Can A Forged Deed Cost You Your House?

A forged deed, a ticking clock, and a court that says the fix belongs to lawmakers—this conversation goes deep into how Arizona’s property laws shape real lives. We walk through Dominguez v. Dominguez, where a recorded deed alleged to be forged collided with a five‑year statute tied to property tax payments. The result is unsettling: an elderly homeowner can lose title if fraud isn’t challenged in time. The concurrence even warns that this reading could become a blueprint for deed thieves. We unpack why the justices still chose restraint, applying the statute as written and pointing the finger at the legislature to close the gap.

Then we pivot to Aroca v. Tang Investment, where the court extinguished a deed of trust after the limitations period on the underlying debt expired, rejecting the idea that liens can linger forever. If a lender sleeps on its rights, the lien goes too. That may sting in post‑crash scenarios and for second liens, but it brings certainty to chains of title and aligns with broader policy around timely enforcement. Together, these cases show a consistent philosophy: courts interpret law; lawmakers set policy. If the rules enable deed fraud or crush lenders, the remedy is legislative.

We share practical steps you can take now. Homeowners and families can set up county title alerts, keep tight control of original documents, watch tax bills, and get counsel at the first hint of title activity. Lenders can audit dormant notes, calendar deadlines, and streamline enforcement so claims don’t die on the vine. And for those who want change, the path is civic, not judicial: advocate for a discovery‑rule fix to forged deeds, stronger notary standards, and better recording notice.

If you care about protecting homes, cleaning up title, and keeping courts in their lane, this one’s for you. Subscribe, share with someone who owns property in Arizona, and leave a review telling us which outcome you’d change and why.

Transcript

Meet Dave And Today’s Focus

Bob Sewell 0:04

Is that even legal? It's a question we ask ourselves on a daily basis. We ask it about our neighbors, we ask it about our elected officials, we ask it about our family, and sometimes we ask it to ourselves. The law is complex and it impacts everyone all the time. And that's why we are here. I'm Attorney Bob Stuhl, and this is season five of the Worldwide Podcast that explores that one burning question: is that even legal? Let's go. Welcome to the podcast, Is That Even Legal? We got a guest today, Dave Williams. Dave is my partner-in-law, uh, fantastic attorney, great guy, a repeat visitor. Thank you for coming on the show, Dave.

David Williams 0:51

Yeah, thank you for having me, Bob. I'm really excited about our discussion today.

The Dominguez Family Property Dispute

Five-Year Statute And Tax Payments

Bob Sewell 0:54

Yeah, I am too, because it's a little bit nerdy, this discussion. I want to lay a factual basis, tell the story, and I want to then talk about what this means in about what this is saying about Arizona Supreme Court, which is what this is saying about the other Arizona legislature, and see if we can uh ferret out some larger issues, but we should start with the facts of the case. It's a recent case, okay? Dominguez versus Dominguez. By the way, every nasty case is a family case, just so you know. It just seems like the nastiest case is there's family versus family, and that's what happened here. So I want I want to tell the story. The story is this husband and wife buy a house back in 1995, and everything's fine until they divorce sometime in 1998. And sometime thereafter, they convey the property to their son and daughter-in-law, and there's a deed. And at some point, the the uh husband dies, I believe it was husband dies, and then the son dies, and now you got the daughter-in-law and the the ex the daughter-in-law and the mother-in-law, they decide to fight over the property, and the mother-in-law says, Hey, that's my property, and that deed back in 2003 wasn't a valid deed, it was a forgery. It never was, we never conveyed that property to you. And the daughter-in-law says, Well, wait, wait a minute. I've been paying the property tax on this property. I've had this deed here, it's my property, it's been over five years I've done this, and the the court of the Arizona Supreme Court says, Yeah, that's a valid argument.

