ABSTRACT
In Chapter 9, the reader was introduced to the myriad types of mental capacity issues after traumatic brain injury (TBI) that may require forensic evaluations. This chapter focuses primarily on aspects of personal injury evaluations following TBI as well as disability and impairment determinations and the forensics of TBI evaluations. In civil law, TBI is most likely to come to a forensic examiner as a tort action (personal injury) as a result of assault and battery, motor vehicle accident, a fall down a stairway, a slip and fall on ice or oil, and so on. For the clinician who wishes to work within the forensic areas of personal injury, an understanding of basic elements of tort law such as causation and damages is required. Furthermore, the distinction between impairment and disability must be carefully delineated by the physician or psychologist. Impairment is found by a medical or psychological examiner as a loss of function in a particular body system (such as the central nervous system), whereas disability requires a determination by a fact nder. This can be a commercial insurance company holding a disability policy on an accident victim, or an administrative law judge within the Social Security Administration, or a state workers’ compensation system or the Veteran’s Administration.
