Perhaps lawyery types here can explain further.
I'm not a lawyer so feel free to disregard.
I believe the Montreal Convention was intended to exclude claims for pure psychological stress or "injury." This seems reasonable as such claims are very subjective and are often bordering on the ridiculous. Have a look at the following claim successfully defended because of the Montreal Convention
https://nvflyer.com/2016/06/23/montr...ticket-claims/
Accepting the law is always a blunt instrument, the intent behind the Montreal Convention is most likely to exclude vexatious or frivolous claims based on an issue or incident the "average" person would simply accept.
But PTSD in the setting of significant physical injury (which all parties here have accepted) is perhaps different to psychological stress in the absence of a physical injury. PTSD by its very definition is delayed in onset. There are lots of factors that can contribute to PTSD. The psychological stress of course. What about chronic pain and sleep deprivation from physical injuries? - could these factors contribute to PTSD? What about an adversarial legal process drawn out over 7 years - could that contribute? What about the conduct of ATSB Aand CASA and a sense of being let down by the government bodies charged with air safety - could that contribute?
And does depression decrease a person's pain threehold and their ability to cope with pain? Of course it does.
The answer surely is that all these factors are inextricably linked. It is impossibly to try and artificially separate physical and psychological injury. They are each part of the other.
If the intent the of the Montreal Convention was to exclude (often spurious) claims of pure psychological injury, does that mean it was also intended to exclude the psychological consequences of acknowledged substantial physical injury? Is that really the intent of the Montreal Convention? Is that ethically just? Or is that just what a carrier would like to believe.
This is the issue the lawyers are debating.
Consider it another way. A person is killed by a drunk driver. At the legal hearing, the parents of the deceased are offered the chance to read a Victim Impact Statement. Would we argue a judge should give such a statement no weight on the grounds the statement described a psychological rather than physical trauma?