Judicial Restraint Versus Activism

David Williams 3:10

Yeah, and so it's an interesting case because it presents an interesting, the broader principle, the the dispute between the parties is who owns this particular property. Mom says that when dad, the the deed that transferred the property to son and daughter-in-law was forged, and that dad then dies. Mom finds out years, like eight years after dad dies. So the trans the original the deed from mom and dad to son and daughter-in-law occurred in 2003. Dad dies in 2012. Mom finds out in 2020, eight years after dad dies, that this this 2003 deed exists, and then she claims that it was a forgery. And so then she brings a lawsuit to say, hey, the 2003 deed was invalid. You daughter-in-law and son never got the property to begin with. And so what we have here is a unique situation where um there was potentially some sort of forgery there. That is a legitimate issue in the case, but the court basically said that there's something called a statute of limitations that says in Arizona, you have five years to challenge an interest in a property where um the person receiving the property has paid the property taxes more than five years. And if you don't challenge it within that five years, you're out of luck. And so this is the court um applying a principle that says, hey, you have five years to bring a lawsuit to do whatever you want to do, even if you've been hurt, and if it takes you seven years or 10 years to figure out you've been hurt, I'm sorry. But the the legislature has passed a law that says you have a specific period of time to bring a claim. And the reason that's important is, um, and then the court goes on to further say, but applying this in this way can create applying the law as we've interpreted it, which is a very consistent interpretation of the law, can can hurt people, like people who are vulnerable people that maybe trust a family member and they somebody sticks a document under the nose and they sign a sign away the deed to their house and they don't they don't they're not aware of it until 10 years after. And so what the what the court says is we're applying the law as it's written. Um if we apply the law, it it's gonna resolve this situation, but if you it can also be applied in other situations where it leaves people kind of out in the rain. And so the court then takes the next step, and I, you know, I know you're gonna ferret this out with me in a minute, where we're gonna defer to the legislature. And so the broader principle here is that um the Arizona Court of Appeal, the Arizona Supreme Court is saying there's a hierarchy, our our system of government is based on a system of separation of powers and checks and balances, and we have the right to check the legislature and the governor, and if this is at the federal level, Congress and the president, through um through constitutionality, saying that some action taken by those other branches is not constitutional. But when the legislature passes a law, we are bound by interpretation of laws to say the legislature passes a law. If it's constitutional, then it's facially valid. And then they interpret and apply that law to those those people. So that's what they did here.

Elder Fraud And Forged Deeds Risk

Bob Sewell 6:09

Yeah, it is what they did here, but I want to talk about what that means for just a just a second. Sure. It it goes, we've had on this podcast, we've had multiple Arizona Supreme Court justices come on. And when they come on, they talk about they talk about their judicial philosophy. They never talk about cases, they talk about judicial philosophy. And the the two that we've had on uh say, well, we we we're not there to legislate from the bench, we're there to make the make the law make sense, essentially. Um we're there to enforce the law. Well, the result is with this case is a rather unusual result. Okay, I'm gonna be honest with you. I think it's a little unusual. And and I respect that. Like no one, no one likes the term judicial activist. No one likes judicial activism, you know, at least they don't like that term. That just sounds sound right. Um but what these guys, as a general rule, do, these guys and gals up on up on the hill uh in our in our Supreme Court, their general rule is no, we just read the law and whatever the law says, that's what we do, unless it conflicts with this with the with the Constitution of the United States or the Constitution of Arizona. Okay, the result here is that old people can be harmed. And the that is that's one of the that's that is deed theft is huge in Arizona, and what mother-in-law is saying here is my deed was stolen by my son and my daughter-in-law. My deed was stolen. Yeah, she did. And I don't have an adequate remedy because the state legislature sucks.

David Williams 8:06

And and and and that's what and the court acknowledges and recognizes that reality in its interpretation of this particular law that says that you have five years to challenge a deed. And the court basically goes on to say a forged deed that is recorded is considered facially valid, and you have five years to challenge that. So let me give you a different situation that results in the same problem. Um, you hear people talk about equity theft in their homes all the time, and you talk about home title lock and these services that protect you from basically stealing the equity in your house, where someone comes along and forges a deed that you're not even aware of, and then records that deed. And then you five years later or six, 10 years later, you try to sell your house and you find out that someone has taken your equity and taken your property and transferred it and forged your signature on some instrument. And now you're suddenly not aware of that under this interpretation of the law. I think the court would say, even if you weren't aware of it, you had five years to bring that claim. Now there's now there's some nuances because Arizona follows something called a discovery rule and things like that. But right the general idea here is they're saying that there's a five-year deadline, subject maybe to when you became aware of that or when you should have become aware of it, but they're saying there's a five-year deadline, and then they're saying we recognize this is a gaping hole created by this decision. And then there's a group of judges that actually go on and say something further about that, don't they, Bob?

