Recorded Live at WonderCon!

Life from WonderCon on March 27, 2026!
What is the state of the law after a nuclear war? How could the Enclave be held accountable for starting the Great War 200 years later? What is the liability for Vault-Tech, RobCo Industries, West Tek, REPCONN Aerospace, and Big MT for their part in ending the world? What is the legal status of the New California Republic and the Legion? Can the Brotherhood of Steel go around killing Ghouls? Join our panel of lawyers and judges as they journey into the Wasteland to discuss the medical ethics of human experimentation, Ghoul rights, and more. Get ready for megatons of law. Featuring U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Wright (United States District Court District of Minnesota), Judge Carol Najera (Los Angeles County Superior Court), Katrina Wraight, Esq. (Best Best & Krieger LLP), Vanessa Palacio, Esq., (Greenberg Traurig, LLP), and Kate Bridal (Now It's Ruined Podcast). Moderated by Joshua Gilliland, Esq. (The Legal Geeks). Presented by The Legal Geeks.

Transcript

Welcome And Panel Introductions

Joshua Gilliland 0:00

Now, Bomb's away! So let's talk about Fallout with me! We are the Little Geeks, and we are here to discuss Fallout seasons one and a bunch of season two. So, spoilers will be mentioned here about the wasteland. So I'll ask all of our panels to each introduce themselves, starting with Katrina Wright.

Katrina Wraight 0:24

I'm an of counsel with Bess and Krieger in our San Diego office. I focus primarily on environmental law, circle, super fun stuff, so cleaning up contaminated.

Kate Bridal 0:37

I'm Kate Bridal. I'm a content creator and licensed attorney here in California. I make a podcast called Now Is Ruined, where I ruin everyday stuff with dark history and facts. And I also do a sketch series on TikTok and Instagram called Living with Lecter, where I can't be in a relationship with Candy Lecter. And I'm actually currently developing a series based on that sketch series, where it's original characters and the original plot, and we're working with Crypt TV to hopefully start structure on that next year. And fun fact, one of the actors who's maybe going to play my male lead was in an episode of Fallout. So there we go.

Carol Najera 1:14

I'm nowhere near as interesting. Hi guys. My name's Carol Najera. I'm a judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court. I do uh felonies in Compton, the real wasteland. This is different.

Elizabeth Wright 1:30

All right, uh hi everyone. I'm Elizabeth Braid. I'm a United States Magistrate Judge in the District of Minnesota, so I'm excited to be in California right now.

Vanessa Palacio 1:40

Hey folks, my name is Vanessa Palacio. I am an attorney at Greenberg Touareg. I try cases, I do mostly intellectual property on Weston, California, Florida, and for the USB TO. Real to be here. First time on a panel. Usually I'm in the audience, we'll do the costume.

Law After A Nuclear Collapse

Joshua Gilliland 1:58

So Mrs. Judge Wright and Vanessa's first illegal games of error. So welcome. So let's start with something light. Katrina, what is a law, state of the law for a nuclear warrant?

Katrina Wraight 2:13

Yeah, so we don't normally think about this too often. I'm sure the judges would prefer you didn't think about it too much too often, but you need to believe in the law and have institutions for it to exist. So typically we have three branches that are intended to function. The legislature that's supposed to keep the rules, the executive that's supposed to enforce them, and the judiciary to resolve the disputes. And if you strip all those away, we're left with just text or a very, very well-written suggestion. So what happens when the institution fails? Well, the rule of law also collapses. What the rule of law typically requires is a little bit of a philosophical outlook, real quick, is generality that the rules apply broadly to everyone, which doesn't apply so much in the fallout context because rules become local and they become faction-based. The rule of law also requires predictability that people can plan around the rules, so you know what they are and try to avoid the crimes, for example. But in this situation, survival will replace payment. You need adjudication, typically third-party decision makers, two of which we have to my left. But in this context, it's not the people that are appointed or put in those positions, it is whoever has the power to enforce them. So what you're replaced with is de facto governance, where before you had pretty much the church authority. And it comes down to what people can enforce. So what this would be most like similar to in the real world would probably be early medieval law or frontier justice or failed state governance generally. You can't have communities like the NCR or settlements decide that they want to make their own rules, reinstate rules, or enforce prior ones. But other than that, you're pretty much on the so on that front, um it becomes more what we call in the legal world replaced by doctrines. We'll call it wasteland governance in this situation. So, for example, run through a few types of the laws. Um property law, um, possession will become everything. So you probably resort to finders keepers. Um for contract law, you have offer acceptance, consideration, and then um whoever is able to physically enforce that. Tort law will evolve too. Typically, a negligence standard is the reasonable person, but now the conduct would have to fall to a reasonable wastelander, which Lord alone knows where that would take us. Um strict liability as well, like you're keeping something, for example, like a death claw, that's probably ultra-hazardous, and just the fact that you have it gets you on the hook. Um, and criminal law and corporate law will be discussed by the ladies in the future slides as well.

