's the other file? Terry file. And who's Terry file? Terry file was, was Elmer's son. Terry's also a farmer. Terry was living in Indiana. Elmer and Terry. Years passed. Had a falling out, probably over farming. And Terry hadn't seen his father for years. But whenever he came into town, he would drive past the farm because his father loved farming. And at one point he noticed that the farm was not being maintained, which really caused him concern. He had no idea where his father was. So he called his father's attorney his father didn't tell him. He called around, to various, assisted living facilities, hospitals, nursing homes. Finally tracked down his father. Why didn't Terry just call a sister? Well, his sister and he did not get along. So there was all sorts of family dynamics going on. There was. And Terry goes out, looks at the farm, concerned about the condition of the farm, doesn't know where his father is. Starts calling around. Ultimately, is he able to find his dad? He does. He finds his dad, goes to visit him at the nursing facility assisted living facility. And his father is elated. And the staff are all elated that Terry had found his father because now even the staff believed. If you read their nursing home records, the assisted living facility records, even they believed that he should be going home because he was so dogmatic about that. He's a farmer. He's going to go home and farm and spend the rest of his life on the farm. And he didn't care if he died on the farm, but that's where he wanted to spend his time. And the staff was very excited that Terry came in, to help save his father from the assisted living facility. That's really interesting. And so now Terry sees his dad. His dad wants to come home. His dad believes that his daughter has abandoned him and really put him in that facility against his will. What happens? Well, Terry calls around and finds a lawyer in the Dayton area who, agrees to go out and meet with Elmer Philo. The idea being to do a power of attorney to revoke the powers of attorney that were used, to, place Elmer into the facility and then using that power of attorney to find a path to get him out of the facility that would be safe for Elmer. At some point after the lawyer met with Elmer, they were able to get him out of that facility, return Tim to the farm, where he's happy. How did this fight over the inheritance take place? Well, you have to take a step back to Elmer's estate planning. In the past. He had an attorney, a long time attorney that was also a, financial power of attorney for Elmer. And Elmer was not only mad at his daughter, but was mad at this attorney because he felt that the attorney, acted against Elmer's interest to put him into the nursing facility. The, Elmer, talked to this new attorney who worked with him to prepare an estate plan that matched what Elmer wanted, which was the farm to be protected, and for Terry to have the ability to farm the farm. And at first, Elmer did not want his daughter to receive anything. At this point. So what he did was he, talking with his attorney. His attorney worked with him to create a plan that kept his daughter in the in the, in the mix and also gave Elmer the opportunity, if he later wanted to change his plan to remove his daughter from the, inheritance. I understand. Okay, so. So, Elmer. It's important. Elmer, the farm stays in the family. Terry's his son. Terry is the farmer. So Terry's going to be in charge of continuing to farm it after Elmer's death. And both Terry and his sister Alma's daughter are going to get a piece. That's the plan. That's the plan. All right. Elmer now returns home. Well, back on the farm. Right. Well, there. Step between. There's a there's a, a step between. Elmer first moves back with Terry in Indiana to to help get him up to speed, to be able to come back home. Elmer comes back home. There is an adult Protective services investigation because Elmer concern being that Elmer is not safe and still self neglecting prior to Elmer is released from the assisted living facility while his daughter was still in control. He, she obtained for him a, statement of expert evaluation demonstrating that he was incompetent. That was done by his doctor. And then there was a neuropsychologist report where there was evidence that he was essentially suffering from dementia and unable to manage his own affairs. So that's the staging at about the time that the attorney comes in to do the estate planning. All right. So when this attorney comes in to redo all the estate planning, there's a bunch of red flags from a lawyer's perspective, right? You have a a treating doctor who's saying he's got some mental in capacities. You have an expert evaluation through a neuropsychologist to say he's got some Elmer's got some issues, and you have adult protective services that you're dealing with as well. There's a lot going on. And Elmer is Elmer. He is a very stubborn individual. Could imagine and farm is, is and has been his life. And he he would work himself to the bone and that's what he wanted to do. And being what he felt was locked away an assisted living facility without the ability to get out. Really, really was impactful to him. So now Elmer Home are back on the farm, I should say, deserve a is there a point in time where he then changes his plan and says, you know what, my daughter, she's out. She's not getting anything. Everything's going to my son. Well, the plan itself is is complicated because there's some Medicaid type planning to protect his assets. So there's the concept of an irrevocable trust because he has a farm, he has a deed to the farm. There's a he, the attorney recommended the creation of an LLC that divided, voting and trusts. So the ability to manage the farm would be with Terry, the UN vote. The non-voting interest would be to his daughter, and then they would. So they had