The High Court has ruled that D.J. is entitled to pursue a compensation claim for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after his mother died from complications of Hepatitis C. The ruling resolved a preliminary issue in his appeal; the court did not set out the final form of its order.
D.J. appealed the Hepatitis C Compensation Tribunal’s 2015 dismissal of his claim under section 5(3A)(a) of the Hepatitis C Compensation Tribunal Acts. The parties agreed that the preliminary question was whether he suffered PTSD as a result of his mother’s death on 15 July 1998. The Tribunal had found that he experienced a significant and prolonged psychiatric illness but dismissed the claim because it could not prefer one expert opinion over another on whether that illness was PTSD.
Justice Bernard J. Barton accepted evidence that D.J. was developmentally several years behind his stated age and had learning difficulties. He found that D.J. had cared for his mother during her final illness, including helping with personal care and witnessing episodes of vomiting blood and mucus. D.J. believed she would return from hospital, as she had after previous admissions, and learned of her death from his brother.
The medical evidence conflicted. The respondent’s psychiatrist considered D.J.’s condition a prolonged or complicated grief reaction, alongside depression and substance misuse, rather than PTSD. The psychiatrists called for D.J. considered that his symptoms and the circumstances of his mother’s death met the relevant diagnostic criteria. The judge treated the diagnostic manuals as useful aids, not the measure of whether a psychiatric illness had been established, and assessed D.J.’s particular circumstances.
The judge found that, given D.J.’s emotional and intellectual vulnerabilities and the events surrounding his mother’s death, the death and the news of it caused him a “catastrophic shock” and PTSD, alongside severe, prolonged and unresolved grief. The court also stated that pathological grief disorder, where it amounts to a recognised psychiatric illness caused by a qualifying death, falls within “nervous shock” under the Act.
The ruling means D.J. may pursue a claim for an award under the Act. It does not state that compensation was awarded. The judge said the final form of the order concerning the relief sought on appeal would be discussed with counsel. The judgment noted that D.J.’s PTSD features had essentially resolved by 2010 and that he was benefiting from counselling.