Although she did not provide a diagnosis in her report, Dr. Wilkins testified that she based her conclusion that Mr. C. was not catastrophically impaired because in her view Mr. C. was a malingerer. Dr. Wilkins, however, did not provide any objective, credible evidence to support this conclusion. Her conclusion that Mr. C. is a malingerer stands alone in the face of an abundance of consistent and objective evidence that Mr. C.’s behaviour and complaints are credible. I, therefore, give very little weight to her opinion that Mr. C. is a malingerer.
Accordingly, for all these reasons I give little weight to Dr. Wilkins’ report and testimony that Mr. C. is not catastrophically impaired.
Dr. Lawson, a psychologist, conducted a catastrophic impairment assessment on behalf of Coachman on August 4, 2009.
Like Dr. Wilkins, I find that Dr. Lawson was a poor example of an expert witness. I agree with Mr. C.’s submissions where he states: Dr. Lawson’s demeanour when testifying, was argumentative, evasive, confusing and demonstrated a lack of understanding of his role as an expert to assist the Tribunal in reaching its decision on the complex issue of whether Mr. C. is catastrophically impaired.
In a short report, Dr. Lawson, without providing much information, rationale or analysis, concluded that Mr. C. was not catastrophically impaired. I give little weight to his conclusion.
I find that in failing to follow the Guides to observe and record a description of Mr. C.’s “concentration, persistence and pacing” during the testing, I cannot give much weight to Dr. Lawson’s conclusions regarding Mr. C.’s functionality when they are solely based on the test results.
Like Dr. Wilkins’ report, I find Dr. Lawson’s report to be superficial and biased in favour of Coachman. For example, in his report, Dr. Lawson notes: “Mr. C. stated he was hospitalized within the past two weeks as a result of depression and suicidal ideation.”… “He reiterated he has experienced suicidal ideation at times and has threatened to hurt himself and family members.” (It should be noted at the time of his assessment with Dr. Lawson, Mr. C. had not yet been hospitalized for overdosing on his medication.) [Emphasis added]
In light of this information, Dr. Lawson ignored the significance of Mr. C.’s very recent suicidal/homicidal mental state in relation to Mr. C.’s ability to function in any of the four domains noted in theGuides. I find this to be an important omission, especially since in his conclusion Dr. Lawson states that “Mr. C.’s accident occurred two years prior to his evaluation. As such, his psychological status is considered stable at this time.”
Another significant omission in Dr. Lawson’s report is his failure to comment on or consider the occupational assessment by Ms. Perreras. Dr. Lawson was on the same team as Ms. Perreras, who were carrying out a catastrophic impairment assessment on behalf of Coachman. Nevertheless, Dr. Lawson, without any explanation, ignored this very relevant assessment regarding Mr. C.’s capacity to function.
Although Dr. Lawson found that Mr. C. was not catastrophically impaired, he completely failed to substantiate his conclusions regarding the four areas of function pursuant to the Guides. He did not provide any supporting evidence or rationale for his conclusions. He merely stated that in his view Mr. C.’s impairment in the domains of concentration, persistence and pace and activities of daily living was “mild.” In the domains of social functioning and adaptation, hefound Mr. C. to be “moderately” impaired.
Like Dr. Wilkins, I find that Dr. Lawson ignored consistent, credible medical evidence, which could lead to a finding that Mr. C. suffered a “marked” impairment in one or more domains and accordingly was catastrophically impaired. Accordingly, I give very little weight to Dr. Lawson’s conclusion that Mr. C. is not catastrophically impaired.
I give little weight to Coachman’s submissions. In its written submissions, I find that Coachman engaged in a self-serving summary, “cherry-picking” its way through the evidence, in minute detail, to present a completely distorted, out of context picture of the reality of the objective evidence.
In reviewing the submissions, one easily sees that there are numerous significant distorted assertions of the evidence. [See note 6 below] In his reply submissions, Mr. C. submitted a number of examples which he characterized as “gross mischaracterization of the evidence by Coachman.” [See note 7 below] I note below several additional relevant examples.
Note 6: While parties presenting their submissions will try to put the best spin they can on the evidence, I find that Coachman went beyond what is considered reasonable advocacy and engaged in a pattern of distortions that did not reflect the evidence in a credible manner.
For the reasons stated above, I gave little or no weight to the catastrophic impairment assessments by Drs. Wilkins and Lawson. Both assessors ignored relevant, credible information when coming to their conclusions. Not only did Dr. Wilkins not assess Mr. C. for a catastrophic impairment, nor did she provide any diagnosis in her short three-page report, [See note 15 below] but she completely failed to comment on obvious, relevant and material information in Dr. Rosenblat’s catastrophic impairment assessment report, although she purported to have reviewed his report.
Note 15: At the hearing, Dr. Wilkins stated that her diagnosis of Mr. C. was that he was a malingerer. As noted above, I gave very little weight if any to this diagnosis.
In the case of Dr. Lawson, he not only narrowly relied on his test results in a manner that was contrary to the Guides, but provided no rationale, whatsoever, as to how he arrived at his ratings. His ratings were completely arbitrary and provided no foundation for his conclusions.