Speaker 1: Do you want to be an American idiot flooding back on
Speaker 1: seven hundred WW Man, We've got everything going on all
Speaker 1: at the same time. We'll begin with this story. This morning,
Speaker 1: federal judge has allowed Ohio, the Buckeye State, to begin
Speaker 1: transferring unclaimed funds starting first the year of finance at
Speaker 1: new Brown Stadium and all of these millions, if not
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions, and now we're into the billions of
Speaker 1: dollars when it comes to unclaimed funds at Ohio. There's
Speaker 1: a lawsuit that was threatened by Mark dan and that
Speaker 1: has now come to fruition. It's going to challenge this
Speaker 1: uses or. Judge denied a preliminary injunction. It said Ohio's
Speaker 1: really don't face a reparable harm since they can still
Speaker 1: claim their money through twenty thirty six. However, he also
Speaker 1: rejected the state's motion to dismiss this case entirely. So
Speaker 1: the judge said, hey, it's it's up to me to
Speaker 1: determine if the loss constitutional. He's not here to decide
Speaker 1: if it's a good idea or not. And he may
Speaker 1: have a rule land in this as early as Tuesday
Speaker 1: on whether this preliminary injunction will be granted on this
Speaker 1: who brought the case forward along with Mark dan As
Speaker 1: Jeff Crossman of the Dan Law Firm and Cleveland, he's
Speaker 1: lead council. Jeff, welcome, How are you good?
Speaker 2: How are you today?
Speaker 1: I'm doing fine. A lot to unpack here as the
Speaker 1: state tries to move like two billion dollars up to
Speaker 1: two billion on claim funds into an account of finance, stadiums,
Speaker 1: cultural projects, stuff like that six hundred million for the Browns, Cincinnati,
Speaker 1: Columbus and others are probably gonna get some but let's
Speaker 1: start here. The judge denied your request for the injunction,
Speaker 1: but allow the case to move forward. So what's the
Speaker 1: strategy here for you moving forward?
Speaker 2: Well, the case is the court noted the case does
Speaker 2: have merit, so the case will continue and we ultimately
Speaker 2: will hope to prevail in this case because we think
Speaker 2: our constitutional arguments are pretty strong here. It's fundamental to
Speaker 2: what we all understand then, what the constitution protects, which
Speaker 2: is your private property right and gives you the opportunity
Speaker 2: to object when the state tries to take your property,
Speaker 2: which is not happening here because the state doesn't give
Speaker 2: anybody notice that they're seeing people's property putting it in
Speaker 2: a what was supposed to be a lost and found account,
Speaker 2: but now, as it turned down, out is going to
Speaker 2: be used as a slush fund to give out money
Speaker 2: to various PEP projects of the legislature.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we'll unpack this a little bit here too.
Speaker 1: Let's start with achievement laws. Obviously there are people who
Speaker 1: will not claim funds despite public notices. Will get to
Speaker 1: that element in just a second, but typically a state
Speaker 1: and I think, oh hi, it's like ten years. Basically,
Speaker 1: if you don't claim something in ten years, it reverts
Speaker 1: back to the state because the agent assume you don't
Speaker 1: care or you're dead. Is that the biggest legal hurdle
Speaker 1: you got to jump over.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of challenges to what the state is
Speaker 2: doing here. First, a lot of people don't know that
Speaker 2: their property is being seized, and there's really no legitimate
Speaker 2: or practical way to protect yourself. So every bank account
Speaker 2: that you own, whether it's a savings account or money
Speaker 2: market account, or a life insurance policy or even a
Speaker 2: safe DEPOSITI bok with some personal belongings that may not
Speaker 2: have economic value but might have personal value to you.
Speaker 2: You can't protect yourself from the state seizing that property,
Speaker 2: liquidating the property, and then you know, turning it over
Speaker 2: to this slush fund. And we had a gentleman testify
Speaker 2: the other day, a gentleman from Germany who had this
Speaker 2: very experience happened him. His entire retirement account, which was
Speaker 2: held at Charles Schwab, was confiscated by the State of California,
Speaker 2: liquidated without his knowledge, and he ultimately received only a
Speaker 2: fraction of what he was owned.