The Concurrence And Its Warning

Bob Sewell 9:32

Yeah, they do. And I I wanted to uh I wanted to point it out because it's absolutely fascinating. In in the the in the concurrence. So in the concurrence, it's by Justice Bean and and Justice Uh Montgomery. And he says, This is the first time the court has held that a deed forged by a grantee serves as a recorded deed under 12524. That's a statute, to displace a sole purported grantor's title to the property. Okay. It goes on to discuss that, whether that's a great idea or not. Um but then it says it says this, it acknowledges that the justice acknowledge this is a problem, right? Our our opinion is a problem. And it says here, our faithful interpretation of the law potentially yields an injustice in this case and provides a blueprint for an unscrupulous actor to swindle a vulnerable person's property title through forgery, gain the trust of a vulnerable property owner, forge and record a deed to the victim's property, and pay property taxes on the forged deed for five years, perhaps with the victim's own funds. Even if the victim does not discover the forgery and contest the fraud within the five-year limitation period, the victim loses ownership of their property to the forger. This concern is especially acute in Arizona's sizable population of Arizona of elderly citizens. It's the legislature's prerogative to make the law as the majority recounts in the historical context of which the legislature enacted the predecessor to 12524. Tolerance of the risk of the fraudulent four genes may have a yada yadda yadda yaddy. Okay, here's the point. They acknowledge that their calling of balls and strikes, enforcing the law as written, has could potentially create a harm. Isn't that the right? And now we gotta wait to actually take action.

David Williams 11:52

So and that's that's and I and I have little faith.

Why Courts Defer To Legislatures

Bob Sewell 11:55

And I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna play devil's advocate advocate for a second, Dave. I have little faith in the legislature. They just they goof around up there and they they play political games and they don't pay attention to what's actually happening in the real world to real people, and they live in this imaginary world of right and left politics when the rest of us are earning a living trying to make it. And what the what the Supreme Court has done is put a hell of a lot of faith in a hell of a lot of inept people, and I don't know if that's the right decision.

Aroca v. Tang: Liens And Limits

David Williams 12:35

Yeah, and and it's well, and it's it's we don't may not like the outcome of the decision. So there's two different ways you can look at it. One is the court was deaf oh showed deference to the legislature and said the legislature's passed a law, and this is by interpreting this law the way we are, this is the potential result, and we're putting it back on the legislature to solve this problem that we have now that that is now potentially being created by our decision. So here's an even more nuanced look. This and this is where people start to claim judicial activism versus judicial restraint, and it goes into how did they actually interpret this particular five-year statute of limitations. Okay, and that's where that's a more nuanced discussion, which I don't think we need to get into. But if you wanted to take a judicial activist approach, you could have said, hey, we think the law means this, but we're gonna read something additional into the law to give an outcome that we want to get. So for instance, one thing they could have done, and legislative and and courts have done this, they could have said this particular statute is subject to a discovery rule, which says, we're even though the statute says five years and that's it, we can say, you know what, we recognize there's five years, but we're gonna read into something that says the five years doesn't start to run until you knew or should have known of some forgery. Okay, but they didn't do that. And so that's an example of judicial restraint versus judicial activism. And they're saying if the court, it's not our job to write in an exception to this particular statute based on our decision, they're saying, legislature, it's your job to rewrite the law to create to address this gaping hole that we've now created for you. But they went also, but I also think that shows um faithfulness to um and deference and judicial restraint. And they're looking at it in the context of a broader what does the law mean? And and when you apply this decision to these facts, that's not our job. Our job is to interpret the law and tell you what we believe the legislature meant when they passed this law. And if that's not what they meant, then they can go back and override us and pass a new law. And I think that's what they tried to do. And they said, look, not everybody's gonna like this decision, and this decision is gonna create problems when you apply it to a certain set of facts and a certain set of circumstances. But that's not their job to fix that problem. Their job is to faithfully interpret the law consistent with judicial principles.