Can The NCR Be A Nation

Joshua Gilliland 4:51

Thank you. Judge Wright, two rights. Can you tell us about what's the state of the new California Republic?

Elizabeth Wright 5:00

Sure. Uh, and kind of building on what Katrina said, you know, I one of my favorite science fiction authors, Lois Leglaster Bujol, said that basically governments only assistant are pedants. So uh drag my mat into this conversation. What is the legal status of the New California Republic and the Legion? What I turn to when I look at this question is the Montevideo Convention of 1933, and it sets forth these requirements for um establishing a nation, whether you're doing it by leaving another nation or kind of starting from scratch. You need to have a permanent population, sort of a defined population. You need to have some sort of defined territory, of course. You need to have a functioning government, which I would describe as having an entity that can create and enforce laws, manage the resources of the nation, and provide services. You also need to have uh meaningful relationships and relations with other nations, whether for trade purposes or other reasons along those lines. And I think that extends beyond simply going to a work with them all the time. And then ideally, but not always, you would have recognition by other nations or by an international organization, which we would think of today as being the United Nations, but of course, in Fallout, you know, I think it's a good question as to whether there's any international organization that would even recognize another nation state. So I would say the New California Republic likely met these requirements. Um, you know, the Legion is an interesting question because it's a little bit more of a brute force type government. I don't really see the Legion as operating to, for example, provide services to its citizens. It's just more about taking control. So I would give that a thumbs down and I would give New California Republic a thumbs up. I see questions. Do we want to take, oh, we're just getting a thumbs up. Okay. Okay. Already a question? Okay. All right. So this is gonna go a little bit into American history, but I was thinking, what are some good analogies to the New California Republic? So we actually have one from the United States. I'm going to go back to 1784 and just give you a tiny history lesson because this has happened before. Um, from 1784 to 1789, there was an attempt to make first an independent state called Franklin, and then an independent nation called Franklin. This is a real map from the time. It was uh going to be located in what is now eastern Tennessee. If we go to the next slide, you can see it more in context. So it's like that little bit called Franklin wedged in there. Um, of course, at the time we didn't have states like Tennessee and Kentucky, we just had the 13 original states. So if you go to the next slide, you can see the state of Franklin was short-lived, and I think this illustrates how challenging it can be to create a mediation. Uh the way this came about is in 1784, North Carolina actually offered this land to Congress to try to pay debts, okay? But then a couple of months later, North Carolina was like, wait, maybe that's a bad idea. You could probably make more money off of real estate, so they rescinded the offer. But what this did is it put into people's heads the idea that you could start your own state or your own nation. So uh the people living there were unhappy with North Carolina, they seceded from the state, they sought statehood from Congress, so kind of getting to that recognition from other nations and states. Congress didn't support them, so then they declared an independent republic. Uh that lasted with courts, taxes, and a barter system. So some of the things that we talk about when you think about the Legion, what they have and what they don't have, and the New California Republic. And then finally, in 1786, North Carolina said if you come back, we won't make you pay taxes. That wasn't good enough. Seems like a good deal to me, but it wasn't good enough. So after sadly some violence, the state of Franklin did in fact end. Um, so I think the bottom line from all of this is when things fall apart or when things are in a state of chaos, whether it's in the wastelands or you know, it was a little chaotic when our country was being formed. People are trying to establish these entities, but it is in fact very challenging, and that's what we see coming out of all about.

Corpse Desecration And Lucy’s Choice

Joshua Gilliland 9:20

Thank you. Okay, Kate, let's talk about desecration of a corpse.

