LEGAL ABUSE SYNDROME, "LAS"

LEGAL ABUSE SYNDROME

"LAS" is a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, "PTSD" acquired through prolonged exposure to Crooked Lawyers & Courts

More:  Issues:  Legal Abuse Syndrome;
Issues:  Affirmative Action;
Issues:  "Stockholm Syndrome" Paradigm Shift creates a "Victim-Perpetrator";
Issues:  Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD;
Issues:  Debtors' Prison Reinstituted;
Issues:  Passports Removed to Appease Femi-Nazis;
Issues:  Driver's Licenses removed to appease "Femi-Nazis";
Testimonials:  Jeffery, Hal & Danica;
Issues:  Imputed income;
Issues:  Child Support Fraud;

Legal Abuse Syndrome

The book, Legal Abuse Syndrome written by Karin Huffer is the result of her experiences for over twenty years as a marriage and family counselor in private practice. What is unique about this book is that it addresses the victims of legal abuse from a psychological therapeutic perspective. The objective is to move the victim beyond their predicament into positive action and thinking. Ms. Huffer illustrates the abuses with the cases of seven victims of Legal Abuse Syndrome, detailing their pain and suffering and the various stages of the therapy they have undergone for recovery of their emotional health.

Ms. Huffer found that many victims of the legal system suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. She identified this as Legal Abuse Syndrome, brought on by the abusive and protracted litigation, prevalent in our courts. According to Ms. Huffer you may be suffering from Legal Abuse Syndrome if you feel deeply disillusioned and oppressed as a result of your experience with the legal system; if you feel you were frustrated in obtaining justice; if you feel your dreams and plans for your life were torn from you by a system that is supposedly there to protect your rights and property; if you fear that the system will defeat you at every turn and there is nothing you can do about it, and if you feel that you have been victimized several times over, by the perpetrators, by lawyers, judges, bailiffs and other court personnel. As a consequence you may suffer from tension and anxiety, recurring nightmares you may feel emotionally an physically exhausted, numb, disconnected and vulnerable.

A central point of Ms. Huffer’s book is that the victims in America are not only assaulted by crime, but also by the abuses of power and authority administered by tax dollars intended to provide due process of law for the protection of civil rights. Ms. Huffer observes that not only does the justice system move slowly, but delays are used as strategy by attorneys to weaken their opposition economically and emotionally and to provide hefty fees for attorneys. Ms. Huffer notes that when courts fail as a consequence of officially sanctioned wrongdoing it leaves victims and vigilantes in its trail. The rage of these victims accumulates when they are not provided a satisfying place to turn to. She concludes that the enormous betrayals and inefficiencies that make up bureaucratic post-crime experiences are literally attacking the emotional health of the nation. She recommends that the community of American citizens adopt the following:

1.  Oppression and abuse of power are injurious to the health of the victims. Domination by abusers of bureaucratic power threatens the very functionality of the public and private sections in our country.

2. Victims are not self interested, narcissistic folks who sit around and wallow in their losses. They are courageous individuals who face their pain and care to right the wrongs. They participate in the collision of evil and good as it is classically intended in order to achieve balance. Denial is popular, but far less responsible.

3.  Trust is a social staple that must be protected just as earth and water must be protected to provide for survival. When trust is damaged the community suffers and society as a whole will eventually falter and collapse (Bok). Veterans of crime must exude zero tolerance for lying in courtrooms, lying in political campaigns, lying to cover-up, and deceptions through omission and nonperformance by public officials and public servants.

LEGAL ABUSE SYNDROME, Kerin Huffer M.S., her website is www.legalabusesyndrome.com or www.legalabusesyndrome.org

A new cause of action that is a new bases for lawsuits is being accepted by the courts allowing cases to proceed on claims of "organic brain injury" caused by traumatic stress. An article appeared on this on November 11, 2002 in the National Law Journal. Click here to see full article.

Harassment related emotional distress is being recognized in the work field upon which lawyers are now suing. To read the article by by Joni Johnston, Psy.D. Click here There is no reason why the same facts and reasoning should not apply to the harassment inflicted on victims in a lawsuit.

Karin Huffer Legal Abuse Syndrome Interview clip

Karin Huffer Legal Abuse Syndrome Interview clip

YOUR HONOR?

YOUR HONOR?

Personal Injury - New Ways to Win An Emerging Cause of Action

Claims That Post-traumatic Stress Has Created an Organic Brain Injury

Margaret Cronin Fisk
The National Law Journal
November 8, 2002

In lawsuits involving plane crashes, plaintiffs are prevented by the Warsaw Convention from recovering for purely emotional injuries. In many states, as well, recovery for emotional distress is severely limited. This can diminish the prospects for collecting damages for post-traumatic stress disorder.

But courts have now begun accepting claims of organic brain disease as an end-result of post-traumatic stress. In August 2001, for example, Delta Air Lines was hit with a $1.25 million verdict in a lawsuit brought by a woman who contended that the fright she experienced during a harrowing Delta flight caused a harmful chemical reaction in her brain. Following the flight, plaintiff Kathy Weaver began experiencing "psychotic flashbacks," in which she would continually relive the incident, reports plaintiffs' attorney Randy Bishop of Billings, Mont. She contended that the terror had a physical impact on her brain through the release of "excitotoxins" -- chemicals that kill brain cells.

In the pretrial order rejecting Delta's motion for summary judgment, U.S. District Judge Jack Shanstrom in Montana found that the plaintiff had provided sufficient proof, in the form of articles in scientific journals and expert reports, that "extreme stress causes actual physical brain damage," in particular, "physical destruction or atrophy of portions of the brain." The verdict was reduced to $75,000 and settled. Weaver v. Delta Air Lines Inc., No. CV 98 151BLGRFC (D. Mont.).

In January 2002, the Washington Court of Appeals ruled similarly in a separate case. Plaintiff Lein Trinh had been involved in an automobile accident in Seattle in which she was not hit, though one friend was killed and another injured. She contended that the emotional distress she experienced watching her friend die created physical manifestations, says plaintiff's attorney Betsylew Miale-Gix of Seattle's Adler Giersch.

Trinh had sought benefits from Allstate Insurance, but Allstate rejected the claim, contending that the uninsured motorist policy involved provided no coverage for emotional distress that was not a result of physical injury. The trial court agreed with Allstate and dismissed Trinh's claim.

The Washington appellate court, however, reversed, finding that "'bodily injury' includes emotional injuries that are accompanied by physical manifestations" and remanded the lawsuit to trial. In September, the Washington Supreme Court denied Allstate's petition for cert. No trial date has been set. Trinh v. Allstate Insurance, No. 002105827 (King Co., Wash., Super. Ct.).

Proving a brain injury brought on by psychological stress can be difficult, Bishop notes. "Brain scans are not likely to demonstrate physiological change because any change occurs at the cellular level." Instead, he says, the plaintiff's attorney has to provide medical literature on the effect of such stress on the brain and accompany this with testimony and affidavits from physicians and experts.

In Trinh, adds Miale-Gix, the plaintiff also used the testimony of lay witnesses to establish the concrete physical manifestations she exhibited following the accident, including hair loss, weight loss and muscle spasms.