by
John D. Winer, Dr. Richard B. Pesikoff, and Dr. Richard T. Goldberg
They Make
Artificial Limbs,
Not Minds
The next time a defense
doctor claims that part or all of the injury is in your client’s head, use this book’s questions and
the
defense doctor’s answers to establish causation of damage more serious than
physical injury.
The cost to restore function to a damaged mind can be far
larger than what is needed for an injured limb. But jurors naturally doubt
what they cannot see and trust what they can.
Here is practice-proven guidance for bringing the financial
exposure of defendants and insurers more in line with the mental and
emotional damage your clients have suffered.
Proving Mental & Emotional Injuries
reveals the case workup and persuasion secrets that the lead author used to
turn five low-or-no-offer, pure psychological injury cases into seven-figure
verdicts. Step-by-step, you will learn how to convince cynical adjusters,
defense attorneys, judges, and jurors of the reality and seriousness of
mental and emotional injury cases.
John Winer, Richard Goldberg, and Richard Pesikoff’s new
preparation-and-trial manual provides innovative and effective methods and
forms for increasing case value. It walks you issue-by-issue over the
causation hurdles and around the privacy pitfalls to larger settlements and
verdicts.
Loaded with tips and
techniques
The authors have decades of experience with psychological
injuries, and share the details of their successful approach. The following
17 sample tips are pulled from only two of the book’s 34 chapters.
Client interview
-
“Many attorneys make the mistake of deciding acceptability
based on the nature, extent, and provability of the injury while forgetting
about….” §1:40
-
“This technique usually results in a multitude of traumatic
experiences in the client’s past suddenly being revealed in the interview.”
§1:53
-
“The plaintiff attorney will want to be on the alert for a
gradual downward trend in function in the few years before the subject
trauma.” §1:64
-
“The interview will be different in single-trauma than in
multiple-trauma cases. In a single-trauma case, the plaintiff attorney will
want to….” §1:71
Expert testimony
-
“Plaintiff does not necessarily have to call a psychological
expert to support a past loss-of-income claim. It is common in our society
for primary-care physicians to take a plaintiff out of work on a ‘stress
leave’ for a fairly long period of time.”
§4:11
-
“If the therapist estimates, for
example, ten sessions for the patient to stabilize, what he or she really
means is that the patient will require at least ten sessions and after ten
sessions the therapist
will reevaluate the situation. This is one of many reasons why the
plaintiff attorney must prepare the treating therapist in advance.”
§4:25
-
“The phenomenon of a treating therapist testifying
differently than an independent expert is not at all uncommon in mental and
emotional injury cases. A more significant problem arises in this regard
when plaintiff’s expert testimony regarding prognosis, future treatment
needs, and future disability vary greatly from the testimony of the treating
therapist.” §4:26
-
“It is very important in many emotional and mental injury
cases (particularly accident and employment cases) that the psychological
expert has the ability to come off as somewhat cynical, rather than a naïve
person who trusts everything plaintiff reports as gospel.”
§4:144
-
“Reliance upon the treating therapist alone (if there is one)
will not substitute for an evaluation by an expert because the treating
therapist is normally going to over-rely, or only rely, upon plaintiff’s
self-report which may give a very skewed version of the essential issues.”
§4:180
-
“Most plaintiff attorneys, most psychotherapists, and many
psychological experts do not understand the importance of establishing a
psychodynamic mechanism of an injury. They tend to think that if plaintiff
can establish a difference in post-trauma versus pre-trauma signs and
symptoms, that will be enough. It is critical that….”
§4:181
-
“By examining the plaintiff multiple times before and
throughout the course of litigation, plaintiff’s expert should have
accumulated many more facts than the defense expert. And if plaintiff’s
expert sees the plaintiff close to the time of trauma and the defense expert
does not see the plaintiff until many months later, plaintiff’s expert’s
opinion regarding mental state close to the time of trauma should have more
credibility. Furthermore….”
§4:184
Psychological
testing
-
“One of the advantages of psychological testing is that some
of the projective tests help get at the unconscious material in plaintiff
which would not necessarily come out during an examination/interview by
plaintiff’s experts. This information can be very useful in allowing
plaintiff’s expert to formulate the critical causation issue in the case.”
§4:201
-
“The problem with some of the psychological tests,
particularly MMCI-II and –III, which provide personality disorder scales, is
that they tend to be biased in favor of finding evidence of personality
disorder in the
patient. It is a favorite trick of defense psychologists and psychiatrists
to administer the MMCI-II and –III.”
§4:206
-
“Do not be intimidated by a personality order defense. If
that defense is raised….” §4:206
-
“Psychological testing can provide some useful, if not
definitive, evidence on the causation issue. For instance, although it is
controversial, the MMPI-III has a post-traumatic stress disorder subscale….
The MCM-III has a similar scale which is less controversial.”
§4:207
-
“Be wary of a defense psychologist who scores his or her own
MMPI or MCMI tests or has a computer company perform scoring but not produce
a narrative printout of the computer findings….
§4:208
Using
experts
-
“It has been our experience that the only attorneys satisfied
with early reports from psychological experts are attorneys who undervalue
psychological injury cases.” §4:237
-
“If the plaintiff attorney can obtain all of the defense
expert’s files, including reports, test results, and interviews, before
plaintiff’s psychological expert’s deposition is taken, the plaintiff’s
expert will be able to anticipate the defense position and the likely cross
examination questions.” §4:253
-
“One of the most frequent mistakes that plaintiff’s
psychological experts and treating psychotherapists make is to diagnose
post-traumatic stress disorder simply because….”
§4:260
And dozens more. The book comes with a free CD-ROM that
includes searchable full-text of the book, as well as all the forms from the
book, which can be accessed and modified with your preferred word processing
program--with no installation necessary.
Updated
annually. ISBN
1-58012-106-3.
Book Price: $129.00
C7
View and Print the Brochure


Related Titles:
Determining Economic Damages
How Insurance
Companies Settle Cases
Maximizing Damages
in Small Personal Injury Cases
Medical Evidence
Personal Injury
Forms: Discovery & Settlement
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