Litigation

The above question was posed in a search this morning on the Bing search engine. It is an excellent question.

Under the structured settlement protection acts that are in place in all but a few states, a judge must approve the sale of your structured settlement payments (technically the rights to the payments). The approval of the sale of your structured settlement payment rights will  depend on whether the judge, having reviewed your petition, believes that "cashing in your settlement payments" is in your best interest. If you have dependents their welfare will be considered as part of the equation. Make no mistake, judges can, will and have denied petitions to sell structured settlement payments. They have also approved them.

It may seem like a pain in the butt, but the structured settlement payment laws were designed to help people like you avoid being taken advantage of by the predatory business tactics of some of the companies in the settlement purchasing industry (also known as the structured settlement secondary market). One Rhode Island judge famously referred to such companies as "vultures". Also see New York Judge Hunter Prevents "Vulture Snack" in The Bronx