What happened: The County Court of Victoria dismissed a man’s application to sue the TAC for psychiatric injury following his mother-in-law’s death in a 2022 truck crash, finding his condition genuine but not "severe" enough under the Transport Accident Act
Who’s involved: The Transport Accident Commission (defendant); the applicant (plaintiff)
What’s at stake: The right to pursue common-law damages beyond the TAC’s no-fault scheme, which requires proof of a "severe" long-term mental disturbance
Why it matters: The decision maps in detail where "substantial" psychiatric consequences end and "severe" begins – a distinction that determines whether claimants clear the statutory threshold
Where it stands: Decided, October 15, 2026; costs awarded to the TAC
He gained 30 kilograms, gave up the Macedonian dancing where he had met his wife, and told one of his clinicians his mind remained "stuck" at the moment he viewed his mother-in-law’s body in the coroner’s facility three weeks after a truck ran a red light and killed her.
More than four years of grief. A psychologist, a treating psychiatrist and two independent psychiatrists. Treatment with medication, psychology and psychiatry. And still, the County Court of Victoria ruled it was not enough.
The court found the man’s psychiatric injury was genuine, longstanding and consequential. It accepted that the January 2022 death of the woman in a transport accident had caused him prolonged or pathological grief with depressive and anxiety symptoms. But in a decision handed down on October 15, 2026, the court held those consequences did not cross the line from "substantial" to "severe" – the threshold under the Transport Accident Act 1986 that a claimant must clear to pursue common-law damages against Victoria’s no-fault transport accident insurer, the Transport Accident Commission.
The distinction mattered because of what he had managed to keep.
The man had not stopped working. He held a full-time role as a design program manager, overseeing about 20 staff and 30 data-centre projects across the Asia-Pacific region. His reported income had risen from about $110,000 in 2021–22 to more than $158,000 by 2025–26. He told the defendant’s psychiatrist the position was the best job he had held, that he enjoyed the work, got on well with colleagues and saw a good career path ahead. He confirmed that account under cross-examination.
He and his wife had also completed two IVF programs, welcomed their first child in August 2024 with a second imminent at the time of hearing, purchased a new home while retaining their previous property as a rental investment, and continued to drive regularly – including over substantial distances.
Under the Act, a person whose assessed impairment is below 30 per cent cannot bring proceedings for damages unless a court grants leave by finding the injury constitutes a "serious injury." For psychiatric claims, the relevant definition requires a severe long-term mental or severe long-term behavioural disturbance or disorder.
The court emphasised that "severe" sets a deliberately more demanding bar than "serious." The assessment does not turn on counting diagnoses, adopting impairment percentages or treating clinical labels as the final word. Instead, the court applies what is known as the narrative test: what are the consequences of the injury for this person, viewed as a whole, and do they reach "severe" when measured against the range of comparable cases?
Four clinicians assessed the man – his treating psychologist, his treating psychiatrist and two independently instructed psychiatrists. They substantially agreed on causation and on the existence of grief, depression and anxiety. They diverged on diagnostic labels, from prolonged grief disorder to major depressive disorder to adjustment disorder to post-traumatic stress and anxiety syndrome. No clinician clearly diagnosed full PTSD. The court found the secure evidentiary foundation supported prolonged grief with depressive and anxiety symptoms, but not full PTSD or a continuing panic disorder.
The judgment did not discount the man’s domestic and social losses. The court accepted he had withdrawn from Macedonian dancing – an activity with particular cultural significance, since his late mother-in-law had attended and watched. It accepted reduced social engagement, diminished enjoyment, less participation at home and strain in his marriage. Those consequences were described as “substantial and at times marked.”
But the court drew a line between the man’s own psychiatric injury and the broader household disruption caused by his wife’s independent grief. She was, the court noted, herself profoundly affected by her mother’s death – reluctant to drive, highly protective of their son, and restricting the involvement of the man’s parents. Not all of the resulting household dysfunction could be pinned to his condition.
The progression of the man’s own evidence also drew scrutiny. His earliest counselling records, from June 2022, noted he had acknowledged coming to terms with the loss and wanting to return to his former life. In August 2022, he denied most trauma symptoms and recent panic attacks. By the time of his later affidavits, the claimed symptoms had escalated significantly – including regular panic attacks, severe cognitive difficulty and neglect of personal hygiene. The court accepted the man as honest but found the increasing severity was “not readily reconciled” with improved psychometric testing and several clinical histories.
On the vocational side, the man argued his psychiatric condition had cost him a career trajectory toward design manager or senior design manager earning approximately $185,000 plus superannuation. The court was not persuaded. His termination from one employer for performance reasons was established, but the psychiatric cause of those performance issues was not. An industry comparator witness had never supervised or assessed him. No direct evidence from his former employer showed he would have been promoted.
Taking all of the consequences together – vocational, domestic, social, cultural and marital – the court concluded the condition fell short.
“My conclusion should not be taken as suggesting that the plaintiff’s suffering is trivial, transient or unworthy of recognition,” the judgment stated. Rather, it reflected “the distinction drawn by the legislation between a psychiatric injury that is genuine and consequential and one that satisfies the more demanding statutory description of severe.”
For claims teams navigating psychiatric serious injury applications under the Transport Accident Act, this decision offers a granular worked example of where the line sits – and a reminder that preserved capacity, even alongside real suffering, carries substantial weight in the assessment.