Kate Bridal 9:27

That's the weird makes cannibal comedy on the internet. I was like, I want to do this one. Um, so first off, uh see headed to prison. Just want to make sure you can't be on the front. Uh, next slide. Uh I do want to do a little content warning. I'm gonna talk about a real life case that's a little bit disturbing, so just FYI does involve some uh some stuff. Mismemberment, dismemberment, and uh bomb button. Alright, so just to recap, Dr. Wolzig has a cold fusion device that he has injected into his head, everybody wants it, he wants it to go to Moldaber. Uh he's not thinking that he's gonna make the journey all the way, so he poisons himself and he tells Lucy to take his head to Moldaber. And she does, and uh decapitation hijinks ensue. So uh I know we just talked about how none of these laws are gonna apply anymore, but too bad I'm gonna talk about California law. Um so there are a couple of uh applicable statutes here. One is a misdemeanor, one is a felony. Uh the basic difference between them is woefulness. So in the misdemeanor statute, it's just knowingly, wantonly, or willfully if you mess with a corpse, basically. So it accounts for you being reckless. Maybe you're playing around where a body might be. Uh, maybe you're even hanging up and you're playing with a bone if you're like, isn't this fun? But you don't know it's a human bone. That kind of thing. Um, you're a creed, but you're not a felon. So uh felony is all about willfulness. Uh it is, you know, also includes all this pleasant stuff about necrophilia, and it also specifies that the remains are known to be human. So for it to be a felony, you have to know that it's human remains and you have to do it on purpose. So uh that's that's the basics here. Next slide, please. Um, both the felony and the misdemeanor statute anticipate authority of law. So they say you're allowed to do this if you have the authority of law. So, in what circumstance, you may be wondering, would someone have the authority of law to desecrate a course? Um, well, I have a great example that just popped into my head. Um because I'm I agree, uh, I'm immediately caught on this case. So in 2003, pizza delivery man Brian Wells uh robbed his local bank with a device strapped around his neck. And when the authorities detaining me informed them that it was a bomb, it's unclear whether Brian knew that the bomb was active or not, but it did wind up going off and it killed him. And the authorities, in order to remove the bomb and preserve it for evidence, had to cut Brian's head off. So they were authorized to do this to preserve the evidence of the bomb so they could figure out who made it. So that is an example of authority law in desecration of a corpse. Now, does Lucy have it? I don't think so. Wilzig does give her verbal permission to do this, and there are some laws on the books about, you know, you can allocate someone or uh dedicate someone to say what you want done with your corpse, but it's more like this is the funeral home I want to go to, not my friend can come off my head and carry it through the desert, and you know. So I don't think that she's gonna have the authority of law to do this here. So next slide. Is she guilty? Yeah, she is. Uh I think both misdemeanor and felony, she's gonna be going down. It was willful, uh, and it was on purpose, and she knew he was a human. Uh so last slide, Well Dabor actually is on the look for something too. There is a statue that is about removing or possessing things from the body, so like taking someone's gold tea, etc. And Will Daber extracts that gold fusion device out of the bulsey's head, so she's also looking at some prison time.

Prosecuting The Enclave For War

Ghoul Rights And Brotherhood Violence

Joshua Gilliland 12:58

So, how could the Enclave be held accountable for starting the Great War 219 years later? I think this is an easy answer. We've done it before. You thaw them out and put the monsters on trial. After World War II, all the Nazis said, we were doing this to make Germany great again. It's okay that we got rid of the people we found to be undesirable. And the world went, no, no, it's not okay, and we put them on trial. United States Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson took leave from the court to be the lead prosecutor. His open statement took two days to deliver. I read the indictment, because that's how I roll. And in one particular statement is civilization asks whether law of civil library has to be utterly helpless to deal with criminals of this magnitude by criminal crimes of this magnitude by criminals of this order of importance. Yes, you don't get to commit genocide. And those who decided we don't like them. They're not like us. Let's burn the world down and we'll be in the freezer waiting for it to be okay to come out. Prosecute them. Because those who now, one argument is pull the plug, we'll let them die. That's kind of like what Senator Walker Taft wanted to do, which was we don't need war crimes. We take the Nazis behind the park and shoot them. That's wrong. You have to hold them accountable. There has to be a trial because you don't want a monument to hit one or Guring or Google's. Take a Nazi. And if you ever see somebody who has a statue of a Nazi in their home, you're in the wrong place. Leave. Those are bad people. So, yeah, give you a war crimes trial. So, what if it's 219 years later? The bad guys are in the freezer. Call them out and hold them accountable. So, Judge Najera, can we talk about the brotherhood of still just killing rules for being abolitionists?

Carol Najera 15:21

Yes, we can. That is a burning question on the mind of every ghoul in the room. And the answer, as is the answer to nearly all legal questions, is depends. Yeah. Well, first of all, we have to ask and answer the next burning question on the next side, which is what is a ghoul? A ghoul, my research, appears to be a mutated human being, or someone who took some kind of experimental drug like that, unfortunate squire that is, and was, as a result of this, became a ghoul. It is either way, it's a person who was a human being who was left disabled due to the exposure and into the inhalement. I'm gonna say this a few times, a human being. These people are afflicted, they have facial and body deformities as a result of this illness, and they can also turn barrel. What does this mean? It means they're all disabled human beings. So let's stop calling them fools. That's almost a curse word or a slang, and let's call them by their names, like Hooper Howard or Marie. Now, being human beings, they have certain rights. Uh there are three that I put up there, and one is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is the template for the implementation of human rights worldwide. The second one is the American with Disabilities Act, which specifically deals with this situation. What rights do disabled human beings have? And third is in the state of California, where all this takes place, we have the UNRU Act, which takes the template of the American with Disabilities Act and expands it. And it says simply that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, that they all are deemed to have such rights as the right to life, liberty, and security. That's what these goals have. So the answer to the question, what is a goal, is that they are a disabled human being with all the attendant rights. Now, on the next slide, we answer the question, what is the Brotherhood of Steel? That's not what it's fine. It is a appears to be some kind of a voluntary, voluntary being the keyword here, paramilitary group, with kind of a religious cult aspect to it. In many ways, it is no different from, say, the Ku Klux Klan or any other kind of cult, or quite frankly, any criminal street gang. Now, in California, we put all of those categories into Penal Code 186.22, which is criminal street gangs, which are defined by an ongoing group organization of three or more people. Yes, booyah, we've got that. Um, having one or more of its primary activities, the commission of a crime such as robbery, murder, and burglary. They steal to get this technology, they take things by force, which is robbery, which is to get this technology, and they murder to get this technology. Falls right into it. And finally, the members collectively engage in a pattern of the uh they all have a common name or identifying sign or symbol. And they engage in pattern of criminal activity. So with no legal authority, the Brotherhood of Steel is just another outlaw gang committing murder. So, why did I say defense? Because there's always that caveat. Remember, I said some ghouls are feral. Well, if a feral ghoul attacks a member of the Brotherhood or someone that the Brotherhood is protecting, then they do have the defense of themselves or defense of others. But that is the only circumstance in which they can. And that's the same circumstance that applies to every other human being. Because what are ghouls? Okay.