Speaker 1: But there's a justification here for dormant money. I mean,
Speaker 1: if it sits unclaimed for a decade, that suggests owners
Speaker 1: have forgotten it, moved without affording their information, died without
Speaker 1: their errors knowing about it, which is unfortunate for sure.
Speaker 1: But do do you just suggest that this money sits
Speaker 1: there in perpetuity.
Speaker 2: No. I think what the High Supreme Court has been
Speaker 2: clear about is unclaimed funds doesn't mean abandoned property. A
Speaker 2: High Supreme Court and a unanimous decision when when does
Speaker 2: that happen? Often? Right, in a unanimous decision not that
Speaker 2: long ago said that the unclaim funds is not abandoned.
Speaker 2: People simply don't know about it. And then the state
Speaker 2: admitted on the stand repeatedly, over and over again. They
Speaker 2: do not send any notice to anybody. So they're taking
Speaker 2: people's property and liquidating it without their knowledge. So you
Speaker 2: can't abandon something you don't have notice, gotcha.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, we know, I mean, this is
Speaker 1: probably one of the few things they still do, Jeff
Speaker 1: is advertisements and newspapers where there's court decisions that you
Speaker 1: have to publicly notify people, So you put an ad
Speaker 1: in all the newspaper in each of the eighty eight counties. That's,
Speaker 1: you know, technologically back in the day that especially. I
Speaker 1: know't ibody still do that or not. You could probably
Speaker 1: tell me better. But you know, we have social media,
Speaker 1: we have public service campaigns. I mean, isn't there a
Speaker 1: duty on the part of the person who holds an
Speaker 1: account or an adult to be aware of what the
Speaker 1: law is regarding this and therefore be informed. I mean,
Speaker 1: how far should the state go to make sure someone
Speaker 1: is dead or incapacitated or simply doesn't care. You can
Speaker 1: only do so much. And I guess when I look
Speaker 1: at public notices and newspapers that seems to satisfy the courts.
Speaker 1: Why not the sun?
Speaker 2: Well, two things there one. The US Supreme Court has
Speaker 2: been repeatedly in multiple cases very clear it is the
Speaker 2: state's duty, not the individual duty. It is the state's duty.
Speaker 2: If they want to take your property, find them. The
Speaker 2: other real problem here is that the data is bad,
Speaker 2: and we had plenty of people testify, even the state
Speaker 2: testified that the data is not valid. In a lot
Speaker 2: of cases, isn'tvalid. They don't have zip code, they don't
Speaker 2: have correct addresses. There's people in foreign countries and other
Speaker 2: states of the United States, Wisconsin, New York, all over
Speaker 2: the country that publication in Tyhoga County or Hamilton County
Speaker 2: or Franklin County doesn't reach those folks. So they have
Speaker 2: no notice at all that your property has been seized
Speaker 2: by the state of Ohio. The property is going to
Speaker 2: be liquidated and handed over.
Speaker 1: Okay, what the level of notification you think is constitutionally
Speaker 1: required here?
Speaker 2: Then, well, the Supreme Court has been very clear on
Speaker 2: that too. It has to be something that's calculated to
Speaker 2: reach that person. So if your data is bad and
Speaker 2: you're not sending out any notice whatsoever, I can pretty
Speaker 2: safely say that there's no notice whatsoever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you have what potentially thirty five thousand
Speaker 1: claimants living abroad alone would never see those notices. In
Speaker 1: this day and age where you can do your work
Speaker 1: from anywhere around the world for that matter, that's lematic.
Speaker 1: They'd have to change that.
Speaker 2: And I'll say this, there are plenty of municipalities and
Speaker 2: fire departments and all kinds of local governments across the
Speaker 2: state of Ohio. They have money's and non claimed fund.
