Proving Psychological Injuries in a Personal Injury Claim in Alberta
In summary, proving psychological injuries is a difficult task, that requires a multi-pronged approach. You need to catalogue your own experiences, attend treatment, and – quite often – have an outside expert provide an opinion on the injuries.
Have you suffered psychological or psychiatric injuries due to the negligent actions of someone else? Whether you were in a car accident, assaulted, slipped, and fell, or were injured in any other number of ways, you may have ongoing psychiatric or psychological injuries. While people often expect or understand that these accidents cause physical injuries – cuts, bruises, soreness, or even broken bones – it’s less understood that you can suffer psychologically from these events, as well.
It might be that you’re more nervous around strangers, hesitant to drive in the same area; or it might be that the impact of your injuries causes you to suffer depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, or many other conditions.
This blog post aims to help explain how you can prove the existence of psychiatric or psychological injuries, and how they were caused in the context of a court action.
In Alberta, you can be compensated for both your physical and psychological injuries. However, it is your responsibility (or your lawyer’s) to establish for the court that those injuries exist and were the result of the subject accident.
It is often straightforward to prove physical injuries: a broken bone appears on an x-ray; a bruise is visible to the naked eye. Psychological symptoms, however, are invisible.
There are three main ways that you can prove psychological injuries have occurred:
- Testimony;
- Treatment records; and
- Expert evidence.
Testimony
Testimony is verbal evidence given by the injured party and their friends, families, and colleagues. This is often central to proving psychological injuries. It provides context for the injuries. Depression, anxiety, and other conditions are expressed differently by different people. Allowing the injured person, their family, friends, and colleagues to give direct evidence about how the injured party’s life has changed helps ground the evidence with clear, practical examples and instances of how things have changed.
Without testimony, a diagnosis of a psychological injury is clinical, not personal.
Treatment records
While testimony is very useful in humanizing a case, treatment records are another valuable source of evidence.
Treatment records provide an objective history of what an injured person has been dealing with. Their psychologist, psychiatrist, or counselor records the dates of their sessions, the main concerns, and when symptoms arise. This can be used as a somewhat independent source of verification for the injured person’s testimony, as well as allowing specific points in time to be looked at, years in the future. The records also show that the symptoms were severe enough that treatment was needed and that the injured person was actively trying to get better.
Accordingly, if you are involved in an incident that results in psychological concerns, we strongly recommend seeking out treatment. The ultimate goal when injured is to get you back to where you would be if the injury never occurred, and treating any condition or injury is one of the best ways to do that.
Expert Evidence
Expert evidence is often especially useful in proving psychological injury. To gather expert evidence the injured party sees a psychiatrist, psychologist, or other appropriately qualified mental health professional. That expert will conduct an interview, perform tests, and review the clinical history of the injured person. They will then provide an opinion on the diagnosis, prognosis, and cause of the psychological condition or injuries.
Expert evidence is useful because it is often more objective than treating doctors’ notes or an individual’s testimony. It provides detailed insights, and the court allows experts more leeway with their opinion than a non-expert. It can take the testimony and treatment records and provide the court with the evidence needed to understand the extent of the injury.
In summary, proving psychological injuries is a difficult task, that requires a multi-pronged approach. You need to catalogue your own experiences, attend treatment, and – quite often – have an outside expert provide an opinion on psychological or psychiatric injuries.
This is a complicated and often confusing set of tasks – especially if you or a loved one are dealing with these injuries.
Our team of professionals is experienced in helping people navigate these issues.
Contact us today to see if we can help.