Charging A Nuclear Attack

Joshua Gilliland 19:09

Thank you, Your Honor. Wow.

Vanessa Palacio 19:28

But let's so just let's it depends, but it's a lot. So one of the cleanest potential laws you could be charged with is um use of weapons of mass destruction. And basically what this criminalizes is that you use a WMD, so it's a device that is designed to give off radiation to hurt humans, um, and and you hurt humans with it. And basically, a death death result, which we know that it does here, right? That's life imprisonment, you're eligible for the death penalty. Okay. Um, but we don't need to stop there. There's more. So he could also be charged with first-dory murder. And I mean, this isn't a crime at the federal level or at the state level, if we're just talking about modern law here, right? And you have this unlawful killing, malice and forethought, and premeditation. I mean, I don't think anybody thinks he just randomly came across a nuke and did this in a heat of passion. Obviously, this took some playing, and that satisfies your pre-meditation here, right? And every single person who got killed is a potential additional charge. So I think there's some screenshots where we could see that the population of Shane Sands was like 34,000 and some change at that time, but potentially there may have been other visitors, so this could be thousands and thousands of potential murders, right? And we also have on top of this other potential crimes for uh radiological dispersion devices, active nuclear terrorism. I mean, there's there's a lot that he can be charged with, right? And then there's also more. He act he probably acted with others, guys. Do we think that he just got a move himself and put this together? No, so that would just afford like conspira conspiracy charges, right? And there's not mergers, so he you can be convicted of both conspiracy and the underlying crime, and these can be consecutive sentences, so he could potentially be in prison the rest of his life. And then there's also potential uh uh ramifications under international law. So crimes against humanity, indiscriminate attacks against uh civilians. So we've got the Rome Statute Article 71st and then the Geneva Conventions. And I mean, look, guys, making civilians, that's yeah, that's that's that's gonna be bad. He's he's gonna be he's he's gonna be Potentially be on trial. And it doesn't end there. You know, it's not just one crime, right? He's potentially liable for a lot of different murders. And corporations can also be criminally liable. So Altec, as his employer, could be on the hook for this. I don't know if you guys remember like Enron, also PJD. I mean, corporations can be charged with crimes, and that can be the downfall of a corporation ultimately. I mean, you know, courts can impose sanctions, they can that can be monetary, they can also appoint someone to be in charge and oversee everything. Um, companies can lose their licenses, so companies can go under as a result of these kinds of criminal charges. Uh so the ramifications aren't just for ink, um, it's also multi-band. Anyone who potentially acted with it.

Joshua Gilliland 23:01

So, on the limit of conspiracies, control that can you share your gospel liability for all of our incorporate actors that get together and figuring out it's gonna be in our uh stockholder's best interest to end control.

