What is the legal definition of "Grief Disabled"?or "Grieve Disabled"

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Request for Question Clarification by gitana-ga on 05 Nov 2002 20:03 PST

When you say "legal" to which country's laws are you referring? The
definitions may be different from country to country.  I may be able
to help if you are asking about the United States.

gitana

Hi hannah2-ga

A definition of disability is helpful here.

"1: inability to pursue an occupation because of a physical or mental
impairment
specif 
: inability to engage in any substantial gainful activity because of a
medically determinable physical or mental impairment that can be
expected to result in death or to be of long continued or indefinite
duration in accordance with the Social Security Act." (Merriam
Webster's Dictionary of Law, 1996).

The important points are that the grief must be medically verifiable
and be expected to result in death or be of long continued or
indefinite duration.

In a case where grief (i.e. mental anguish) accompanies bodily
injuries, the court can recognise the grief. The following analysis of
supreme court briefs gives various studies as examples. An example is
a pregnant woman involved in a car crash. She would have her mental
anguish (of losing the child) recognised by the court.

http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/supreme_court/briefs/01-963/01-963.mer.ami.tlpj.pdf

For someone mourning the loss of their dead pet, for example, it is
highly unlikely that their grief would be recognised by a court.

Hope this helps

sim-ga

Search engine: Google Directory

Terms

Law

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Search Engine: Find Law Lawcrawler (legal dictionary)

Terms

Disability

http://dictionary.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/results.pl?co=lawcrawler.findlaw.com&topic=64/64581ba44ed6d2d26911c1ae98fe8ee0

I would look into the terms "post-traumatic stress disorder" and/or
"clinical depression" as both of these conditions can be considered
disabling in the U.S.
and may in fact more accurately reflect the condition.