Speaker 2: You can't tell me the State of Ohio doesn't know
Speaker 2: where the city of Cleveland, City Cincinnati is physically located,
Speaker 2: where send the checks. They can do that. They can
Speaker 2: send them notice and tell them that the property is
Speaker 2: about to be liquidated.
Speaker 1: And we're not doing that right now. Just to be clear,
Speaker 1: they do nothing except here's the website. Find it for yourself.
Speaker 2: Correct, gotcha?
Speaker 1: Gotcha? If you could point to other I guess precedent.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to notifying people, I mean I
Speaker 1: get notifications all the time for them. While things like
Speaker 1: class action lawsuits, I get a postcard that says you
Speaker 1: want to be part of this class et cetera. Somehow
Speaker 1: they can find me there. But the state can in
Speaker 1: this case.
Speaker 2: Believe me, if the state and if you owe taxes
Speaker 2: to the State of Ohio. They would trying to. I
Speaker 2: can't imagine why in this case where they owe you money,
Speaker 2: they're not looking for you.
Speaker 1: Right right? He is Jeff Crossman, he is lead counsel
Speaker 1: in this case against the State of Ohio, the unclaimed
Speaker 1: funds case. It's going to fund all the public Stadia
Speaker 1: Cleveland first with three hundred million or six hundred million.
Speaker 1: I guess I should say out of this up to
Speaker 1: two billion dollars unclaimed funds. So if you have an
Speaker 1: unclaimed a case, or you have unclaimed funds, whether it's
Speaker 1: a dollar or a million dollars, you have to go
Speaker 1: to the state website to check your uncamp claim funds
Speaker 1: and find them for yourself, as opposed to the state
Speaker 1: doing due diligence to try and find you. That's the
Speaker 1: crux of the argument he's making. In the judge of
Speaker 1: federal judges ruled that the case can move forward with
Speaker 1: some guardrails in place. There it's I think it was you,
Speaker 1: or it was Mark dan or I had honi you
Speaker 1: compared it to unclaimed funds to a dog shelters website.
Speaker 1: You know, I got I think just within the last
Speaker 1: year I went on and got like, because of this case,
Speaker 1: actually I think about four hundred dollars on claim funds
Speaker 1: I founded or my name and my brother did the same.
Speaker 1: But the website itself, I mean I didn't have a
Speaker 1: problem navigating, but you said, this is like the website
Speaker 1: itself is terrible, and if it's bad, then it causes
Speaker 1: people to maybe not look for their funds.
Speaker 2: The website is pretty rudimentary. We had a film a
Speaker 2: tep fight the other day who handles e commerce for
Speaker 2: BMW internationally, and you know, he's got an IT expert,
Speaker 2: and he said, there's some fundamental flaws and the way
Speaker 2: the database captures data, source data and spits it back
Speaker 2: to you. One of the things we identified originally was
Speaker 2: one of the planets in the case. His name is
Speaker 2: pretty common. It's Todd Butler. If you put that name
Speaker 2: into the database, it fits back a thousand and it
Speaker 2: cuts off there. There might be ten thousand Todd Butler's
Speaker 2: in there. You'll never know whether or not those other
Speaker 2: ones are in there because it stops giving you results
Speaker 2: after number one thousand. Then State admitted that the other day.
Speaker 2: So there's just really no way to know what property
Speaker 2: you truly have in that whole front. There's no way
Speaker 2: to search it on.
Speaker 1: Imagine a government website or something the government not working properly. Jeff,
Speaker 1: I'm shocked.
Speaker 2: Well, we're here to try to correct the process that
Speaker 2: was the purpose of the laws. We're not anti stadium construction.
Speaker 2: We're not anti Cleveland Browns were all sports antire in
Speaker 2: dan law. But we do think that the government should
Speaker 2: act constitutionally, and we do think that they should employe
Speaker 2: some better safeguards to make sure people's rights are protected.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think it's important Fasta too. This is
Speaker 1: not about going after the Cleveland Browns with the fund.