to fund the farm into the corporation, into the LLC. They then had to divide, the, the the voting and non-voting interest. They then had to move the farm, into, the a trust. And from the trust which was irrevocable, they created what was known as a power of appointment that allowed during his lifetime. Allowed. Terry. I'm allowed Elmer to change who the beneficiaries would be of the interest in the farm. And so that was the that was the complexity of the plan that Elmer, during a period where he was alleged to have suffered from dementia and other cognitive decline, executed a document. He first executed the plan that his daughter was a part of. And then about a month later, after he got out of the facility, he executed a power of appointment, which was a two page document that essentially, eliminated his daughter from any interest in his trust. Okay. So that's that's some sophisticated planning for a farmer. And someone who has some mental incapacity. That's a tough thing right there. The the the the, case as, the daughter presented including, a world, world renowned neurologist from the Ohio State University said that he was incapable Elmer was incapable of understanding the complexity of the plan. More importantly, because Terry was a fiduciary, he was somebody that Elmer placed trust and reliance on. And Terry was the person that found this brand new lawyer for Elmer, that there was allegations of undue influence because of the red flags that happened. And, you know, undue influence is perpetrated in the dark. So it doesn't happen where other people get to see the coercion that goes on. So because of the fiduciary relationship and Terry's involvement in the plan, the allegation was that as a fiduciary, he he coerced his father to enter into an estate plan that eliminated his sister. Got it. And who did you represent? I represented Terry. All right, so let's get into the trial. You represent Terry. You're going into trial. Where's the trial? The trial is in Madison County. It is a there's a small probate court, but they have an incredible courtroom. And I think it was a third floor. It was a huge courtroom, most beautiful. And so we had a jury trial seated in the probate court, through the probate court judge. But in the general, division, courtroom. Interesting. So here you are. You're going to present this case. It's your turn to get up and speak for the first time. And I'm not talking about jury selection. I'm talking about, well, actually, let's talk about jury selection. Sure. Quick step back. Is were you in a rural county of Ohio? So we are. Madison County is about 30 minutes west of Columbus. It's farm country. And yes, it was it was, very rural. We had some farmers on the jury, as I recall. And the whole concept of the independence and our right to self-determination is a big concept, especially in farming communities, but everywhere in the country. And but up against that is the concept of risk and and danger and exploitation of the elderly, which is a big problem. It's a scourge in our community, those two things butting up against each other and in the context of, preparing for a trial regarding, fight over farmland self-determination was the route that we took. You know, we talked about that a little bit. And I loved your theme for the trial. I mean, your theme was who is the jury to decide a person's last rights better than the individual himself? That's right. I mean, that's such a great theme, but it creates this difficulty or challenge for a trial lawyer because you're really testing the jury, right? You're telling the jury, hey, this isn't your choice about what's right and what's wrong as far as what Elmer wants to do, that's Elmer's choice. Well, it's Elmer's choice as long as he has the capacity to make the. Choice and that's the issue. So. So you have to focus on capacity. And now you're dealing a trial with a treating doctor who hurt. Yeah, a neuropsychologist who hurt you. And was adult Protective Services hurting. Yes. Well, adult. Protective Services hated us. So what did you do? How did you work this trial? Well, we brought in a forensic psychiatrist, review the records, and the forensic psychiatrist is a, They're trained in the legal, the legal medical world, and they're trained to be able to testify and explain their, their, opinions in a way that a jury can understand. The neurologist, on the other hand, was focused on purely medical issues such that there's no way that Elmer could have understand the complex structure of the corporate system that was set up to be able to transfer the farm and eliminate his daughter, his daughter, from his inheritance. Okay. And the the the the the I asked I asked this neurologist. Well, tell me about the corporate structure. How does that work? He goes, I don't know, I don't understand, I said, so are you incompetent to I mean, so come on. It's such a perfect question, right? I mean, this you're expecting all of this, but you yourself don't even understand it. It's just horrific. Well, you know, the trial strategy you could focus on, you could broaden things out in time and space and events, or you could focus in I focused in on the real simple question. How complicated was it for Elmer to decide that he wanted his daughter to not receive anything, and for Terry to receive everything? How complex is that? The test for capacity doesn't require a lot, and when he's able to understand that he has two kids, one he wants to inherit what he doesn't, that he owns a farm. And that's basically what he owns. It's not a real complex decision. And then is it rational for him to decide he doesn't want his daughter to receive because she, in his mind, abandoned him in an assisted living facility when he wanted to live on it? So you really have to put the jury in Elmer's mind. You really have to put the jury in Elmer's mind, and you have to