Bob Sewell 14:57

But here's the thing okay, devil's advocate one more time. Okay, we know that the hypothetical that the concurrence was saying isn't a hypothetical in Arizona. It happens all the time. Old people get their their uh deeds stolen. It happens so often that that we we you know, we we discuss it. You they put a deed in front of some old person or they don't, and they just sign it and find some some punk uh uh notary to notarize it or forge a notary statement. And and and they steal it right from under their noses. And a lot, and it's typically done on old people whose either family is unscrupulous or they don't have family that's nearby that watches over them, or maybe they've gone into a home and now their their house is is sits on empty and no one pays attention. They could have said something different. They could have said, yes, it's a deed, that it's a deed, and it is clear clearly a deed, but they could have said a forged deed is no deed at all. They could have said, because of a a real deed, they could have distinguished between forgery and non-forged deeds, and they could have said a real deed is signed by the owner and conveyed to the conveyed to the uh conveyed to another.

Real-World Impact On Lenders

David Williams 16:35

So, and I think here's where you kind of get into this is um you can go in and drill down into how the Arizona Supreme Court reached its decision by interpreting the law in a particular way. And then you can challenge, and I think you can criticize the method and the way they interpreted that statute to reach the result they did. And so this is where you get into principles of judicial interpretation, which is do you read the law a certain way or do you read something more into the law to get it out to get a result that you want? And that's this that's that that's where you apply political pressure and political outcomes to judicial decision making. And and that's what the courts always have to deal with. And that's why you see, especially in the media today on the federal level, with the president and the courts, and you see people talking about how the judges ought to do certain things or they ought to be removed from a bench, or you have a judge that is not necessarily applying judicial restraint, and they're actually making laws and applying those laws to on a nationwide level beyond the four corners of their courtroom. So, what what I think the principle that the takeaway from this case, which I know there's another case we want to talk about in a second, that applies these very same principles with a different outcome, is there's a system set up within our government, within our constitutional framework, both at the state level and at the federal level, that says when the legislature and the and the governor or executive uh the president sign and pass a law, that law then goes into effect. It's the legislative, it's the court's job to interpret that law consistent with certain judicial principles. And if the and if the law is constitutional, then it's upheld. And then the court has to apply the that law as the legislature intended it to be read, according to the plain language. That's a judicial restraint philosophy.

Bob Sewell 18:22

Um what I liked about what I liked about what they did, you know, their interpretation, uh in fairness, their interpretation is an interpretation that is reasonable under the circumstances. I think I could have came to some other interpretation, however, it is a reasonable interpretation. And what I liked what they did was they just they they just pushed it back on the legislature, say, hey, don't don't fumble the ball, guys. This is what you hired us to do. This is what the why the governor nominated us. Now do your job. Yeah, absolutely. Fix this. Um let me shift.

