Wisconsin Lawyer Blog

Archive for July, 2010

Injuries resulting from accidents can ruin your personal and professional life. It can also lead to problems for your family. Apart from the physical pain and suffering and the emotional trauma, there is the financial burden as well. It is more traumatic if your injury is the consequence of another’s reckless drunk driving.

Every US State has specific rules in place to penalize the drivers who operate vehicles under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs. Wisconsin is no exception. In case of a drunk driving offense, the penalties may include jail term, fines, license revocation, vehicle seizure and so on.

However, if the drunk driver has caused bodily harm to individual(s), the victim(s) have the right to file a lawsuit against the driver. This is essential to claim compensation for the damages done to the victim(s) and their family. You need the help of personal injury lawyers in Wisconsin to handle the legal proceeding.

Here is a quick glance at some of the questions that you may come across.

When do you file the lawsuit? It is necessary to file the claim as soon as possible. This is essential to ensure that you file the claim within the stipulated time.

What comes under the claim? This includes the economic damages like the medical costs, loss of wages, etc as well as non-economic damages like physical and psychological stress and anxiety.

How much can you claim? This depends on the degree of liability of the driver and the seriousness of the injury.

Is comparative negligence applicable? Wisconsin adheres to the comparative negligence rule. Talk to your personal injury lawyer to ascertain the degree of fault of the victim.

How much time does it take? This varies from one case to another. However, if it is a complex case, ask your personal injury lawyer to arrange for an interim payment.

It has been observed quite often that you are asked to pay for a debt that you don’t owe. Under such circumstances, you can validate your debt. Debt validation is the process in which you can challenge the collection agency’s claim that you owe money. Debt validation proves whether you legally owe money or not.

However, you should know your rights related to debt validation. When the creditor or the collection agency sends you a letter asking you to pay up for the debt, you can make use of debt validation to prove that you don’t owe money.

How does debt validation work?

You can get your debt validated in the following manner –

• You can request the collection agency to validate the debts. There are many sample letters available online that can give you an idea as to how you should be dealing with your collection agency and the format of the letter that you should follow.
• Once you receive the letter from the collection agency make sure that the collection agency you are dealing with is authentic and licensed. It is also important to find out if you are residing in a state that requires the collection agency to be licensed.
• In case you find out that the collection agency urging you to pay up debt isn’t licensed as per state laws, convey the same to the collection agency and inform them that they may have to face legal prosecution for violating state laws.
• As per norms laid down by the FCRA, collection agencies are not allowed to send any negative information to the CRAs or the credit reporting agencies unless they are successful in validating your debts.

To get more information on this, contact with a reputed Debt Collection law firm. and hope you that will help you a lot.

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