In Queensland, you must meet three criteria to make a successful common law damages claim for psychological injury:
- You’ve developed a recognised psychiatric illness at (or because of) work.
- Your employer’s negligence caused this psychiatric illness.
- You have a minimum Injury Scale Value of 1.
How to prove your psychological injury claim
To prove your psychological injury claim, you need to establish three elements:
- That a duty of care exists: Your employer must owe you a ‘duty of care’. It is generally accepted that employers have a duty of care to their employees.
- Your employer breached their duty of care: Their conduct must have fallen below an acceptable standard. This means no reasonable employer would have acted as they did.
- Their negligence caused your injury: You must show a direct link between your injury and your employer’s action (or inaction).
How Injury Scale Value affects your psychological injury claim
Your Injury Scale Value (ISV) is a way of determining the total impact of the psychological injury on your life. It’s assessed by a registered psychiatrist and they will look at several factors, including:
- The Psychiatric Impairment Rating Scale (PIRS).
- Age and life expectancy.
- Whether you have ‘reduced insight’ e.g. if you are aware of any abnormal behaviour.
- Pain and suffering.
- Loss of amenities of life.
- The likelihood that you would have experienced these difficulties regardless of the accident.
Understanding the Psychiatric Impairment Rating Scale (PIRS)
The Psychiatric Impairment Rating Scale is one of the most crucial components of determining your ISV. It breaks down your psychological injuries into six main areas of ‘impact’:
- Self-care and personal hygiene: whether you can undertake everyday activities like bathing, preparing food, and going to the bathroom unassisted.
- Social and recreational activities: if you can visit cinemas, restaurants or other recreational venues without help. This also includes whether you can tolerate visits from family and friends and attend social events.
- Travel: your ability to travel to new places without support.
- Social functioning: whether you’re able to communicate effectively and sustain relationships.
- Concentration, persistence and pace: your capacity to maintain focus, carry out basic tasks and hold conversations.
- Adaptation: also referred to as ‘deterioration’, this is your ability to regularly attend work and do work tasks without supervision.
For each category, the psychiatrist will give you a rating from one to five. A rating of one means no impairment, while a rating of five denotes extreme impairment.
For more detail on the PIRS scale and how it’s used in psychological injury claims, see Schedule 5 of the Act.
Determining your ISV
The court will use your PIRS ratings (and the other factors above) to assign you an ISV between 0 and 100. The lower your ISV, the less severe your injuries:
- 0 – 1 ISV: minor mental disorder with a PIRS rating of 1 – 3%.
- 2 – 10 ISV: moderate mental disorder with a PIRS rating of 4 – 10%.
- 11 – 40 ISV: serious mental disorder with a PIRS rating of 11 – 30%.
- 41 – 65 ISV: extreme mental disorder with a PIRS rating of 31 – 100%.
What psychological injury payout can you expect?
You can expect your psychological injury payout to cover ‘non-economic losses’, ‘economic losses’, essential medical treatment and equipment, and the cost of ongoing care and assistance.
Economic loss
- Lost income (past and future).
- Lost superannuation (past and future).
Non-economic loss (general damages)
Non-economic loss compensates you for the negative impact of the injury on your life. This includes:
- Pain and suffering.
- Loss of enjoyment of life.
- Loss of opportunity.
Medical treatment and equipment
- Medical treatment (past and future).
- Travel between your home and medical appointments.
- Home and vehicle modifications.
Care and assistance
- Professional care or unpaid care from a loved one. This also includes if you’ve lost the capacity to care for someone who depends on you.
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