Balancing Policy And Deadlines

David Williams 19:00

No, that's that's so let me let me shift gears with you because there's a different, there's another example of this very what I would call harmonic tension, harmonic dissonance between the branches of government. The Supreme, the Arizona Supreme Court released another opinion about a week earlier at the end of March, and that's the Aroca versus Tang investment case. And in that particular case, um, some property owners took out a mortgage on a property. And in Arizona, you secure a mortgage on a property where somebody loans a bank loans you money or an investor loans you money for you to buy your property or invest in your property or fix up your property, or you just take out a loan and want to go do something else with that loan, you already own your property. You can give that property a secure, you can give that lender a security interest in your property. And in Arizona, we call that a deed of trust, which then says that the investor lender who gave you money now has a security interest, a lien on your property. So in this particular case, property owners took out a loan. And then gave a security a lien on their property in the form of a deed of trust back in 2007. They made interest-only payments on that loan for like a year, and then they stopped making payments on that loan. Um, and then in Arizona, um, a loan is a contract. So in Arizona, we have a six-year statute of limitations to bring a lawsuit to enforce uh a breach of a contract. So what happened in this case is the property owners entered into a contract to borrow money, and the contract said they were going to pay back that money. They didn't pay back that money, they breached the contract, and then the lender had the right to sue them, or the lender had the right to foreclose on the property. The lender did not do any of that. And so, you know, period of time goes by and like 12 years, something like 10, 12 years go by, and the statute of limitation is already run, and the lender agrees that it can't forecl, it can't sue to collect on that debt, but it says despite the fact that we don't have the right to sue you, we still have this lien that can go on forever, and we can just foreclose on the property whatever we want. And in this case, there's an earlier case from the early ninth from the early 19th century where the Arizona Supreme Court said that in principles of what we call equity, which is basically the court says fairness, that a court that a lien can continue to exist beyond the period of time for statute limitations forever, based on equitable, based on principles of fairness. And it basically says if you stop paying on your more mortgage, you don't get to come into court and say, court, remove this lien from my property when you haven't played fair in paying your obligation. Now, fast forward to the Tang case, what that case says is in that intervening period of time, the legislature passes a law that says within five within six years, you have to um you have to bring in a lawsuit. And then there's another law, 1211, 12, um, uh it's 121101 or 121102 in Arizona, which says that you for liens on property, those liens are extinguished when there's a statute of limitations at law that extinguishes that the underlying debt. So basically what the law, the legislature says is if you don't file a lawsuit or take action within the statute of limitations period here six years to enforce your your contract rights, then you don't get an extension of the lien. And so here, what the court, there was two con there was conflict because the court says there's an earlier case from the 1900s that says a lien goes forever, regardless of whether you take no action to enforce your contract. But then we have a law that passed by the legislature that directly conflicts with that earlier legal opinion that says if you don't take action within a period of time, your lien is extinguished. And so the court basically says, look, there's this all court-made law that's going back 70, 80 years, but then the Arizona legislature passes a law, and that law overrides our judicial judge-made law. And so again, the principle there is the court applies judicial restraint and legal the system of application of laws to this result.

Civics, Courts, And Accountability

Bob Sewell 23:04

All right, so you give you just gave me the great nerd talk, okay? Yeah, the legal nerd talk about what's going on. Let me give you the boots on the ground, okay, the reality of this, okay? And then I and then I want you to tell me whether or not you think this is a good result or not. Here's the boots on the ground, right? This is the reality. Homeowner borrows money, doesn't pay it back. Because the economy sucked so bad during this period, they buy in 2007, the economy tanks in 2008. The outlying counties surround this is an outlying county. Uh, you know, this wasn't Maricopa County. They were the last to bounce back. Any lender couldn't, I'm gonna assume this is probably a a second a second mortgage. I'm gonna assume I don't know if that's true. Anyone in the second position had couldn't really foreclose. And the reason why you couldn't foreclose is because they is because uh the first was also underwater. And the second has to pay off the first. So they're sitting back there with property, uh, liens on property, you know, the buyers, the people who took the money out, who borrowed the money promised to promise to pay it, and the lender stuck holding the bag. And what this what this is saying is yeah, we don't care, lender. We don't care that you forked over good money, that you that you took a promise of payment on these guys, and you took security, and we don't care because you're because the legislat because the legislature says it doesn't matter, your hundreds of thousands of dollars in investments are being wiped out. That's what that's saying. Is that a good idea?

David Williams 25:03

And that's excuse me, that's the practical outcome of this court's opinion in the Tang in the can in the Tang opinion. Um there's a there's a balancing proposal too, that is we want lenders to take action timely to enforce their rights. We don't want them to sit back and go dormant for 20 or 30 years.

Bob Sewell 25:25

But Dave, remember this was 2007 when it's got, and then 2008, and these counties didn't recover to like 13, 14, 15, somewhere around there. They didn't get back to where they were.