demonstrate that Terry's conduct was not impactful to the decision to disinherit, his, Elmer's daughter. I got to take a step back. How did Elmer die? Well, Elmer wasn't on the farm. He was on the farm for maybe a month. Happy as can be is what the stories, we learned and and APS was investigating for self neglect. APS is a protective services. And, Terry, at Elmer's request, had purchased an incline. You know, where you go on it, and then you can go upside down and. Hang also where you stretch your back. Out, where you stretch your back. And he died on that. Oh my God of all things to die on. Yeah. Wow. But in his home, doing what he wanted to do. And presumably happy. And presumably happy. All right. So let's get back to this. This crazy trial. You have this challenge of putting the jury in Alma's mind. You have to focus on capacity. How did you do that? Well, the complexity in these cases, besides the factual storytelling, because these are tremendously dependent on factual storytelling, is the legal hurdles that rise in the concept of who's burdens of proof. It is the concept of the evidentiary presumptions. What are the, jury instructions going to look like? That is, that has to be really understood from the moment you enter into the courtroom, through the end, to the point where you're arguing jury instructions and then objections after the jury comes back with a verdict. And I know that was one of the issues that ultimately went up on appeal. And we'll get to the verdict in one moment. Let's not spoil it for everyone yet. I understand that you were able to get the lawyer who actually prepared the new documents that really became the the fight amongst the two siblings. You were able to get him to testify? Well, one of the difficulties in the in the undue influence, lack of capacity cases is overcoming a will or a trust that an attorney had participated in drafting and maybe witnessed. And so I do, plenty of plaintiffs work. It's the concept of the role that the attorney plays to protect against undue influence. I've seen plenty of attorneys do a terrible job, almost as if they didn't don't care who their client is. They do of terrible job communicating and meeting with their, their at, their client in a setting that the attorney can be comfortable that there is not undue influence at play. That's interesting. So did the lawyer that was preparing these documents actually meet with Elmer alone? This lawyer did some things that the judge, the trial judge, was very, happy about very impressed with the lawyer. Showed up in the morning unannounced to talk to Elmer. Showed up in the evening unannounced to talk to Elmer. Had meetings with Elmer. When Elmer got out of the assisted facility at his office privately. It was this kind of work that the lawyer engaged in that helped protect against the, the, the the claim of undue influence that helped in the burden shifting that happens with a when there's a fiduciary relationship helped rebut the presumption. Because presumably how could there be undue influence when you have a neutral individual coming in without anybody even there. So no one's influencing. No one even knows when the lawyer's coming. He's just popping in and he's creating the documents based upon what Elmer in this case is telling him to do. Well, I've. I've tried cases. I tried a case in particular where a lawyer drafted a quitclaim deed for a, for, for a, person of diminishing capacity. And the lawyer testified, of course, this person was doing exactly what he wanted to do. This person was was competent, knew exactly how what it was that he was doing transferring property. The reality was, we still said that that data side by by verdict, the reason we set it aside by verdict is the attorneys process sucked. The attorneys process was just, you know, show up right the deed, not understand why the attorney didn't have the credibility to be able to defend the deed preparation and the execution of the document. Everything else that happened outside of the presence of the attorney was demonstrative that there were bad things going on, gifting things that you would would not expect a person who needs all their money to do so. Instead, you actually call this lawyer who did the probate planning. Do you call him in your case and do what's called a direct examination, or does the other side call them in their case? And then you have to do a cross-examination? Well, because of the burdens of proof, there's a presumption of undue influence. It's an evidentiary presumption. What does that mean from, if you're a defendant in the case and there's this presumption. That maybe. You go first or does the or what's common is the plaintiff goes first, you're the defendant. But because of the presumption, is it switched in a case like this. Well, the plaintiff has to go first to establish the presumption. Once the presumption is established, then it's my turn to rebut the presumption. And a lot of the fight in the Court of Appeals, issues were relating to whether the presumption, if defeated, still was told to the jury and the judge determined it was not. And so the jury didn't have have any instructions on the presumption, and it was still the burden of the plaintiff to prove that the the exercise of the power of appointment was, the, the, a result of, undue influence by clear convincing. So you rebutted the presumption, at least to the satisfaction of the judge. And then the judge said, because you've rebutted it, the jury's not going to decide that presumption. They're just going to decide who's right and who's wrong. Well, right. And that's why I called the the lawyer to the stand. I called the lawyer on direct because I needed evidence to rebut the presumption. That was critical in my case. How do you go about taking a case with this sophisticated estate planning for a simple farmer, and then present