The Colorado Supreme Court concluded on Monday that a Jefferson County judge improperly ordered a plaintiff in a personal injury case to sit for a mental health examination after the defendant’s experts suggested her injuries were actually psychological.

The justices sided with plaintiff Spring Charlson, whose attorneys warned against allowing defense attorneys to delve into injured plaintiffs’ psychological histories in many more civil cases than they do now.

Charlson was rear-ended in May 2023, causing some damage to the two vehicles and back pain for Charlson. Compared with a medical scan she had two years prior, post-accident imaging revealed disc bulges in her lower back. Charlson received surgery, and her condition improved.

In suing the driver who crashed into her, Charlson underwent an examination by a defense expert. The doctor believed Charlson’s pain was likely caused by “overriding psychological factors,” rather than something physical.

Another defense expert, Hal Wortzel, reviewed Charlson’s medical records and likewise suggested that “efforts to explore cognitive, emotional, and/or behavioral contributions to Ms. Charlson’s course of illness are long overdue.”

The defense then sought to have Charlson sit for an evaluation with Wortzel. Charlson’s attorney objected, noting she had never put her mental health at issue in the lawsuit.

“What the defense is attempting to do here is to say that plaintiff has somehow waived her privilege to her mental health records or her mental health generally by the defense (injecting) her mental health into this,” argued attorney Cameron O. Hunter.

Based on the defense experts’ evaluations, “it has been put at issue by plaintiff, whether she intended to do it or not,” countered defense lawyer Andrew M. LaFontaine.

District Court Judge Russell Klein ordered Charlson to sit for an evaluation, while acknowledging he “ordinarily” would not find a litigant put her mental health at issue in a car accident case.

There is “something more concrete than simply a fishing expedition,” he said, while cautioning Wortzel’s exam should not “conduct a thorough sort of evaluation of the plaintiff’s entire psychological history.”

Charlson appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing the inquiry into her mental health should not occur because she had not put her own mental condition at issue.

“Were this Court to rule otherwise, this would open a veritable floodgate of defense-oriented experts opining that the injuries of plaintiffs, however legitimate, were really caused by some underlying mental illness,” Charlson’s lawyers wrote. “Were such an opinion by a defense expert all that were needed to place a plaintiff’s mental condition in controversy, defense attorneys would be able to place their opposing parties’ mental conditions in controversy in every single personal injury case.”

LaFontaine, representing defendant Julie Pribble, argued Klein was not obligated to accept Charlson’s “preferred theory” for her injuries. While it would likely be improper to require a plaintiff with a broken limb to reveal completely unconnected medical history, anything related to the potential underlying cause could be fair game.

“Defendant presented substantial and compelling evidence that Plaintiff’s complaint of low back pain, which she claimed was due to a bulging disc, was not caused by the collision at all,” wrote LaFontaine, “and instead was more readily explained by psychiatric factors.”

In a brief, unsigned order on Jan. 5, the Supreme Court rejected the idea that the defense could inject Charlson’s mental health into the case in a way that required her to undergo an examination for claims related to her physical injuries.

“None of these claims put Petitioner’s mental condition at issue,” the court wrote. Klein “erred because it was Respondent, not Petitioner, who put Petitioner’s mental condition at issue.”

The justices reversed Klein’s order.

The case is Charlson v. Pribble.