Speaker 1: I mean, look at it this way. So I think
Speaker 1: someone made the accusation. This is about opposing public funding
Speaker 1: for stadiums and billionaire stadiums rather than property rights. But
Speaker 1: would you be in the same position if it were
Speaker 1: funding schools, hospital something all those on well unclaimed funds.
Speaker 2: The way they're doing it is unconstitutional, So you know
Speaker 2: our position is constitutionally this doesn't make any sense if
Speaker 2: it was a public purpose, a true public purpose like
Speaker 2: building a school or building a fire station, for example,
Speaker 2: that has a much more, much stronger justification than in
Speaker 2: this case because it is money being used, it's a
Speaker 2: taking for a non public purpose. Is there there is
Speaker 2: a problem there too, Jeff?
Speaker 1: Is there a way you'd be satisfied? I mean, are
Speaker 1: you posed to using unclan funds for a public person
Speaker 1: purposes generally or is it problematic just the stadium funding
Speaker 1: or is there a way to you, for you and
Speaker 1: your clients or and your planing to those who brought
Speaker 1: the suit here for them to be satisfied.
Speaker 2: Well, there are two constitutional issues here. One is the
Speaker 2: purpose of its taking, which you've identified, and secondly is
Speaker 2: the notice in the new process we need to have
Speaker 2: an aa public purpose and be they have to improve
Speaker 2: the new process safeguards here they don't exist right now.
Speaker 1: Again, Jeff Crossman's here from the Dan Law firm. He's
Speaker 1: the lead counsel in this case brought against the State
Speaker 1: of Ohio, the unclaimed funds case that we've talked about
Speaker 1: here that would fund stadiums across Ohio. The only problem
Speaker 1: is it's coming out of unclaimed funds and after ten
Speaker 1: years that money would revert back to the state. And
Speaker 1: he's saying there's just not enough notification in place, safeguards
Speaker 1: in place, to make sure that your whole and that
Speaker 1: you get to get your money simply because the state
Speaker 1: would rather you not. There's a lot of entities would
Speaker 1: do that too. Right now, the way the lost hands,
Speaker 1: if money left dormant for ten plus years is presumed
Speaker 1: to abandon. I guess the question is should the state
Speaker 1: be able to redirec act unclaimed funds? And we're talking
Speaker 1: about what makes that constitutionally acceptable? This morning on the show,
Speaker 1: where do you think this goes in the next Well,
Speaker 1: now I think too, didn't I say Tuesday? I believe
Speaker 1: it's a day a judge should make a decision. Here
Speaker 1: you confidence is going to move forward.
Speaker 2: The judge made a decision on the Pulmerian junction. Now
Speaker 2: we're moving forward on the case and we're going to
Speaker 2: decide whether we follow an appeal. And And by the way,
Speaker 2: I should note that when the state amended the statute,
Speaker 2: it automatically created a conflict of interest between the stat
Speaker 2: and yourself. You know, think about say, you know your
Speaker 2: investment account at Cheryl Schwab, if Charles Schwab now had
Speaker 2: an incentive not to tell you how much money was
Speaker 2: in the account or or what they were doing with
Speaker 2: the money and that if you don't contact them in
Speaker 2: a certain amount of time, they can just take your money.
Speaker 2: We would all fundamentally agree that that's what we would
Speaker 2: call indezzlement. And essentially what's going on here the state
Speaker 2: now has a conflict of interest. They don't have any
Speaker 2: incentive to tell you that the money is there in
Speaker 2: the ways about protecting yourself. So, uh, it's a real problem.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems to be. You know, you laid out
Speaker 1: a very very good, dynamic case as to why the
Speaker 1: court should side with you and the plaintiffs in this
Speaker 1: case simply because the lack of notification in the website
Speaker 1: is terrible. My last name Sloan, not terribly uncommon, but
Speaker 1: I could see if your last name is Smith or something.
