Originally Posted By Raven4031:
Here's the story. This took place shortly before I met my wife.
Years ago (~7), my wife was in a fender bender vs. a newer at the time Chevy Metro. The only damage to the Metro was a broken taillight and not much if anything else. No injuries, and after the police did their thing (she got a ticket for inattentive driving), the other vehicle drove off. My wife did not have insurance at the time, but she gave the driver all of her information and expected to hear from the other driver's insurance or at least the other driver... but it never came.

Fast forward over 5 years from the date of the accident, and we received a piece of mail from the DMV stating that my wife's license has been suspended due to failure to pay a judgement resulting from a motor vehicle accident. It also states that if she wishes to have her license reinstated, she has to either pay off in full the $4,000 that the judgement was for or set-up satisfactory payment arrangements with the insurance company.

After a handful of phone calls to the county courthouse and other places, it appears that the insurance company sued my wife for ~$4,000 in damages relating to this broken taillight (mind you, this happened 3 weeks before the 5 year statute of limitations was up), and we were never made aware of any of these proceedings. We didn't live in the same state anymore and we don't know what, if any attempts were made to notify her of this suit being brought against her. Needless to say, the judgement was made against her in her absence, and this letter from the DMV was the first we knew of any of it. I'm sure they made claims of the vehicle being totaled, however we don't know what exactly went down.

This letter was received almost 2 years ago, and she has lived without a license since. She really just wants to set-up arrangements with the insurer to get it back, and while I can sympathize with her and we really need her to have her license, it makes me sick to think that we will be paying these criminals for something that we don't owe them, simply because they were able to work the system and pull a fast one over us and the courts.

I don't have the money for a lawyer. We're struggling just to make ends meet at this point, but I need to take care of this either way.

Can we have this thrown out? Are there pro-bono lawyers that would care to stick it to an insurance company? Am I screwed because we didn't jump on it right away?

Any suggestions from those in the know, would be greatly appreciated.