it to the jury how this estate plan works? Do you have, like, graphs and charts and diagrams? Well, there was no question that Elmer was suffering from dementia. There was no question that Elmer's capacity was diminished, that he had hallucinations, paranoia and all kinds of things going on with him that made it difficult for him to really focus for a long period of time on and things couldn't write checks, manage his estate plan. He still had assistance with that. But what? What could he do? He could understand the concept of who's going to inherit his property and who he wants to inherit. So first we had to focus it on what the issue was. These other things, in our view, in this case, were meaningless. They didn't impact the decision. What the attorney did in the context of preparing the estate plan was draft a very simple chart that showed how it all worked, showed who got what on one page and showed the decision making. And so it was easy to simply say, this is a simple decision. So the chart that the attorney drafted, as opposed to the 200 pages or so of all the corporate documents that and the trust and everything else that that made up the packet of the estate planning was thick. Maybe I asked him. It was very thick. I couldn't read it. I'd be bored to death. I get to page two and I'd be like, are you kidding me? But this little chart was explanatory of the whole decision, and that was a big part of our case. That is so great. So that's the chart that the lawyer used to explain everything to Elmer. That's right. And by the way, when when Elmer went back to the farm. Yes. Was he able to still do his farming? He was. And he was able to. Well, you know, we never really got into how much farming he was doing. There was a story that led part, part of his part of the allegations that he was hallucinating and experiencing things that didn't happen, and paranoid that somebody when he was in his house, he saw somebody looking at him with binoculars, like any like like anybody who just wants to look at binoculars at Elmer. Okay, okay. And I never I never met these people in my bed. He was a wonderfully looking man. I don't know, but, Elmer thought that somebody was looking at him with binoculars. In addition to being beat up by the Ohio State football team. And what he saw was, in trial, Terry was up on the stand. And remember, there's a couple farmers or a family of farmers at the, in the jury, and Terry says in response to your question, I never heard this fact before. He says, yeah, there probably was somebody looking at him with binoculars. Why would someone look at him with binoculars? They weren't looking at him with binoculars. They were looking at across the way to judge the straightness of the planting and using a binocular to do that. Farmers look at other farmers. They want to make sure they want to see who plants the straightest lines. And I love that. So how many witnesses were called in this trial? Gosh, it was a five day trial. So I want to say there were there were there were, two experts. There was Terry, there was his sister. There was, the the attorney, the initial attorney who drafted the plan that Elmer decided that Elmer didn't like after he he didn't help Elmer get out of the assisted living facility. There was the attorney that drafted the plan in dispute. There were there were, few other miscellaneous witnesses that all told the story of Elmer File. There was the APS worker. When you're involved in these family fights, like you are often and here's a great example of one that actually goes to trial. You have a brother and a sister fighting. Do the brother and sister, like, talk during trial there? They just stay away from one another? How is that dynamic? It was a weird dynamic, and I think it always is. I didn't see hatred there. I saw disinterest and the daughter was so hellbent on believing that Elmer did this because his, her brother forced him to do it, that she didn't ever see the light of the tunnel, that maybe he was really naturally upset with her for the way that she treated him against his plight to get out of the assisted living facility. And and we tried we wanted to settle this case all the way through. We couldn't get them to even entertain a settlement position. So this case was always going to go to trial. It did go to trial and went to verdict. So let's talk about that for a moment. Anything like crazy happened to happen during the trial or in your final argument, anything along those lines? Well, the best thing about this trial, first of all, my opponent was a guy named Frank Hickman, a great lawyer. Frank was my professor in civil law and psychiatry that I took. So we were friendly. And it was a great trial because it just was. And, and, my, the forensic psychiatrist, I had, hired, also taught, lectured with Frank Hickman and fragments Hickman's class. That makes it tough for Frank to cross-examine him on credibility. Well, not only that, but I also with, this forensic psychiatrist, jointly taught Frank Hickman's class. Oh, there you go. So it was a great experience. The judge was a lawyers judge. He he let us try our case. He made decisions. The jury was a great jury. Frank Hickman was a great professional. It was a fun trial. That's the way trials should be, right? I mean, I've tried a lot of cases, and the cases that I've tried that are just constant fighting. They're not fun. But when you everybody treats each other as professionals, it's actually an enjoyable experience because it's such hard work. So the jury gets the case. How long is the jury out? Tomorrow. Jury's out a couple hours, if I recall. What do you do during that time? Are you nervous? You're such a laid back guide. Do you get nervous when the jury's out? I really don't get nervous through the process. Once it's out of my hands, it's out of my hands, and it's really out of my