Who comes up with bigger porkies - psychs or lawyers?

[sydunisportsmed]

In the Daily Tele today, there is a report about the woman whose car was trampled on by one of Gai Waterhouse's escaped horses. The horse didn't miss the car, which is a wreck, so the woman has a genuine claim for compensation.

However she has lobbed in with psych opinion that she has:
"catastrophic" psychological injury
specifically, "startled response syndrome", which means that she can't do normal things like catch a bus because she is scared that a horse will jump out of the bus and trample her.

I wish a judge would kick crap like this into touch and suspend the lawyer who threw up the argument, charge the psychologist/psychiatrist who made up this syndrome with perjury and award the plaintiff the costs to repair her bonnet but costs against her for the whole farce of ths case. The problem is that the judge will listen to the "expert" opinion that can't be second-guessed and will award her a huge amount of money for suffering "startled response syndrome", which is the biggest crock I have ever heard of.

We give the lawyers a hard time for being blatant liars, but they need crooks in the health industry to back them up in cases like this, which makes me ashamed.

It did make me laugh though when I read it. I don't think I could get pissed and come up with bigger crap than this.

[AHP]

I was under the impression they were claiming posttraumatic stress disorder an often very disabling and treatable disorder. She may well have an elevated startle response, but that is generally an underlying symptom of a disorder such as PTSD or acute stress disorder. Yep I'm a psyc.
As for the The Daily Tele, please.

[AHP]

Oh yeah, and as for who comes up with the bigger porkies, no contest, Lawyers would win, hands down. Psycs, never, well maybe occasionally.

[hhh]

I have an inferiority complex. But it isn't a very good one.

[injuryupdate]

Normally PTSD can be adequately treated with a $2 million payout from a judge wearing a Santa Claus suit.

[injuryupdate]

Evidence today that the woman "wasn't physically injured":

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15023739-1242,00.html

Lucky for the sake of her compensation case that she has suffered "catastrophic psychological damage".

Appreciate that there are many good and fair minded psychologists, and not the situation with plaintiff lawyers where 98% give the other 2% a bad name, but there is some garbage being peddled here.

Ambulance officers can go back to work after failing to resus dying patients and cops can go back to work after being assaulted and having their life threatened.

So a horse tramples your car - send the bill to the horse owner and get on with it.

Obviously don't know the woman, haven't heard the evidence etc. etc. But the idea that this would lead to someone being socially and vocationally paralysed for the rest of their life is almost certainly a L-I-E that is being tossed up by white collar crooks that know how to rort a corrupt system.

[AHP]

Couldn't have put it better myself, now you've got it. Good lad there's hope for you yet. As for my inferiority complex, it's coming along quite nicely thankyou.

Ah therapy, who needs it?

[injuryupdate]

Just read the story yesterday that a top barrister in SA who killed a cyclist when driving home from a 'function' in the Barossa Valley was effectively excused from doing a 'hit and run' because he was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. I'm communicating what I gathered from the article on the front page of the Australian rather than knowledge of the case.

Because he did a hit and run, obviously key information about the case is missing, i.e. (1) whether he was drunk - which sounds likely given that he was coming from a wine region and (2) whether the cyclist was killed on impact or left alive and whether he could have been saved if the barrister had have attended and done CPR and called an ambulance.

Firstly, post traumatic stress disorder as an excuse to not behave in a responsible manner is a complete crock. Yes, if you have been in the Vietnam War and your best mate was killed by a land mine as you were standing next to him, I agree you have post traumatic stress disorder and you are entitled to compensation as a result.

However, PTSD in order to absolve oneself of legal responsibilities is a complete joke and a disgrace. In Australia, we stand aloft and criticise the Indonesian legal system for taking away people's rights to be presumed innocent etc., but they must laugh at our system and how blatantly guilty people can pay money to enough lying consultants to get let off with excuses like PTSD. The only difference seems to be in Indonesia you apparently pay the judge directly. In Australia, you pay the consultant and you barrister and those two shout the judge a few rounds at the golf club where they are all members together.

One think that the drugs in sport legislation has gotten exactly right (I knew I could relate this to sports medicine eventually) is that if you flee the seen, you are given a punishment equivalent to the most guilty verdict.

Therefore, I believe if someone does a hit and run on a remote road then the law should presume that (1) they were way above the legal limit and (2) that they left the person to die without attempting resus even though they were still alive.

Because the SA legal system hasn't taken this approach, it is telling all people who do hit any motorists whilst drunk to get the F out of the scene ASAP.

This barrister sure owes his judge mate a few rounds of golf, for literally letting him get away with murder, if the reporting in the newspaper of yesterday was correct