David Williams 25:38

So again, but the broader principle is the broader principle in this case, you're you're balancing through interpretation of laws, public policy decisions by the legislature. And the legislature is saying, you know, we reckon on one side we want to recognize that we don't want to let people get away with stealing lenders' money, but at the same time, there's a broader principle in the law that says you have to take you have to bring a lawsuit to or or bring it, take action to enforce your rights within a particular period of time. That's called a statute of limitations. And that statute of limitations applies to every kind of legal claim, not just this. And so there's a broader principle here. And here the court is saying the legislature passes a law that says you have to do something within a period of time to enforce your rights on a property. And if you don't, you lose your lien rights. And so the broader principle is yeah, if you have a second mortgage, you might get wiped out. But the broader principle is for first position lienholders that sit back and give a loan and then just disappear. And a lot of times you have like these phantom, you know, these cash lenders or hard money lenders that maybe make a loan and then they sell that debt to somebody, and that debt gets sold five times over. And then 15 years later, no one's paid on the debt, and mom and dad have died, and now the son and the son and the and the daughters and the kids received the property from mom and dad through a will, but now there's this lien out there that they don't know where it is. And so what the court is saying is in a different situation, the interpreting this law the way the legislature passed it, they're saying if a lender decides to sell their note five times down the road and that and the other people that bought that note down the road haven't tried to enforce it within a period of time, they lose the right to enforce it. And yeah, and that's and that's also consistent with other principles like adverse possession, where you know, you want property owners, you want people that claim an interest in property to be on top of their property rights. And we don't want people to fall asleep on their property rights. And so this is a can this the broader lead the broader societal principle is we want people to take action within a particular period of time to and with respect to real estate, in fact to affect their real estate rights, to enforce to protect their rights in real estate.

Takeaways And Where To Get Help

Bob Sewell 27:48

Um, but the going and if I'm a citizen, if I'm a citizen that doesn't that that uh, you know, maybe I'm a part of a banking industry and I don't like this result result, I go back to the legislature and I say, hey, legislature, uh, can you help me fix this? This is crushing my business. This is my a suggestion that I have for a change of the law and see if they can make it happen. That's the whole purpose of lobbying. And then if I'm a if I'm a citizen on the consumer side, I could I could get to try to lobby my legislature, say, I don't like that new law, or I do like this new law, or or I like this result, or to try to make sure that my government is representing my interests, right?

David Williams 28:35

Yeah, absolutely. And that's and that's what the court is saying is you don't come and lobby us to make a to pass a law or interpret a law a particular way. You don't you don't give us political donations. We're not in Arizona, we don't elect our judges. We retain them, but we don't elect them to a judicial seat. And in principle, even though some judge, some judges in other in other states are elected, federal judges aren't elected, they're appointed, confirmed by the appointed by the president, confirmed by the Senate. Um, the reason you do that is their job is to sit blindly. That's why they say justice is blind, and you you apply the the law and interpret the law, and then you try to interpret that law to those facts evenly every time, um, regardless of the outcome of how that that the interpretation and application of that law to those parties impacts them one way or another. You apply the you interpret the law and you apply the facts of the law blindly, regardless of who's sitting in front of you. Um, that's the principle, that's a basic tenet of judicial um interpretation of philosophy. But the broader application here between these two cases, and I think this kind of puts a bow on our discussion today, is how do you reconcile these? What the what the Arizona Supreme Court did in two separate cases has basically said in case number one, we interpret the legislature passed a law regarding how you handle deeds, and this is how we interpret the law, and we recognize that the outcome of this decision will create a problem. Legislature fixes it. On the other case, they said there's a law, an interpretation of common law, a case decision we made 80 years ago that's still on the books. And then the legislature passes a law, which then supersedes our earlier opinion. Therefore, our earlier opinion is invalid because the legislature passes a law, and that supersedes a judicial opinion because the legislature passes laws enacted by the governor by the governor or the executive, and and then we interpret those laws. And the court did the same judicial principle in both cases defer to the legislature, interpret the law, not make the law. And that's what the Arizona legislature did. And that's why that's a model for how this process should work and how our system of era, how our state system of separation of powers and on a broader level, how our federal government separation of powers, checks, and balances works. And that shows people how our democratic republic, at the end of the day, works and why there's yeah, and that's why it works.

