In January 2011, Attorneys Michael F. Hupy and Jason F. Abraham traveled to Madison to fight passage of Senate Bill 7 (SB 7). The bill would severely restrict the legal rights of anyone hurt in a motor vehicle accident in Wisconsin. SB 7 would repeal the Truth in Auto Law passed in 2009 and roll back liability coverage minimums to 1982 levels. Attorneys Hupy & Abraham opposed the bill before the Wisconsin Assembly and Senate Joint Committees on Insurance.

Very few people know someone who has been catastrophically injured in a traffic accident, someone who has been paralyzed, lost their legs, or been left in a persistent vegetative state. As personal injury attorneys, we know all too many such people. They are victims of someone else's negligence, and they have suffered life changing physical trauma. Their suffering does not end with their injuries. They lose their ability to earn a living as they once did, they are subjected to severe emotional stress and, of course, they incur medical bills in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In the past, we have been able to help our clients with the last of those dire consequences. We have been able to win settlements and judgments that paid for their medical bills and the long-term car they required. We have saved clients from filing bankruptcy, which would have compounded the insult to their dignity and well-being.

SB7 would substantially limit our ability to relieve the financial burdens on injured clients. Specifically, the bill would prohibit combining the underinsured motorist coverages from several auto insurance policies a person has purchased. It also would allow insurance companies to use "reducing clauses," which could lower the amount injured motorists can collect when hit by underinsured drivers.

Daniel Plumb, the son of one of our clients, accompanied Attorneys Hupy and Abraham to Madison to testify in opposition to SB 7. Mr. Plumb explained, "My father was hit while riding his motorcycle in Sheboygan County. His medical bills were over $1 million. He had paid for two underinsured motorist policies with coverage of $300,000 each. The driver who hit him had $250,000 in liability coverage. So my father was able to recover a total of $850,000, which kept our family out of bankruptcy."

Attorneys Hupy and Abraham noted in their testimony that under the provisions of SB 7, the most that Carroll Plumb, Daniel's father could have collected was $300,000. That would have left a debt for medical care of hundreds of thousands of dollars and forced the elder Mr. Plumb into bankruptcy.