Katrina Wraight 23:15

Correct. So as Kate just mentioned on the very basic level, you can be charged as a corporation for most of the things she was discussing. Um so that's your criminal conspiracy, your treason, and potentially your war crimes. But the question comes down to did they cause or contribute to the nuclear war or did they merely profit from it? Because as Josh mentioned, these corporations have a fiduciary duty, a duty to their shareholders to maximize the profit. Um that creates an interesting issue here because the same issues that essentially create or cause a catastrophe profit from it. So you have a fundamental accountability problem. Um, the corporations themselves benefit from weakening the institutions that were meant to regulate them, um, which creates some interesting parallels from the real world. Um, so the first example of that would be big tobacco. Um, what big tobacco, the most cases, mostly what they were on the hook for was failure to warn combined with active deception. So, do we think that Vault Tech knew the risks and misled the plot public? Um slightly, right? And it might be a little bit more of a gray area for those other corporations. Um, what the corporations were charged with in those big tobacco cases were fraud and misrepresentation, as I mentioned before, um, because as we all know, they had internal evidence that smoking caused concern, it was designed for addiction itself, um, the risks were downplayed, omitted, or they straight up deceived their customers by suggesting that marketing that was healthy, um, light or low tar, for example. Um, you can be charged with failure to warn, and that's what uh they were successful with against big tobacco as well, which just means you have to disclose the known risks, and the warnings have to be clear, prominent, honest. So you've seen those in California, right? The prop, whatever it is with the cancer causing things, uh, that's probably them to learn as well. Um so in this situation, Vault Tech marketed the vaults as safety and survival, but in reality, they were manufacturing social experiments for the unwitting and unknowing vaulties. Design defect may also apply in this situation as well. Um if you design something that's unreasonably dangerous, or it could be safer, you could be on the hook for design defects. So, in a situation we know cigarettes were engineered for addiction, um, vaults were created for harm, so they probably were defective by design, and it would be a strict viability situation. Um, so from the template of big tobacco, then we have some other examples, which were opioids, chemical manufacturers, and probably the closest parallel, which will be our fossil fuel companies, climate litigation, which tracks really, really cleanly in that the companies in both of these situations developed the technology, they influenced the policy, and they profited from the escalation. Um, so Vault Tech was in control of natural resources, logitude, and safety. Um, the fossil fuel companies, while not in control of those things, they do directly influence the being able to habit regions entirely, the availability of natural resources, um, they change extreme weather exposure and public outcomes. But because the risks are so long term, they're diffuse, so they're spread out, right? They're global and they're externalized, meaning everybody else pays the price, they downplay the risks, they continue to destroy for shareholder profit and they delay transition. Um, so a few other things, too, in the climate context that these companies could probably be on the hook for for creating that nuclear war would be public nuisance, which is unreasonable interference with public rights and health and safety. Um because nuclear war inherently destroys natural resources. Um, it's the ultimate interference with public rights. The ultimate nuisance. Um, consumer protection is another thing, which is misleading marketing for the climate realm. That's greenwashing, right? You see all these products say we're natural, we're all healthy. Um, that's just eating if it's not correct as well. Um, here again, vault tech is marketing, uh, vaults as safety solutions, which we knew they very much weren't. Um, and finally, there's potential for securities fraud charge because they misrepresented the risk to investors, so I'm not sure that we have sufficient information to address.

The Ghoul And Bounty Hunting Limits

Joshua Gilliland 27:32

Well done. All right, panelists. Pavel to the medal, so we can get to some questions. So, George Nohara, let's talk about Hooper Howard and is it okay to start at Won Fight to collect the bounty?

Carol Najera 27:48

Well, I have to answer that question with more questions because, as all the lawyers out there know, that is the nature of the law, and that is what judges are trained to do. So, let's start with the first question, which is how would you characterize the Enclave? And uh, let's talk about the Enclave. The Enclave started as a secret society comprised of political, military, and corporate figures. Great. They're running the show behind the scenes, but they don't have any legitimacy. They're not a governmental entity, they've got no legal authority. But what they did was they acquired bold fusion technology legally, which means they owned it. So, therefore, when Dr. Zwele ran off of it, he stole it. Therefore, they're a target party seeking to recover the stolen property and I put out a reward for it. So far, so good. Now, let's go to the next slide and let's see how we would characterize the report. Cooper Howard, we can call him a bounty hunter, which is really what we the real term is fugitive recovery agent. Okay, some people call him a hired gun, and some people might call him a reward seeker. Let's start with the bounty hunter. What can bounty hunters legally do? Well, I put the code sections up there, but what they can do is they're contracted to locate and arrest fugitives for surrender to the appropriate court jail or police department. It must be done to recover a bail or surety deposited to ensure the presence of an individual in court. That's really what a bounty hunter is. That wasn't Cooper's goal. He didn't want to arrest him and bring him to court. He was trying to kidnap him and steal back the missing cold fusion. So he's clearly not a bounty hunter, not a fusion recovery agent. Now, some people would call him a reward seeker. Now let's address this in the next slide. Okay, a reward seeker, that is actually something that just deals with contracts. And here's the thing: a reward seeker deals with a contract and is thus governed by civil law. It's a contract to retrieve an item for a certain um substantial being. Now, on the civil side, it's illegal acts are barred from gaining rewards. In other words, you can't contract to inform an illegal act because that voids the contract. This is all spelled out in California Civil Code 1608. If a contract has an unlawful object, the entire contract is void. Uh, Civil Code 1598 clarifies that where a contract has a single object, and in this case the single object was to redeem the cold fusion technology, and the object is unlawful, and the object the it was by any means necessary, that makes the entire contract void. Also, there are some criminal implications. Penal Code 190.21 states very clearly that murder for financial gain will result in death or outlaw. So if Cooper Howard is out there killing people for financial gain, he's gonna face the death penalty. So, knowing all of these answers to these two questions, let's look at the facts. The ghoul started the gunfight by shooting off Dr. Wizig Zillig's Dr. Wilzig's lay. The old lady store proprietor yells, I'll give a thousand bottle caps to whoever kills the ghoul, and the gunfight is on. Can the ghoul claim self-defense? No. Because he started the gunfight. And like Hans Solar, when you he shot first, so he doesn't get self-defense. So the uh ghoul is not a mounting hunter, he's not a reward seeker, and he has no legal defense. Therefore, the verdict is not justified.

