Source: https://www.jeremywrichter.com/page/27/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 01:27:53+00:00

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You’ll likely note right away that this is a deviation from my standard fare, but it’s an experience I wanted to share. Hopefully, you can find it helpful. But I also hope it’s not something you can identify with too closely.
In 2007 I purchased a small house in Warrior, Alabama (a small town about fifteen miles north of Birmingham). It wasn’t a particularly nice house, but it was the best I could do at the time. And I was tired of paying rent, so it was time to buy. Besides, in 2007, we were all still operating under the supposition that property values only ever appreciate.
I asked the advice of all the right people and received assurances that this purchase was a good decision. My now-wife Anna and I were dating and had been for a couple years, but at least one of us (me) wasn’t quite ready to discuss our forever future. Had I been ready to have that conversation, I expect Anna would have told me this wasn’t a house she could envision herself living in.
So I bought the house, made some improvements, and moved in. About nine months later, Anna and I got engaged. Shortly after that, we started looking at a garden home in another town, which we ended up purchasing. That was the summer of 2008.
I put my house up for sale, where it stayed for more than six months. The market had begun to turn. Unbeknownst to us at the time, we were at the front end of the Great Recession. Month after month, my house sat empty and for sale, with very little traction.
Eventually, I listed it for rent. I found tenants fairly quickly. And just in time too. Anna and I got married in the summer of 2009, and I started law school two months later. The tenancy situation went well…until it didn’t. Several months before their contract was up, the tenants just stopped paying rent. I got promises of good intentions to get caught up, but those never materialized. They left and the house sat empty again. I tried to sell it. Nothing. I sold my motorcycle to pay the mortgage for a few months. Then I found more tenants.
The new tenants ended up staying in the house for more than four years. The bulk of that time went pretty well. But when it went bad, it did so in a hurry. They abandoned the place still owing seven months back rent. They left behind the majority of their possessions (everything from clothes to family photos to baseball cards), including a refrigerator full of food, but with no power to it. I should have known better than to open that refrigerator door, but now I’ll forever have emblazoned in my olfactory sense the odor that assaulted me. Piles of garbage in the back yard, and a garage filled with more of the same.
Once I cleared out the rubbish, I was left with a rundown house that was going to take several thousand dollars to get back into any kind of presentable condition. But I was out of money. By this time, I had gone nine months without any cash generation from the property. We were staring financial ruin in the face. There were innumerable nights that I lay in bed after the house was quiet and prayed that a lightning strike would burn the place to the ground. God has worked his will by fire before – why not now?!
Then I got an offer to sell. But the buyer was only offering about 60% of what I had paid for it. Accepting that offer would mean taking a huge loss. A loss that I couldn’t manage. Yet everyone I sought advice from said it was time to cut my losses. My folks stepped up to help me with the financial loss I was incurring. And I agreed to sell the albatross that had been saddled around my neck for the better part of seven years. I still haven’t calculated the total amount of money I’ve sunk into that house and lost. I don’t think I will.
I did all the things you’re supposed to do before making a big decision. Prayed over it. Asked the advice of people with more experience and wisdom than me. Yet for years I was burdened with this house that placed a considerable amount of mental, financial, and emotional strain on me and my family. At the end, I’ve gotten rid of the house, but it’ll be years before I can be rid of the financial aftermath. So what have I learned? How can I not make this mistake again? I’m still not quite sure.
One my takeaways from this experience has been that you can do all the things you ought to do, but sometimes stuff just goes sideways. So I’ll just keep pushing until I get to the other side, and hopefully, learn not to do it again. Because when there’s nothing to learn from failure, you just persevere.
That perseverance is multi-faceted. I will persevere in my faith. I don’t believe in a “prosperity gospel”. I know that not all of my life experiences work together for my immediate good, but as a Christ-follower, I believe they are orchestrated for my ultimate good. I will persevere in my work. This debacle was a setback, and it’s going to take a while to dig out from it, but rather than the failure of it being a defining occasion, I am endeavoring to leverage it into an inflection point. But in order to do that, I’ll have to just persevere.
OOIDA v. U.S. Dept. of Transportation – The ELD Rule adopted by the FMCSA has survived a challenge that it does not comply with Congressional mandates, and is not sufficient to protect drivers from harassment and privacy invasions.
At the direction of Congress, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (“FMCSA”) has adopted what has become known as the ELD Rule. Beginning on December 16, 2017, most commercial drivers will be required to use electronic logging devices (“ELDs”) to record their duty status. ELDs are required to be installed on all interstate commercial motor vehicles (model year 2000 or newer) within two years of December 16, 2017. The FMCSA has expressed the purpose behind the ELD rule is to increase compliance with hours of service requirements. The new regulation has not been without opposition.
After the U.S. Department of Transportation, via the FMCSA, promulgated the final version of the ELD rule in 2015, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (“OOIDA”) and others brought suit against the Department of Transportation, seeking judicial review of the final rule. Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, Inc., et al. v. United States Dept. of Transportation [Ms. 15-3756], — F.3d — (7th Cir. Oct. 31, 2016). OOIDA argued five reasons to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals why the ELD rule should be vacated.
The language in Congress’ mandate directs that electronic logging devices be “capable of recording a driver’s hours of service and duty status accurately and automatically.” 49 U.S.C. § 31137(f)(1)(A). The ELDs approved by the FMCSA must automatically link to vehicle engines when the engine is turned on; must record the date, time, location, engine hours, vehicles miles, driver identification, vehicle information, and motor carrier identification. 49 C.F.R. § 395.26. The ELD only records at specific instances, rather than continuously; namely, it records when the vehicle is turned on, when a change of duty status occurs, and once per hour while driving. 49 C.F.R. § 395.26.
The 7th Circuit had struck down a prior version (2011) of the ELD rule because it failed to make sure the devices would not be used to harass commercial drivers. OOIDA contended that the 2015 iteration likewise failed to protect drivers from harassment. Under 49 C.F.R. § 390.36, ELD-related harassment can take two forms: when a motor carrier uses an ELD to encourage a driver to drive (1) when the driver’s ability is somehow impaired, or (2) when the driver is in violation of the hours of service rules.
The 7th Circuit found that the 2015 rule complied with the Congressional mandate to protect drivers from harassment, holding that the FMCSA’s definition of harassment was reasonable.
49 U.S.C. § 31137(e) requires the FMCSA to provide safeguards to protect the confidentiality of the data collected by the ELDs. The data recorded by the ELDs is to be retained and stored by the drivers and motor carriers, who are directed “to protect a driver’s privacy in a manner consistent with sound business practices.” 49 C.F.R. § 395.24(d), § 395.22(i). The governance of this data is being incorporated into preexisting regulatory infrastructure. Furthermore, to the extent that confidential ELD-related data is released, personal information will be redacted. Therefore, the 7th Circuit found that the FMCSA’s confidentiality requirements were sufficient under the statute.
The 7th Circuit found that OOIDA’s arguments on this front were wholly unpersuasive. Even if the ELD mandate constituted a search or seizure, the 4th Amendment exception would apply for pervasively regulated industries. In considering the exception, the ELD mandate must (and does) pass a 3-part reasonableness test: (1) the regulatory scheme must be informed by a substantial government interest; (2) the warrantless inspections must be necessary to further the regulatory scheme; and (3) the inspection program must provide a constitutionally adequate substitute for a warrant.
For the foregoing reasons, the 7th Circuit denied OOIDA’s petition and upheld the ELD rule, that is scheduled to become effective in December 2017.

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