Bob Sewell 31:04

It was and and I will say this is one of the problems that people become have become frustrated with the courts about. And I personally, I personally think the Arizona Supreme Court does a pretty good, pretty good job. I can you could argue about this or that, or maybe would interpret it this this way or that way, but it's pretty clean. You can't say that they're really activists in either way, except for their activists for the separation of powers. So, but our problem is with the way people view our courts these days, is that so many courts over the past decades have been so active. And they pull out these meanings about the Constitution. And and I and I keep saying to myself, I can't find that in the Constitution. I may like that result. In some cases, I really like the result, but I can't find that in the Constitution. And and so what do you what do we do with this? And and people become jaded because they're like, oh, well, they these justices make things material, make make law uh uh appear out of thin air and that didn't exist before.

David Williams 32:23

And I think what you have here is you have you have a couple things going on. 99.9% of most cases that show up in front of courts, okay, are basic interpretation of statutes, application of those statutes, applying common law principles like contract disputes and court disputes and things like that. Land in this case. Yeah, which are are 99.9% of most cases that show up in front of judges are non-political. They they just affect the parties that are in them and they have broader application when you apply that that decision beyond the facts of that case. Um, where you get the extremes of people getting mad at the court is you get a highly contentious decision that that creates a political outcome that benefits a political person, a political proponent, or an agenda, a person with an agenda, and they try to take the outcome of the decision and politicize it. And they get mad at the court for not making a political decision or a decision that has a political outcome that they don't like. And then you get mad at them and they say, Well, we need to impeach that judge because that judge didn't do what I wanted them to. Like that judge is a an elected official. That judge isn't an elected official. They're they're appointed or sitting on the bench in the role of a blind, neutral person. Again, justice is blind, and that's what they're supposed to do. And I think it's also a basic misunderstanding of most people of the role of the courts. And that's our failure, frankly, as both um lawyers, citizens, that people don't have a basic understanding of how their government works. You know, people don't have, you don't take civics classes anymore. And they don't understand that this is what a court, the judicial branch is supposed to do, this is what the legislative branch is supposed to do, and this is what the executive branch is supposed to do. And people then see these outcomes and decisions, and they read something in the media that politicizes a judicial decision that is probably very neutral on its facts, but it has a real world impact to people, and they get mad and they try to politicize it versus taking that political decision and taking it to the legislature to pass a law to address that issue. And that's what the legislative, and that goes back to what you said earlier. That's what the court is saying. It's not our job to make a political decision, and we're not your elected officials. We're here to interpret the law, and they're doing that consistent with what we believe are judicial principles and legislature uh citizens. If you feel there's a problem, call your legislator. And if you don't like your legislator, vote them out of office and put somebody else in. That's what they're saying.

Bob Sewell 34:51

Yeah, I like it. Yeah, Dave, thanks for coming on the show. This has been super fun to talk about. We get a little nerd talking. The types of things that nerdy attorneys really want to talk about, we're talking about today. So thanks for coming on.

David Williams 35:03

Yeah, no, much problem. And if people want to find me, um, you can find me at Davis Miles, davismiles.com. My email address is dwilliams at DavisMiles.com. Um, I love working in these areas. Um, I am a commercial litigator. Um, Bob, you're a probate litigator. So these are kind of nuanced esoteric issues, but people come to us to help try to solve their role problems, and that's why we are in this business. So appreciate you, buddy, and thanks for having me on today.

Bob Sewell 35:28

Thanks for listening to the podcast. Is that of illegal is now listened to in a hundred countries and available on virtually all podcast platforms. Leave us a review, send us some show ideas, and do so at producer at evenlegal.com. Don't forget, as smart as we sound and as lovable as we are, we are not your lawyers. And we are not giving you legal advice. But if you need some legal advice, get some. There's some great lawyers out there, and we are always ready to help. See you next time.