While the physical effects of a car wreck can cause untold suffering, the mental effects are somewhat more subtle and insidious. Together, the physical and mental damage to your life forms the full complement of what you are owed from the at-fault driver. Never allow yourself to discount the compensation you are owed for the ways your mental health has been negatively affected by an accident. Read on to learn more.

Before you can divorce from common law marriage, you have to prove that you were indeed married in the first place. Just because you were living with your spouse doesn't mean that you were married in the eyes of the law. Here are specific criteria you must meet to satisfy the requirements of a common law marriage: Age Each state has its age of consent, the minimum age at which you may legally get married.

A major part of estate planning is ensuring that you have the right information so that you can make informed decisions about settling your estate. Unfortunately, there are many myths and misconceptions that are often brought into discussions about estate planning. As a result, poor decisions are sometimes made about an estate. To help ensure you have the right information, here are some of the most common myths about probate and the truth.

In the world of laws and courtrooms, the average citizen can get very confused and lost. Some legal situations do not require you to have a lawyer represent you, but other ones do. Despite the knowledge you may believe you have from watching courtroom scenes on TV, lawyers have spent many years studying and understanding the law to represent citizens like you when they are confronted with criminal charges. Each case may be different and vary in how serious it is, but if you confronted with some serious charges and penalties, here are at least 5 reasons why hiring that lawyer sooner rather than later might be a good idea:

Texting while driving makes a person 23 timesmore likely to crash. This is due to the amount of time spent looking away from the road, the minimum of which is 5 seconds, when texting. While this may not seem like a long time, when driving at 55 mph, a person will travel the length of a football field in 5 seconds, all while not looking at the road or cars around them.

We take it for granted that the food we eat is safe and free of pathogens that can cause illnesses. If it's prepared in a restaurant, we trust that proper sanitation procedures are followed by employees who aren't coming to work sick. But that's not always the case, unfortunately. Food poisoning is a common illness in the U.S., making about 1 in 6 Americans sick each year, hospitalizing about 128,000 and killing 3,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.