Psychological Injuries and Legal Decision Making in Civil Cases: What We Know and What We Do not Know

Civil plaintiffs frequently seek monetary compensation for their psychological injuries. Despite the increased study of psychological injury within the legal system, there has been little empirical examination of how psychological injury evidence impacts legal decisions. To illuminate what is known (and not known) on this topic, this paper reviews legal and empirical research regarding how legal decision makers (judges and jurors) perceive and use psychological injury evidence to render civil judgments. A few themes emerged from this review: (1) Courts generally devalue psychological injury, often making it difficult for plaintiffs to pursue and succeed on these claims; (2) these difficulties are a likely byproduct of legal decision-makers’ misperceptions of mental illness; and (3) despite a recent surge in empirical research on how jurors perceive and use psychological injury evidence to render civil decisions, many unexplored areas remain. Specific recommendations for legal policy and suggestions for future research are highlighted throughout this review.     

Business Adaptation to Regulation: What Do We Know and What Do We Need to Know?

There is, predictably, a gap between the normative model and empirical pictures of regulation drawn from many societies. We may get an approximation of the goals of much regulation, but often regulatory policy is not carried out exactly as legislated. Agencies pursue enforcement strategies in light of their priorities and resources. They engage in soft law enforcement and bargain with the targets of regulation. Regulated businesses have many tactics available to blunt or evade regulation. We can fashion plausible normative arguments both for and against these common empirical pictures. To a great extent, however, these normative positions rest on unexamined empirical assumptions. Future research might profitably focus on the roles played by those individuals who act for business associations and cope with regulation. Attention should be paid particularly to the roles played by business lawyers in such coping. James Gould Cozzens' novel , Guard of Honor, suggests how lawyers comply narrowly, evade, cover up and otherwise divert the impact of regulation, all in the service of what they see as the greater good. Cozzens' story suggests important empirical and normative questions for future consideration.     

Psychological Injury and Law: Editorial on What Mental Health Clinicians/Practitioners Need to Know

Mental health clinicians and practitioners often deal with cases of psychological injury (e.g., PTSD, pain, TBI), but frequently remain unprepared for the intricacies of providing adequate quality of service and of potential legal challenges of such cases. The editorial lists the areas in which specified knowledge is needed in working with cases of psychological injury and the dangers of being unprepared for court. At the same time, the list constitutes guides to central topics of the journal, Psychological Injury and Law, and its parent organization, the Association for Scientific Advancement in Psychological Injury and Law (ASAPIL). Professionals in mental health should be aware of the risks inherent in working in the field, as well as remedies, such as this journal.     

Assessing Danger: What Judges Need To Know

Every day, judges are faced with decisions regarding intimate partner violence (IPV) victims' requests for protection orders, custody arrangements, and visitation schedules. To make informed decisions, judges must understand victims' risk for future violence. This mixed method study explores the extent to which protection order petitions (n=169) communicate victims' current danger and future risk of violence. Methods included interviews coupled with an archival review of court petitions. Findings suggest judges are inadequately prepared to render decisions to improve victim safety in the absence of standardized risk assessments. The Danger Assessment provides an evidence-based solution to routinize intake interviews with victims petitioning the court.     

Physical Injuries, Pain, and Psychological Trauma: Pathways to Disability

Because physical injuries occur so frequently and are associated with significant mortality and morbidity, these injuries have been acknowledged as a worldwide public health concern. While the greatest cost associated with physical injury is the loss of life, non-fatal injuries are associated with significant personal and societal costs. Traditionally, examinations of the personal costs of physical injuries have emphasized functional losses and limitations, in addition to resulting losses in work productivity and income earning power. Efforts to capture the societal costs associated with physical injury have emphasized medical expenditures related to their treatment as well as costs related to lost work performance and disability compensation. Less emphasized but possibly more relevant to post-injury functional outcomes is the experience of psychological distress that frequently accompanies injury-related changes in function and overall quality of life. Any calculation of the true cost of physical injuries must include a reckoning of their impact on psychological health and the interactive influence of physical and psychological injuries on immediate and long-term recovery of function. In the current article, we briefly summarize data pertaining to the prevalence and cost of physical injuries; we briefly describe the more common consequences of physical injury, including injury-related limitations in physical function, pain and pain-related limitations in physical function, occupational impairment, psychological distress, and impairment in interpersonal relating; we review select theoretical models that are considered to explain the transition from physical injury to disabilities and we identify the pre-, peri-, and post-injury influence of physical and psychological health on injury management, recovery of function, risk of re-injury, and disability.     

