An ‘invisible’ psychiatric injury can be no less debilitating, distressing or disabling in the short, medium or long term than a physical injury might be. Additionally, as it can sometimes have a more profound and extensive effect on the victims ability to function than an physical injury it has every right to be taken as seriously as a physical injury and considered as a completely justifiable reason to make a psychiatric injuries compensation claim should the cause of the injury have been the fault of a third party.
The field of psychiatric injuries and the compensation law surrounding them are extremely complicated areas to navigate for a claimant with no specialised professional knowledge in either area. Difficulties for the uninitiated can arise from the moment they realise they are suffering psychological after effects from an incident or accident they were involved in or witness to. They might be experiencing strong emotions of shock, grief, sadness or a more general mental anguish. Distressing as these feelings might be, they would not qualify the person experiencing them to claim compensation for psychiatric injuries unless they were to be interpreted by a medical professional such as a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist as the symptoms of a recognisable illness such as depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. Once diagnosed, a report would have to be obtained from the psychiatric or clinical psychological professional to support the claim. Occasionally such a claim can be supported by a report from a general practitioner, but generally a more specialised professional’s report is required.
Our team of personal injury solicitors include legal professionals with experience in successfully assessing and negotiating claims for psychiatric injuries and they would from the moment they were engaged ensure that a sound diagnosis and prognosis were made and documented as a preliminary to moving forward with an evaluation and presentation of the claim for their client. That stage, for all the skill and experience the medical professionals will have invested in their diagnosis and prognosis, is where the process can become even more complex and skills of the retained legal professional ever more essential.
Our solicitor would also assure themselves that the psychiatric injuries occasioned by their client were the result of the negligence or deliberate intent of a third party. Recent case law has clarified that that third party need only have been negligent in failing to foresee that the claimant might suffer physical injury as a result of an accident or event and that even if the claimant did not suffer physical injury as a result of the accident or event, a claim could still be made for resultant psychological injury. The fact that the third party failed or didn’t fail to foresee that the claimant might suffer psychiatric injury is immaterial to the claim.
The solicitor also has to assess which of two possible classes of claimant their client falls into. They might be a ‘primary victim’ who was directly involved in the traumatic event that led to them developing their psychiatric injuries or they might be a ‘secondary victim’ who was an unwilling witness or bystander to the event or a ‘secondary victim’ who assisted at the traumatic event. If the client falls into the first category the claim will usually be considered a valid one, however there are three main requirements to validate the claim should the victim fall under the classification of secondary victim. They are; the client’s presence at the event or its immediate aftermath, that the client had direct perception of the event or its immediate aftermath and finally that the client had a close tie of love or affection with a person involved in the event. The requirement for a close tie of love or affection with a person involved is not required for a secondary victim who assisted at a traumatic event. It is also possible for a secondary victim to become a primary victim if the event they were witness to developed in such a way as to make them reasonably think that they were in danger themselves.
There is therefore much information be sifted and considered from a medical and legal point of view in order to correctly present and negotiate such a claim. Any compensation awarded for psychiatric injuries will be assessed and divided between special and general damages in exactly the same as would be the case with a physical injuries and thus would consider the extent of the pain and suffering of the claimant and would seek to compensate for the past and projected future financial disadvantage experienced by the claimant as a result of the psychiatric injury. This is a type of personal injuries claim, perhaps above all others, which will succeed or fail on the quality of the professional input obtained.