Can Government Outsource Sovereignty

Joshua Gilliland 31:40

Well, delegating story from the United States corporations.

Vanessa Palacio 31:46

Alright, so the short answer here, since we're going fast now, um, the government can delegate some things, but not everything, and there's limits. So let's go to the next slide. Do a quick, very quick here. So basically, and this goes back to this key case from the 1920s, and you see CJ Taft up there. That that is that Taft, former president. Um, so Congress can delegate authority, but there has to be this um intelligible principle, and basically they they can delegate authority, but they gotta give guidance, right? And usually that authority is delegated to other parts of the government. Um, so when you're talking about private actors, that that is much more limited. So let's go to the next slide. Now, private entities can have government power delegated to them, but it's under very limited circumstances. So we have this recent case that involved Amtrak, and in that case, sorry guys. Um, in that case, we're okay with delegation when the entity is effectively governmental. So with Amtrak, the government controls it, it appoints the leadership, it sets the mission. So that's a very specific set of circumstances. And voltage is not that, right? Rob Co is not that. None of these companies are that. So let's talk about what's allowed. Next slide. Thank you. So we see this kind of thing pretty frequently, right? Like with defense contractors, private prisons, nuclear operations, but those things are supposed to be operating under government control, right? Voltec's doing something that's that's very, very different. So let's get our key takeaways here real fast. Um Voltec is basically deciding who gets to survive, how Volta societies operate, and they're doing human experimentation, which we'll talk about a little bit more. Um and that starts to look less like contracting and more like like private sovereignty, right? So the constitution lets you outsource certain services, not sovereignty. And I think that's our key takeaway here.

Joshua Gilliland 34:04

Thank you.

Speaker 8 34:11

Yes, Defunction.

Joshua Gilliland 34:12

I have a cameo. I'm sorry. Is Volta like an HOA? Yeah. Well, let's find out.

Kate Bridal 34:22

Uh the definition of an HOA is not, in fact, an organization you pay exorbitantly so they can pick on you about the color of your flower cost. Um, it is defined in California civil code as a nonprofit corporation or unincorporated association created for the purpose of managing a common interest development. And these are the three categories of common interest development. And man, did I go deep on this? I was like, what is a stock cooperative? I'm gonna re-watch all of the fallout and then I'll listen to every word about who owns what. And I went so hard on this, and then I did all of that, and then I reread that first sentence, and I was like, oh, vault text, not a non-profit or an unincorporated entity. So this is about to be the shortest presentation I've ever done for the legal geeks. Next slide.

Joshua Gilliland 35:10

It's important to read the first sentence. We're about to read church policies and go straight to the exception, ignoring what's covered. Don't do that. Don't be like me. Well, be like me. Uh George Wright, can we talk about Vault 33's treatment of prisoners?

