Compensability for PTSD under the Montreal Convention: Psychiatric Injury as a Bodily Injury: Casey v Pel-Air Aviation Pty Ltd; Helm v Pel-Air Aviation Pty Ltd [2015] NSWSC 566 per Schmidt J

Abstract

A dichotomy has frequently been postulated between physical and psychiatric injuries for the purposes of awards of compensation in personal injury cases. The ‘Montreal Convention’, like the ‘Warsaw Convention’ before it, limits compensation in aeroplane accidents to ‘bodily injuries’. In Casey v Pel-Air Aviation Pty Ltd; Helm v Pel-Air Aviation Pty Ltd [2015] NSWSC 566 Schmidt J of the New South Wales Supreme Court analysed previous decisions, applied English House of Lords authority and concluded that PTSD, at least in some circumstances, constitutes a brain injury and therefore a bodily injury that is compensable under the Montreal Convention. Her carefully reasoned decision consolidates p..