Speaker 1: Then if I'm not able to see and find exactly
Speaker 1: the you know, Jeff Smith that's on there, and there's
Speaker 1: probably thousands in the state of Ohio, that's problematic. I mean,
Speaker 1: even if I want to find my money and that's
Speaker 1: my common name, it's going to be difficult to do so,
Speaker 1: and that's part of this lawsuit and rightly, so that's
Speaker 1: exactly right, all right, So timeline here is now Judges
Speaker 1: hearing this is probably going to move forward in this case.
Speaker 1: Do you think the state eventually settles with this? Are
Speaker 1: you looking for a settlement or just an outright I mean,
Speaker 1: what what what happens to the stadium funding model if
Speaker 1: you win?
Speaker 2: Well, that's an open question. I mean that was That's
Speaker 2: why we argued that it was stafer to keep the
Speaker 2: money where it is until we litigate the merits of
Speaker 2: the case. And I think at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: we're still optimistic that we're going to prevail here. And
Speaker 2: if that's the case, then there's money. This half a
Speaker 2: billion dollars or more has left the State of Ohio's coffers.
Speaker 2: It's going to be taxpayers that have to put back
Speaker 2: that money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jeff, all the best. Thanks for jepping on this
Speaker 1: morn now. You're extremely busy, but I appreciate taking time
Speaker 1: out to chat here. Jeff Crossmo, the Dan Law firm,
Speaker 1: lead counsel in this case, All the best, You have
Speaker 1: a great dable chat. Again, Thanks again, man, I appreciate you.
Speaker 1: I've got some time here maybe to talk about this.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if you've checked the Unclaimed fun site.
Speaker 1: I have, and as I said, found like four hundred
Speaker 1: bucks or something like that. I thought it was pretty
Speaker 1: easy process myself on my name. Okay, this is me here, Boom.
Speaker 1: But I have a common but not uncommon name. If
Speaker 1: you have a very common name, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you found it extremely difficult to navigate this side or not.
Speaker 1: As I said, I didn't, but your results may vary.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of torn on this, but I tend to
Speaker 1: lean in this one towards more towards the state, and
Speaker 1: not that I want people to lose their money, but
Speaker 1: don't know after ten years, seems to me, with all
Speaker 1: of the information out there, you know, check all you
Speaker 1: gotta do is check this website. Now, it seems to
Speaker 1: me that that is on you. Ten years, you don't
Speaker 1: know that that money's out there. How far? How far
Speaker 1: should the state go to try and get that money
Speaker 1: back to you?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: I think two things here are important that the state
Speaker 1: would have to simply notify you somehow, send you a
Speaker 1: postcard or whatever it might be, to a reasonable attempt
Speaker 1: to contact you. I mean, I get contacted by people
Speaker 1: I don't want contact contacting me all the time. They
Speaker 1: can find me, but the state can't that's problematic, and
Speaker 1: as he said, if you have a common name, it's
Speaker 1: difficult to navigate the website. That strike too. But I
Speaker 1: think if the state we're to change those two elements,
Speaker 1: that to me seems like it would satisfy the claim
Speaker 1: that they're trying to hold on the money. And you
Speaker 1: can see that right, there's incentive for the state to
Speaker 1: hold your cash in an unclaimed account because now it's
Speaker 1: going to go to fund pet projects that lawmakers will
Speaker 1: definitely line up to try and get that quote unquote
Speaker 1: free money, not free, but quote unquote free money in
Speaker 1: order to well build something nice to get votes. I'm
Speaker 1: the guy who got the new Cleveland Stadium. I'm the
Speaker 1: one who got pay Course Stadium. I'm the one that
Speaker 1: got GABP made whole again and remodeled. So there's tremendous
Speaker 1: incentive for the state here. But we'll get your thoughts
Speaker 1: into the unclaimed funds thing. And like I said, I
Speaker 1: tend to look at and go all right, I think
Speaker 1: you fix a website and make a concerned effort, do
Speaker 1: your due diligence and trying to locate someone with those funds,
Speaker 1: then that's probably the best you can do. Outside of
Speaker 1: the public notices in the website. Your Thoughts five one, three, seven, four,
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