hands. When we start working, you know, all you have to do is tell the story, and you're you're not the you're not the feature of the case. The case is the feature of the case. And the more I can I can tell the story without, you know, show me. Don't tell me is my theory. If you're going to go in there and tell somebody and use all these big words, you're really not delivering a story. This is a human case. And so it wasn't too long. I wasn't that nervous. I liked our case. I always thought we were right. But you can't guarantee a win. If I could guarantee when I charge my clients more. So, you know, my dad, who was a great trial lawyer, is, you know, he is always told me facts, drive verdicts. In this case, it's really the facts that were driving the ultimate verdict of this particular jury. You you go out, you're out for a couple hours, jury comes back, you walk into the courtroom, please tell me you get nervous. At that point, you feel some level of anxiety. A little bit of stress. I, you know, I, I was fortunate when I was in law school, I took the, mcelhaney trial advocacy. Of course, not everybody got in to be able to do that. And so the way I look at my case, and. For those who don't know, Mcelhaney literally wrote the book on trial law. Trial notebook. Trial Notebook. And he helped me see how to vision a case. And that's how I look at my cases. The reality is you get to paint the picture. You only have so much credibility, and you have to tell the truth, and you have to be able to decide how to paint a picture with the facts. It could be to focus on a small event. It could be to broaden it out, to make that small event seem meaningless. Whatever you're going to do, it could be a changing of the timeline in terms of focusing on on something narrow in time or broadening it out to show the relationship dynamics. And that's basically the storytelling that went on. In that case, the jury came back, they found that the, that the trust, and the estate planning was valid. And then we went to appeal and, and it was a pretty interesting process. So you what, you won the trial and had to be quite, an exciting moment for you and certainly for your client. What was the reaction amongst your team? It was great. I mean, it was, it was it was a a vindication for Terry that he had done nothing wrong. When you go to trial and lose like Terry's sister did, it's a tremendous thing to confront that maybe her dad did disinherit her because of her relationship with her dad. And so, you know, that's that's a really hard thing to to, to bear. That it's got to be, I wonder and you may not know the answer to this question. I wonder if if Terry and his sister are talking now. You'd have to ask them. Got it. So what do you do after you get a verdict like that? Do you do you go out and celebrate because most of us lawyer trial lawyers. Anyhow, it's. We want we should celebrate our victories. We never seem to. We just go back to the office and start working on the next one. How about you? That's not well. I celebrate during the trial too. But. And for those of us that know you, that's probably true. The truth is, you know, I like to what? I study real hard. I work pretty hard. I like to know the facts. I like to understand the story incredibly well. You have to to be able to succeed in trial, because you have to be on your feet to know all the facts, and you have to know the facts better than everybody else. In this case, just before voir dire, after I studied, I went and had a happy hour next to the hotel. And I walk in and there's some really good lawyer friends of mine who I happen to know are incredible at voir dire. And they tell me how they helped me work through my voir dire. It just happened. It was just you knew that it was going to be good. Yeah. It's incredible. So you didn't use a jury consultant in this case? No. And you didn't use a focus group or anything along those lines? No. You just went and talked to the jury. Just went and talked to the jury, understood my case and understood the family. That's such a great lesson for us trial lawyers. Sometimes we over try cases. We overthink every issue. We hire professionals to think through everything instead of just going in there and talking to the jury, which is what you did, and you did it successfully. I understand the case, as you mentioned, went up, went up, to the Court of Appeals. And I think the issue for the Court of Appeals was did the judge have the right to decide on that rebuttable presumption issue, or should that issue been left for the jury? Was that the issue for the Court of Appeals? Well, the the the case law on presumption and it's an evidentiary presumption is very complicated to understand. The most clear opinion that we found was maybe 100 years old, 80 years old. And we use that opinion. That opinion, is now baked in the file over his file of decision, appellate decision and, we wrote an article for the Probate Law Journal of Ohio addressing the presumption, because it's a big part of undue influence cases. And, I understand that that the Ohio Supreme Court was working on new jury instructions. And Mary Jane Trapp, may she rest in peace, was the head of the jury instruction. She called me and asked for insight on the, presumption for purposes of the Ohio jury instructions. So some of this information, I believe, has been, put into the new current Ohio jury instructions. It's just great. Well, I had him. This was so much fun. Thank you for doing this. Really great to have you here. You are a tremendous lawyer. I mean, you talk about someone who practices in an area that that not a lot of people even know exists. And you've been doing it now for almost 30 years. I know your mentor, Leon Weiss, was just the leader in the field, and now you are the leader in the field. So thanks again for doing that. Thank you. Appreciate you having me here.