Law Office of Alan Tysinger

No-Knock Warrants, Workers' Compensation Impact, and Potential Reforms

No-knock warrant is the legal term for a warrant to enter the premises of a suspect without knocking and announcing police presence. Recently this type of search warrant gained notoriety due to the death at the hands of police of Breonna Taylor, who was apparently unarmed and shot by police... Read more →

PTSD and First Responders

A new law in Florida highlights the difference in how Texas and Florida have handled workers compensation claims that relate to mental trauma injuries such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, or anxiety. Texas law has consistently been that such diagnoses are covered if they are related to a specific... Read more →

Legal Issues in Mental Health Claims Continued (Part VIII): Scope of Practice

SCOPE OF PRACTICE ISSUES IN DIAGNOSIS AND EVALUATION The Appeals Panel has held that a chiropractor may assign impairment for a mental trauma injury such as post-traumatic stress disorder.[46]Recent changes to the Labor Code affecting assignment of designated doctors warrant a visit to this area of the law to lay... Read more →

Legal Issues in Mental Health Claims Continued (Part VII): Lifetime Income Benefits

(B) LIBS and Mental Trauma Although lifetime income benefits based on a physically traumatic injury to the brain involve organic brain injuries, it overlaps with mental illness issues because of the curious criteria used to evaluate whether the injury is severe enough to warrant lifetime income benefits. Lifetime incomebenefits are... Read more →

Legal Issues in Mental Health Claims Continued (Part VI): Income Benefits Generally

INCOME BENEFITS (A) Impairment in Mental Trauma The Spirit of the 2003-10B advisories, with its baling wire and spit approach to the disaster that is the AMA Guides 4thEd., lives on in the state of mental trauma impairments in Texas. The AMA Guides, 4thEd., reject the use of impairment percentages.... Read more →

Legal Issues in Mental Health Claims Continued (Part V): Scientific Validity

III. DSM-V AND SCIENTIFIC VALIDITY ISSUES The DSM-V is now being introduced to the psychiatric community, to mixed reviews. There are controversies that involve several aspects of the changes involved to this “bible” of mental illness. Dr. Joel Paris, MD summarizes some of the controversial points: Is the DSM-V system... Read more →

Legal Issues in Mental Health Claims Continued (Part IV): Repetitive Mental Trauma

(4) Repetitive Mental Trauma As discussed above, repetitive mental trauma injuries are not covered as compensable under the Workers' Compensation Act. However, this does create an apparent loophole in the system, in which actions that are arising out of the employment resulting in injury to an employee are tortious, but... Read more →

Legal Issues in Mental Health Claims Continued (Part III): Mental Trauma: TBI and Direct and Natural Result, or “Follow On” Injuri

(2) Traumatic Brain Injuries Traumatic brain injuries give rise to psychiatric diagnoses, but because of their origin in organic brain injuries they are not included in typical discussions of mental trauma, which are based not on the field of medical specialty involved, such as psychiatric care, but rather on whether... Read more →

Legal Issues in Mental Health Claims Continued (Part II): PTSD

(B) Mental Trauma Injuries (1) Post Traumatic Stress Post traumatic stress disorder is the classic mental trauma injury, by definition arising out of a single event and typically connected with a shocking event or circumstance that causes those involved in the claims process to recoil. But at the margins, PTSD... Read more →

LEGAL ISSUES IN MENTAL HEALTH CLAIMS Part 1: History of Legal Analysis and Compensability

In discussing the subject of mental illness as it relates to workers' compensation, I find the following thought experiment to be very fruitful. Imagine that you are assigned the following task. Though you have no debilitating physical injury or illness, you must do the following: 1) Leave your job, live... Read more →