Travis G Black April 2019

Travis G Black April 2019

APRIL 2019

916.962.2896 | TRAVISBLACKLAW.COM

A TERRIFYING AND THRILLING EXPERIENCE LEARNING TO FLY

I’ve been thinking a lot about new beginnings and how they can be both thrilling and terrifying. Whenever I think of starting something new, I want to make sure it’s long-term and not just something to do on the weekends. Finding a new activity can require a lot of work and effort. For me, this new pursuit was flying. Ever since I was young, I’ve been fascinated with learning to fly. Both my dad and brother were pilots, and I share their passion. Flying always excited me, but I also knew it was horrendously expensive to start. On top of that, I didn’t even know what I would do with it once I learned. Before I leaped into it, I buried myself in research. I wanted to find out what a private pilot is, what they can do, how they’re trained, and what the total cost of getting a license is. I also researched what kind of benefits pilots receive and what kind of continued training they need to complete their education. Once I knew as much as I felt I needed to, I got a hold of my brother, and he helped me find a good flight school. There are two parts to learning how to fly: attending ground school and learning to fly. Ground school teaches you all the rules of flying, including altitude, weather, and how to navigate and communicate. I knew even before going into these classes that I would need to practice flying more than once a week, and I did. I practiced 3–4 times a week to make sure all the information I learned in class stuck with me.

instrument rating, which is twice as hard. I had to learn how to fly all over again, but this time it was like wearing a blindfold. Think of learning how to drive with the windshield blacked out and only navigating with the instruments inside the car. Getting my instrument rating made me a much better pilot, and I am glad for the experience. Through my years of preparation, I learned that a lot of people who get their license don’t do anything with it, and I didn’t want that to be me. Since I’m a lawyer, I started incorporating my flying with law. At the time, I was living in Southern California, but I began to take on clients in Northern California so that I could fly more regularly. My flying also came in handy when one of my sons was going to college. It was a five-hour car drive but only an hour and “At that time, I was actually petrified of heights, which might not make a lot of sense to many people. But because I took that leap and prepared myself beforehand, I overcame my fear.”

10-minute flight. Having my own plane and pilot’s license helped me see him a lot more often. I also volunteered my time to help people with their medical treatments. I had a woman who lived in Sacramento but needed treatment in Los Angeles, and I flew her there for her treatment several times. One thing I do want to say is that learning to fly was absolutely terrifying for me. At that time, I was actually petrified of heights, which might not make a lot of sense to many people. But because I took that leap and prepared myself beforehand, I overcame my fear. When I started flying, it was a thrilling experience; I was up there piloting an airplane when I knew there weren’t a lot of other people who could do the same. Once my son graduated college, I stopped flying as much as I wanted to, so I made the decision to sell my planes. I owned four airplanes in total. I sold the last one about seven years ago, and I haven’t flown since. When I flew, I wanted to abide by the rules I had set for myself; I stayed current and constantly learned about what I was doing. I didn’t have a reason to fly anymore, so I retired from it. Even though I no longer fly, I still hold a lot of good memories from the many years I enjoyed it.

-Travis Black

After I finished ground school, I flew for quite a while before I jumped into getting my

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LEGAL CASE STUDY: ADÉLIE THE ROCK THIEF EXPLORING THE CRIMES OF ANTARCTIC WILDLIFE

Our goal at Travis G. Black & Associates is to help our clients receive the compensation they deserve. A client contacted us a few years ago after an incident where they fell 20 feet, and we stepped up to help. Thanks to the efforts of our team, we won the case, giving them exactly what they needed in this difficult time. Here’s how this Staircase Case happened. CASE FACTS: Our client was working as a caretaker for a family member when the incident occurred. While taking the trash out of their aunts’ apartment, the stairway our client was walking down collapsed, and our client fell through. Although they didn’t drop onto concrete, which could have caused worse injuries, our client landed on hard dirt. From the fall, our client sustained a concussion; fractured vertebra, ribs, and scapula; and miscellaneous bruising and back pain. They were out of work for the next 16 months, and the treatment lasted a little less than 22 months. Once treatment was over, our client was back to full health but faced a total of $77,824 in medical bills. THE OUTCOME: The insurance company gave us some opposition, first offering a total of $400,000 for our client’s medical bills and loss of earnings. We pushed back, and within 24 months of the initial CASE STUDY STAIRCASE FALL: CASE CLOSED 2016 On an island off the coast of Antarctica, a BBC film crew caught footage of a crime taking place. In the video, as one male Adélie penguin leaves his nest to search for additional rocks to add to it, his neighbor waddles over, removes a rock from the nest, and carries it back to his own. When the first penguin returns from his search, his neighbor plays it cool, but at each opportunity, he repeats the crime and steals his neighbor’s rocks. While animals aren’t actually subject to legal action, and the Adélie penguin was only behaving according to natural instinct, the fine writers for the blog Legal Grounds point out that the rock thief situation presents an interesting legal case study. By taking his neighbor’s rock and putting it in his own nest, the neighbor penguin committed an act of theft. Theft is defined as “the taking of someone else’s property with the intent to permanently deprive the victim of that property.” In some places, when a thief leaves the scene of the crime, the theft is considered complete. If the

thief returns and steals additional items, that could be considered a new crime and result in additional charges. So, since the neighbor penguin takes a rock, leaves the scene of the crime, and returns, he could be found guilty of multiple theft charges. If he’d decided to go big and take his neighbor’s entire nest at once, he might’ve been charged with grand theft. Now, if the penguin who was stolen from had used force to protect his precious nest rocks, the case would be complicated even further. Allowable force is generally limited in cases of theft. To prove self- defense, the victim penguin would have to show there was a threat of force against him, that he didn’t provoke the neighbor penguin in any way, and that he didn’t have the option to escape. From a legal perspective, it was probably best that the victim penguin didn’t use force.

For now, we’ll leave the Adélie penguins to their nest-building business and save the legal cases for the human world.

incident, the case was settled in pre-litigation. We won $550,000 for our client, who was able to pay off all the bills with money left over.

Helping our clients get the money they deserve after a stressful situation is what we do best at Travis G. Black & Associates. We understand how challenging it is to be involved in these situations, and we do all we can to ensure that each of our clients is well taken care of.

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IT’S NATIONAL LIBRARY WORKERS DAY!

Whether you have a card or not, libraries are an important part of our community. They serve as meeting places, research stations, employment centers, and local historical archives. They help kids and adults alike explore vast literary worlds and immense >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5

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