PTSD in mass tort and multi-plaintiff cases. What attorneys need to know.
Mass tort claims arise most frequently in man-made and natural disaster catastrophe litigation as well as personal injury, employment, product liability and toxic tort litigation. Frequently, these lawsuits include either primary or secondary allegations of emotional distress. PTSD is one of the most common emotional distress claims alleged within mass tort litigation, as well as allegations of depression and emotional stress (anxiety).
Join an experienced psychiatrist and psychologist who will cover topics relevant to the forensic psychiatric assessment of emotional damages within mass tort and complex litigation.
Agenda
- Introduction: Defining PTSD. What it is and what it is not.
- The methodological approach to assessing allegations of emotional distress in mass tort & complex litigation.
- The importance and the methodology of psychological testing as part of the assessment of emotional distress claims in mass tort litigation.
- Claimant population screening. Using psychological test instruments to differentiate claimants who require in-depth forensic psychiatric assessment from claimants who do not.
- Are all psych tests the same? Types of psychological test instruments we recommend and ones that we do not — and why.
- So-called “PTSD Tests.” Do they have a role in forensic psychological assessments?
- Accuracy and reliability of conclusions derived from psychological test data.
- Taking a “team approach” to emotional distress claim assessment in mass tort litigation.
Meet the speakers.
Mark I. Levy MD, DLFAPA
Medical Director
Forensic Psychiatric Associates Medical Corporation
Associate Clinical Professor, Psychiatry
University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine
415.388.8040
mlevy@fpamed.com
Dr. Levy attended Durham University, U.K. (1965-66) and is a graduate of Columbia College (A.B. 1967), the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (M.D. 1971) in New York as well as the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute (1984) in San Francisco. He currently practices clinical and forensic psychiatry, licensed as a Physician and Surgeon since 1972 by the State of California and since 2004 by the State of Hawaii.
He was certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in Psychiatry (1981) and Forensic Psychiatry (1999, recertified in 2009, 2019). In addition, he was certified by the National Board of Physicians and Surgeons in both Psychiatry and Forensic Psychiatry (2019).
He is currently an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, where has been on the faculty since 1977 and since 2000 has taught in the Law and Psychiatry Fellowship. He is also on the Faculty of the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis and is the Founder and former Chairman and President of the San Francisco Foundation for Psychoanalysis, a community service outreach organization.
Since 1975, Dr. Levy has been in full-time private practice, originally of psychiatry and beginning in the 1980’s of psychoanalysis and forensic psychiatry as well. He has been retained as a forensic psychiatric expert in more than 500 civil lawsuits and related matters. He has testified in State and Federal Court on 64 occasions. He has never been disqualified from testifying as an expert by any Court in any jurisdiction where he was retained.
As a result of his service and contribution to the profession, Dr. Levy was designated a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (“DLFAPA”) and has been an active member of numerous local, national and international medical, psychoanalytic, psychiatric and forensic psychiatric organizations, including The American Academy for Psychiatry and the Law. He has published numerous articles and presented countless talks, both in person and via webinars, to attorneys, physicians and the general public on a wide range of forensic psychiatric topics. He has also been interviewed regularly as an expert by the print and broadcast media discussing psychiatric and forensic psychiatric topics of general interest.
In January 2006, Dr. Levy established Forensic Psychiatric Associates Medical Corporation of which he continues to serve as its medical director. In January 2020, together with his colleague, forensic psychiatrist Charles Saldanha, MD, Dr. Levy also established and currently serves as the medical director of Forensic Psychiatric Associates, L.P. (www.fpamed.com), a growing group of forensic psychiatrists and forensic psychologists that develop expert opinions for attorneys and Courts on behavioral issues within a broad range of civil and criminal matters. In addition, fpamed as a team specializes in assessing psychological injury claims from populations of litigants in mass tort and multi-plaintiff litigation. We have previously been retained in more than two-dozen such cases.
Sarah A. Hall, PhD.
Psychologist for Forensic & Neuropsychological Assessments
Forensic Psychiatric Associates Medical Corporation
shall@fpamed.com
Dr. Hall received her A.B., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from University of California, Berkeley. She completed an American Psychological Association approved pre-doctoral in adult neuropsychology and clinical psychology at the San Francisco Veterans’ Administration Medical Center and a post-doctoral fellowship in pediatric neuropsychology at Children’s’ Hospital Oakland. Dr. Hall has been licensed to practice psychology in California since 1993.Her areas of special clinical and forensic interest include the interface between psychological and personality factors and brain dysfunction due to injury, disease, genetic and neurological disorders, as well as disorders of learning and attention. She is broadly trained and experienced in the assessment of adults and children with a wide variety of cognitive, emotional, and medical disorders.
Dr. Hall has taught courses and seminars on various topics in neuropsychological assessment and clinical interviewing to graduate students, school psychologists and early childhood educators, as well as to parent groups. She received an award for excellence in the teaching of undergraduate psychology students while completing her doctorate at UC Berkeley. Currently in private practice, Dr. Hall has been on the staff at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in San Francisco, Veterans’ Administration Medical Centers in San Francisco, and Livermore, as well as Children’s Hospital Oakland. She devotes approximately 90 percent of her time to forensic assessment, and about 10 percent to clinical neuropsychological and psychological evaluation. Dr. Hall has been retained as a forensic expert in approximately 125 cases. She has testified in deposition on thirteen occasions and has testified at trial four times. Dr. Hall has been an independent contractor fpamed since its inception.