Attorneys Fight "Fake Bad Scale"
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So the insurance company said you were faking your injuries. There’s a new test defense lawyers are trying to use to show people with legitimate injuries are faking. It’s called the “fake bad scale.” A few courts have ruled the test does not meet the standard required for evidence in court, but you can bet the defense lawyers won’t give up.
The test was created in 1991 by a defense orientated neuropsychologist, Dr. Paul Lees-Haley. The test has 43 true or false questions such as, “I have very few headaches.” If you answer 23 or more to indicate you have those symptoms, the test is supposed to show you are faking or over reporting your injuries.
If you are sent to a neuropsychologist for an exam you should always answer the questions truthfully. The problem comes in to play if the person taking the test has a brain injury or other serious injury and has problems with fatigue, depression, memory loss and other common symptoms. The test will show a high score.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys have begun to challenge the test in court. I suspect in most jurisdictions plaintiffs’ attorneys will be able to keep the test out of court. But that doesn’t help the people who are forced to take the test if their judge lets it in.
We need to band together and contact the University of Minnesota and demand this flawed test be removed from its MMPI-2 personality test.