Vault 33 Prisoners And Due Process

Speaker 3 35:35

Sure. And I'm a first reminder of the role that is job one is read the statute, and then read the statute again. But but turning to this question, um, so Vault Vault 33's treatment of the raiders after they uh raided Vault 33, killed several people or named them and then were captured, um, raises a number of interesting issues. And I think there are two scenes that really struck me. One of them is all the raiders are in the room together, they're basically in raider jail now inside of Vault 33. And you know, they they're under conditions that I'll get to whether there's any kind of due process violation there, but um, but they're all they're all there. The second thing that really caught my eye is there's a scene where, under the theory that the raiders can be rehabilitated, they are trying to talk to one of the raiders alone, and when he becomes violent and verbally abusive, they sedate him. Y'all know what I'm talking about? So, okay, so those two things really really caught my eye. So let's talk about kind of big picture. Um, first of all, Wall 33's treatment of the raiders uh raises due process issues, both procedural and substantive. Substantive due process is is uh the standard under the federal constitution is basically are the restrictions on the prisoners, do they have a valid theological purpose or are they arbitrary? That's a pretty high standard to, well, that's really a pretty low standard. It's really hard to violate substantive due process in the prison context, that's what I'll just say. Okay. So um one of the things that struck my eye though is uh Vault 33 doesn't appear to have ever put these raiders on trial. They just put them in a room. And it seems obvious that their conduct is unlawful, but that's not how we do things in the United States, or that's not how we're supposed to be giving things. We're supposed to be giving people due process. Um, and so if uh if you were to apply the federal constitutional standards, I think all third three's got a problem there. Now, let's talk about the Eighth Amendment. Eighth Amendment also applies in the prison context. People think of cruel and unusual punishment, and we all think about gory things that I'm not going to get into. But this can apply to other things too, such as your conditions of confinement, whether you're receiving adequate medical treatment, and those types of issues. If you detain somebody and you incarcerate them, you have obligations to them under the Eighth Amendment, under our constitution. Uh overcrowding can be an issue as well. Notwithstanding the fact that all of the raiders were in a room together, frankly, in my eye, I've been seeing the eighth amendment violations to take down how it's working. So, okay. The scene where the raider is sedated, that brings up the forced medication question. Now I'm sure there are a lot of persons who would love to sedate people that are incarcerated when they become violent or verbally abusive. But that is also not permissible. You cannot just inject somebody with a sedative because you don't like what they're saying. This also comes up in a competency context, which frankly I think is kind of an interesting question for some of the graders, whether or not they're actually competent to understand the implications of what they're doing. There's a Supreme Court case called CEL versus United States, which basically says if a person's not competent to stand trial, the government can't force them to take antipsychotic drugs to make them competent only so they can stand trial without balancing their individual liberty interests and being free from forced medication against the state's interest in trying to defend it. So there are a lot of things that come into it when you're talking about forced medication. In the context of somebody who's already been deemed incompetent, you still have to follow certain federal regulations before you can actually forcibly medicate them. This is a big, this is actually quite a big issue, and there's a lot of law around it. So the sedating of the raider because he was disrespectful and usive and violent was uh, I would say, a legal violation of the federal law. Then we come to the last point, which is the fact that somebody killed all the raiders. They were poisoned, right? Now, the difference between murder and execution is basically whether it's state sanctioned. And you know, you couldn't get into that but we're not going to. But but but what I will say is that whoever murdered the raiders, based on what I can tell, doesn't appear to have done it. Well, whoever killed the raiders, I should say, doesn't appear to have done it under the guise of any kind of state sanction. Um it doesn't appear that Vault 33 made the decision to poison the raiders. Maybe you'd argue that it was somebody from the overseas who did it, but still, again, Vault Tech is a for-profit corporation. It's not a governmental entity. So um, so so basically there's a there's a real problem with just you know the the killing of all of those raiders, and technically I think that I think that would be murder. So Vault 33's treatment was probably lawful in most circumstances, but they still all ended up dead.

Vault 4 Experiments And Consent

Joshua Gilliland 40:37

So, okay, let's talk about human experimentation. Could it feel good topic?

Kate Bridal 40:43

Yes, all my topics would feel good. Um yeah, so we're limiting to Vault 4 in this because we don't have that much time. Um so just to recap really quickly, the UC and Maximus go into Vault 4 and they discover that there uh are scientists trying to breed human and non-human fibers who are resistant to uh radiation, like this little cutie of the goldberg. Uh next slide. So we have some uh the one source of ethical guidelines on human experimentation is the neuron group code. This was developed after World War II in response to Nazi experiments on concentration camp prisoners. And it's a set of guidelines. There are 10 of them for uh ethical human experimentation. And number one, the literal number one and the overall one is informed consent. And informed consent means you have to be aware of what you are consenting to. You can't be told this is a nutrition experiment and then be injected with diseases. You have to actually know what's going on. So uh next slide. So the neuron root code isn't actually law, it's just a set of guidelines. So states and countries have codified the neural root code in their own ways, including California in their health and safety code, and uh California's health and safety code says that consent has to be in writing and obtained without force or fraud or origin or any of that stuff, and crucially, participants have to have a right to withdraw at any time. So, do we think that the subjects involved for gave informed consent? And so um, in a video where the scientist says that they were given unsupervised ability to do whatever they wanted, they also said that the subjects were resistant, so that means that the subject sounds like they weren't resisting. And in this video, that's very disturbing that Lucy finds this woman is scrapped to a chair underwater, and she gives birth to a bunch of fish that turn around and eat her, and she's screaming no the whole time. So she is restrained and she is objecting, she's attempting to withdraw. They do not allow it. So uh no, they could be liable for a year of jail time, which means low, quite frankly. And um $15,000 in fines for violations, so for subject, so that would be pretty happy.

Marriage Law And Dogmeat Liability

Joshua Gilliland 42:41

Okay. Judge Wright, can we talk about uh marriage in the gold? No.

