Causality in criminal forensic and in civil disability cases: Legal and psychological comparison

The Department of Veterans Affairs disability examination program for PTSD: Critical analysis and strategies for remediation.

“…Such interpretation of causation, although certainly giving the benefit of any doubt to the veteran, is not clinically meaningful and violates the standard of “substantial cause” which is the commonly accepted standard in forensic psychological decisions of this nature. As summarized succinctly by Young (2015): “In the forensic disability and related context, it refers to whether the index event is a material or contributing cause in the multifactorial array that led to the psychological condition at issue … [and] whether the claimed psychological condition would be present only because of the incident at issue” (p. 114). Although the frequency and generalized acceptance of such extreme decision rules within VBA is unknown, such cases, when combined with the types of claims noted above which lack foundation, highlight a lack of clear standards for claim generation and decision-making as well as a lack of adequate training and supervision of VBA staff.…”

“…Such interpretation of causation, although certainly giving the benefit of any doubt to the veteran, is not clinically meaningful and violates the standard of "substantial cause" which is the commonly accepted standard in forensic psychological decisions of this nature. As summarized succinctly by Young (2015): "In the forensic disability and related context, it refers to whether the index event is a material or contributing cause in the multifactorial array that led to the psychological condition at issue . .…”