Wisconsin Recent Legal Answers from Lawyers

If you were injured on the job, which one would have to assume from your post, your remedy for your injury is to make a worker's compensation claim for your injury with your employer's WC carrier. If you were not on the job at the time and this is a third party claim, one would need more information from you to better understand how the accident happened, and whether the cargo van driver or the caro door was faulty or if they were negligent for your injury. ... Read More

"Reasonable times, reasonable notice," usually means that the non custodial parent needs to contact the custodial parent and request when they want to see the child. The custodial parent has "veto power," over the request, if the request is not reasonable (usually within 24 hours) or they have plans. You can't object every time the parent requests placement or that would be considered interference and possibly subject to contempt of court. It is also "traditional" that the visiting parent do the pick up and drop offs. The visiting parent is ordinarily allowed to take the child to their home for placement, whether overnights or not. It sounds like your agreement or court orders is fairly generic and doesn't spell out who does the pick up or drop offs, or because you live 90 minutes apart, where does the visiitation take place. Unless you and the ofather can work those details out on your own, you may want to consider going back to court to have some more specific details added to the court orders to avoid ongoing conflicts over dad's visitation  with the children. ... Read More

This is a frequent problem of individuals who are in auto accidents, whether the adverse driver is giving you the run around, or their insurance company is. You don't state whether you were injured or not. If you were injured, you are well advised to consider hiring a personal injury lawyer to help you with your case. If you were not injured and this is simply a property damage case only, you will want to secure a copy of the police accident report to assess liability, and than to deal directly with the adverse driver's insurance company in getting your car fixed. A quicker solution may also be to make a claim for the damage against your own insurance company, pay your deductible and they probably will get your car repaired and back to you in a more expedtious way than the adverse insurance company. You can proceed either way.... Read More

If I understand your post/question correctly, it sounds like you and your ex have entered into a post divorce agreeement for your child to come and live with you and which you will no longer be paying child support. In addition, you have raised the question of whether your ex is going to be obligated to pay child support in reverse, and whether you can agree to "hold open" child support from her. You cannot terminate or waive child support under Wisconsin law, but you can agree to have it "held open." This means that you would have the right to back into court to ask for child support in the future, if there was a change in circumstances of a substantial and significant nature. Your agreement on this still however, must be approved by the court and the court may or may not approve a stipulation as to holding child support open. You will need to spell out in the agreement the reasons why you are both asking the court to hold it open as the court must make specific findings why the child support guidelines are not being followed. Any family law agreement, pre-judgment or post judgment, must be submitted to the court for approval and are not binding until the court approves the same.... Read More

One would need to review your divorce papers/settlement agreement to answer your question. If you have shared or equal placement and are using the shared placement formula for payment of child support, usually, variable costs are split in some pro rata fashion. An educational club may be considered such an expense. Also, if you have joint custody, you need to discuss this in advance with your ex and if they don't agree, they may not be obligated to pay.... Read More

An authorized user means that you're using a card that's billed to someone else. For example, if I use my employer's card to buy lunch for a client, my employer is responsible for paying the bill not me. However, if you're using your spouse's card or a friend's card with the understanding that you'll pay for the charges, then you're incurring debt and that's prohibited.... Read More

Bankruptcy removes your personal liability on the mortgage. Bankruptcy does not transfer ownership of the property to the creditor. The creditor can take ownership by filing a foreclosure or the creditor can agree to ownership which is called a "deed in lieu". Nothing can force the creditor to take ownership.... Read More

If your landlord has more than four units, he was required to put security deposits in a separate bank account and bankruptcy would not release him from his liability. If your landlord filed a Chapter 13 or a Chapter 7 with nonexempt assets, the bankruptcy would no release him from his liability because he didn't list you as a creditor. You should speak with an attorney.... Read More

You will need to hire a criminal defense/traffic lawyer to contest the citation or show up in court and fight it yourself. When you are making a right hand turn, you need to yield to incoming traffic. I'm not sure that your son is 100% at fault, but arguably the majority of the negligence seems to lie with him in my opinion.... Read More

If you are in the SE Wisconsin area, the local courthouses have free legal clinics where an attorney may be able to help you. You can try the Milwaukee Justice Center at the Milwaukee County Courthouse daily. Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington have similar clinics but only once a week or so. You would need to contact the courthouse where your case is pending to find out if a limited free legal clinic would be available to you and what their days/hours might be that they are open.... Read More

Medical malpractice cases are nearly impossible to pursue and win in Wisconsin anymore. There are many reasons for it. I wrote a blog at our law firm's web site on this very topic. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel did  an article as well about a year or so ago that you can google and read. If you feel strongly that you were harmed, gather up all of your medical records and sit down with a medical malpractice lawyer to see if you have a case. If they think you have a viable claim, they will hire an outside medical consultant to review the records to determine if you have a case. The statute of limitations is THREE years in Wisconsin to sue for malpractice from the date of the occurrence. Faillure to file a lawsuit within three years, would forever bar the claim.... Read More

The answer to your first question is yes. In order to practice law in Wisconsin, you must be licensed to practice law in Wisconsin. There are some exceptions, but I am not going to get into that here. Generally,t he answer is you need an attorney who is licensed to practice law in this state. On the second issue, you have a right to substitute the judge on the case, assuming you do so in the time frame prescribed in the Wiscosnin statute, and further, assuming you have made no apperances to date in front of that particular judge. I wrote a blog on this topic at our web site that you can read. ... Read More