Elizabeth Wright 42:46

I I I can, although this is beyond the scope of federal law because uh marriage is a function of state law, but it's still gonna still gonna go out in a lend and give some opinions. So there's two types of marriage. There's what's called regular and irregular marriage, and irregular marriage people often call that common law marriage, and I'm gonna get to that in a minute. But you know, we have Lucy and her wedding in the first episode, and and it looks like a regular marriage. Marriage is a contract between two, usually it's two, and there's you know, it's usually two individuals then. Uh the individuals have to have capacity and consent, so they have to everyone in the marriage has to agree. Um, and then they also have to have a legal capacity, and there's some restrictions around age and that type of thing, and mental capacity. So we seem to have both of those requirements at um and it I would say it looks like it's contract between two individuals. But the third requirement is whether it's regulated and recognized by the state. So I think you know, Vault 33 would have recognized this marriage. Um, Vault 33 probably isn't really a state that's the closest thing you're gonna get. So if you take Vault 33 as a state, the marriage would have been legally binding, although extremely short. And then uh, but if you don't think fall 33 state, you don't have a regular marriage. So your option is an irregular marriage. And this is what we call common law marriage. Uh, I think California does recognize common law marriage. We don't have more than thank you so much. Okay. Um, people throw around the word common law marriage a fair bit, even in states that don't recognize it. And it basically requires mutual agreement, again, some kind of like that consent piece, cohabitation, and resenting as a married couple. Lucy and her um and her putative spouse really don't meet those two last requirements at all. So I could say that the marriage is not legally binding, either as regular or an irregular marriage.

Joshua Gilliland 44:50

The single most important question, Vanna, is dog mean and being void.

Vanessa Palacio 44:58

So guys, I'm we're just gonna talk legally now. Okay, now I'd say arguably no. Don't don't get angry, I don't want to put torts. Okay, now dogs are classified legally as a big being, um, which as a dog owner that feels wrong, but it's what it is, guys. Um now, if we're looking at tort law, we're gonna ask, is a dog considered dangerous, right? And so, for example, if an owner knows that their dog has a tendency to bite people or bitten people before, yeah, yeah, that's that's that's not good. You you can be liable for that. Um, let's look at dog meat specifically. You know, dog meat attacks raiders, um, super mutants, you know, hostile ghouls, um, protects um companions, um, has uh some you know restraint with civilians, um, and we don't see any evidence of real dangerous, unprovoked behavior or unprovoked dangerous behavior. Um, and look, dog meat does seem to act in defense of others, right? Uh, and and it definitely is not a menace, but um, I think that legally and and morally, guys, we we just gotta consider the answer is no, because dog meat's a very good girl.

Joshua Gilliland 46:16

I disagree. I think dog meat is the best code.

Vanessa Palacio 46:20

Okay, that's fair. That's fair. That's a fair disagreement.

Audience Questions And Announcements

Joshua Gilliland 46:23

Okay. So okie dokie. So we have time for some questions, which is why we're going to ask. Yes. Hey.

Vanessa Palacio 46:33

Oh, um, guys, we have a fallout cosplay photo shoot tomorrow at 4 p.m. and Diego Comic-Con Fallout Friday at 11 a.m.

Joshua Gilliland 46:42

Okay, well that they helped that.

unknown 46:45

Sorry.

Joshua Gilliland 46:46

Uh other questions. Yes, in front.

Speaker 3 46:49

Do you think they would try to use 5150 as an excuse to medicate the raiders?

Joshua Gilliland 46:54

So, do you think they would use 5150 as an excuse to medicate the raiders? And Judge Mahara, your thoughts.

Carol Najera 47:00

Um, I think they could, though. I think uh they might also want to, uh just a little different what you said, on 1368, they might want to declare them incapable of being in the stand trial, and then they wouldn't consider medicating them. So there's two, and 5150 is a doesn't really deal with trials, but 1368 should know, so that would do it. Cool.

Joshua Gilliland 47:20

You in the gray and then flash. So, first I want to say I'm a huge follow-up fan and uh history major. This is probably the nerviest panel I history. The question I had is in the games we have a couple characters who claim to be presidents of the United States, but one of them was never elected, the other one turned out to be a robot computer, so that's obviously crap. My question to you is at what point in the fallout timeline did the United States die and the Constitution stopped applied? I'll take that when the bombs dropped. Okay, no. Is there a continuity of government plan and did they actually enact it? Last question, Flash.

Attendee 48:05

Uh good afternoon, Your Honors Benjamin Willow here on behalf of the legal agent foundation. Um my question is Do you think that the artificial um intelligence units and tax units like John Henry Eden of all three, could those be held accountable for crap or artificial intelligences?

Carol Najera 48:23

That could that once again we have to answer the question is artificial intelligence a human being? Because only a human being could be Rach Child. And that's gonna be a much deeper dive.

Kate Bridal 48:36

Watch my local courts for more whether chat. Yeah, yeah.

Joshua Gilliland 48:44

So thank you all. We'll hang out outside. Thank you.

Speaker 7 49:13

Okay.

Joshua Gilliland 49:15

I got a few minutes.