Sexual Harassment: What Forensic Clinical Psychologists Need from Social Scientists

Forensic clinical psychologists who conduct evaluations and present expert testimony in sexual harassment cases must have some familiarity with the scientific literature about sexual harassment. However, these experts frequently discover that the social science research related to sexual harassment provides little in the way of tools or data that are directly applicable to the evaluation of plaintiffs in sexual harassment litigation. This article addresses that issue and offers suggestions to social science researchers that may improve the utility of sexual harassment research in the litigation of sexual harassment cases.     

The Impact of Psychological Injuries on Sexual Harassment Determinations

Although a plethora of studies focus on jury decision making in sexual harassment cases, few studies examine damage award assessments in such suits, and even fewer explore the impact of psychological injury on jurors’ liability and damage award assessments. In the present study, 342 undergraduates read a hostile environment sexual harassment case that manipulated the plaintiff’s psychological injury level (severe vs. mild vs. control) to investigate whether males and females made different damage decisions. Males using a reasonable person standard found more liability as the severity of the plaintiff’s psychological injury increased. However, males using a reasonable woman standard found less liability with the addition of any psychological injury information. Similarly, for mild and severe injuries, males using the reasonable woman standard awarded lower damages than males using the reasonable person standard. Females tended to find more harassment than males, but psychological injury and legal standard had little impact on females’ legal decisions. We discuss these findings in light of the positive relationship often observed between the plaintiff’s injury severity level and pro-plaintiff verdicts.     

Workplace Sexual Harassment in Policing: Perceived Psychological Injuries by Source and Severity

Relatively little is known about employee perceptions of workplace psychological injuries following sexual and nonsexual harassment. In quasi-military occupational organizations, such as policing, the rate of sexual harassment to workplace injuries from other sources is comparatively high. In an exploratory 5?×?2 between-subjects factorial experimental projection study, 220 New South Wales Police Force officers responded to one of ten experimental vignettes in which sources of psychological injury and the gender of the injured worker were systematically varied. Results revealed an unexpected effect of experience. Employees aged 30 years and older were significantly more likely to anticipate psychological consequences and clinically diagnosable symptoms than their younger counterparts. As hypothesized, a main effect of injury source, but not gender of the target, emerged for the severity of psychological consequences: a physical injury was perceived to produce significantly more severe psychological injuries than sexual harassment in the form of coercion and unwanted sexual attention. Contrary to the hypothesis, participants rated gender-based hostility higher than other types of sexual harassment as a source of severe psychological harm. Participants believed that gender-based hostility requires more professional intervention and predicted more negative workplace consequences than other psychological injuries caused by other workplace events. As hypothesized, women employees were generally viewed as significantly more vulnerable to negative workplace outcomes than men. The police officers who participated in this study considered women as more likely to experience workplace problems following sexual coercion than other types of workplace injury. Physical injuries, gender-based hostility, and sexual coercion were distinguished from nonsexual harassment and unwanted sexual attention as significantly more likely to produce clinically diagnosable injuries, irrespective of target gender. Implications of these findings for research, practice, and legal policy are discussed.     

Forensic Methods and Procedures Applied to Child Custody Evaluations: What Judges Need to Know in Determining a Competent Forensic Work Product

Judges are seeing an increase in the number of forensic reports in the area of child custody. This increase in forensic mental health involvement suggests that judges need to better understand the application of current forensic mental health methodology to assist them in determining a competent forensic work product. Recent literature has argued that child custody evaluators need to craft their reports consistent with scientific methods and procedures as well as legal standards governing admissibility of scientific evidence. This paper provides a framework for judges to assist in determining whether a child custody evaluation has been crafted consistent with current behavioral science literature pertaining to use of forensic mental health methods and procedures.     

