Can you file a lawsuit against someone for inducing schizophrenia?

Answer 1

You have to understand what exactly schizophrenia is. Not even experts all agree on the exact causes of the mental illness. It is known to be hereditary (a person with a relative suffering from the disease is ten times more likely to get it than a person with no relatives having schizophrenia). Some of the main theories are that it's caused by a viral infection, a chemical imbalance in the brain, or environmental factors. Mostly these problems occured during pregnancy but the individual didn't develop the disease until young adulthood. Although emotional trauma used to be thought of as a cause-it's dismissed by most experts now. I'm not exactly sure how you could prove that someone caused schizophrenia.

A lawsuit can be filed for almost any reason, whether it will be judged valid at the time of the hearing is another matter. There would have to be considerable substantiating evidence for pursuing legal action based on such a serious charge. Assuming it would be a medical malpractice suit other medical personnel qualified to assess such an action would be needed as expert witnesses. An attorney that specializes in medical malpractice suits, usually accepts cases that have merit on a contingency basis. The first step would be to contact an attorney of this nature and schedule a consultation relating to the viability of the claim. Not sure if the first answer's assumptions are correct. I think it's more likely to be related to a traumatic event. If you can go into court and show by preponderance of the evidence that someone caused a traumatic event that caused schizophrenia to develop you can win the lawsuit. The other side is likely to point out that schizophrenia has a strong genetic component, but it's believed there are environmental factors as well so if you genetically predisposed you might never get it unless you face emotional trauma.

You can file, but you won't win, almost guaranteed. Schizophrenia is a medical illness that some people are genetically disposed to or just have defects in their limbic system and frontal cortex in dopaminergic pathways. You would have a hard time proving this.