What is the timeframe to make a claim?
Author:
Rockliffs Solicitors and IP Lawyers
Publish Date: May 25, 2007
Once a person receives a diagnosis from a professionally qualified person that they have a psychiatric injury, the time for initiating a claim starts to run.
In psychiatric cases, the courts have held that a person does not ‘know’ that they have suffered an injury until a psychiatrist tells them that they have a psychiatric disability. Since the law does not recognise a right to compensation for normal reactions to stress or traumatic events, someone who suffers from anxiety, depression, nightmares or other symptoms, but has not had a formal diagnosis of a psychiatric illness, does not ‘know’ relevantly that personal injury has been suffered, or may not know the nature of the injury and its broad extent.
A primary consideration for the courts is whether or not any delay that occurs has caused significant prejudice to a defendant, making chances of a fair trial unlikely.
Although that is the primary consideration, it is not the only one. If the delay is unexplained, the person is unreliable as a witness, or the person has failed to act reasonably in their own interests, it may result in the refusal of a claim.
Reproduced with the permission of the Law Society of New South Wales.
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