What Clients Know: Client perspectives and legal competence

This article does not have an abstract     

Insurance Issues for Green Start-ups: What Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know

This article is a case study based upon a business entrepreneur's efforts to obtain specialized insurance coverage for a clean-energy start-up business. The article identifies and discusses some of the potential liabilities of insurance brokers in the event that the insurance coverages they obtain do not adequately protect the interests of the client's business. The article concludes that, at least in New York State, the rule is “Let the buyer beware!” and that a business person cannot safely rely upon advice given by an insurance broker in obtaining complex or specialized insurance coverage.     

What We Know Now: The Evanston Illinois Field Lineups

A Freedom of Information Act lawsuit secured 100 eyewitness identification reports from Evanston, Illinois, one of three cities of the Illinois Pilot Program. The files provide empirical evidence regarding three methodological aspects of the Program’s comparison of non-blind simultaneous to double-blind sequential lineups. (1) A-priori differences existed between lineup conditions. For example, the simultaneous non-blind lineup condition was more likely to involve witnesses who had already identified the suspect in a previous lineup or who knew the offender (non-stranger identifications), and this condition also entailed shorter delays between event and lineup. (2) Verbatim eyewitness comments were recorded more often in double-blind sequential than in non-blind simultaneous lineup reports (83% vs. 39%). (3) Effective lineup structure was used equally in the two lineup conditions.     

The Limits of Disclosure: What Research Subjects Want to Know about Investigator Financial Interests

Research participants' views about investigator financial interests were explored. Reactions ranged from concern to acceptance, indifference, and even encouragement. Although most wanted such information, some said it did not matter, was private, or was burdensome, and other factors were more important to research decisions. Very few said it would affect their research decisions, and many assumed that institutions managed potential conflicts of interest. Although disclosure of investigator financial interest information to research participants is often recommended, its usefulness is limited, especially when participation is desired because of illness.     

Maternal Childhood Sexual Trauma and Child Conduct Problems

This study examines multiple pathways by which maternal childhood sexual trauma may be related to the behavioral development of children. Propensity score matching procedures were used to create matched groups (total n?=?204) of mothers who retroactively did and did not self-report childhood sexual trauma in a longitudinal sample of families living in poor, rural communities. Using structural equation modeling, maternal characteristics and behaviors were examined as potential mediators of the relationship between maternal histories of childhood sexual trauma and children’s conduct problems. After controlling for numerous socio-demographic factors, analyses indicate that maternal depressive symptoms, intimate partner violence, and maternal parenting were significant mediators and highlight the lasting impact of childhood sexual trauma on victims and their children.     

Sexual Orientation,Race, and Trauma as Predictors of Sexual Assault Recovery

Sexual minorities and racial minorities experience greater negative impact following sexual assault. We examined recovery from sexual assault among women who identified as heterosexual and bisexual across racial groups. A community sample of women (N?=?905) completed three yearly surveys about sexual victimization, recovery outcomes, race group, and sexual minority status. Bisexual women and Black women reported greater recovery problems. However, Black women improved more quickly on depression symptoms than non-Black women. Finally, repeated adult victimization uniquely undermined survivors’ recovery, even when controlling for child sexual abuse. Sexual minority and race status variables and their intersections with revictimization play roles in recovery and should be considered in treatment protocols for sexual assault survivors.     

National Parliaments and European Integration: What We Know and Agenda for Future Research

The role of national legislatures in European integration first received serious attention in the mid-1990s in connection with debates on the EU's democratic deficit. Since then, both academics and politicians have entered a lively debate on how best to involve national parliaments in EU affairs. The purpose of this article is to examine critically the state of research on the role of national parliaments in European integration and to use that existing knowledge to suggest avenues for further research. The main argument is that through focusing almost exclusively on scrutiny of European affairs, the literature has failed to acknowledge the multiple constraints that impact on legislatures. There is a demand for more theory-driven analyses of actual behaviour that extend beyond describing formal procedures and organisational choices. Future research should also pay more attention to the strategies of political parties and to the incentives of individual MPs to become involved in European affairs.