Stressaantumaan

Stressaantumaan is a Finnish concept closely related to compensation or damage claims made possible by severe stress or trauma that an individual has experienced. At its core, stressaantumaan refers to the recognition that severe stress can be as devastating to a person's health and well-being as physical injuries suffered in an accident.

The Finnish Civil Damages Act codifies the concept, specifying that damages may be awarded to individuals who have experienced severe emotional or psychological distress as a result of someone else's harmful actions, such as negligence or wrongdoing. This is distinct from traditional concepts of negligence and liability, where the focus is usually on physical injuries.

For stressaantumaan damages to be awarded, an individual must be able to demonstrate that their stress or trauma was caused by another person's wrongful actions. In some cases, the stress may not surface immediately but can develop years after the event due to delayed reactions, making it challenging to establish the cause-and-effect relationship.

Presumption can play a role in the process, where, if a plaintiff can prove a defensible and logical connection between the defendant's actions and their subsequent stress, the burden shifts to the defendant to prove otherwise. Stressaantumaan has similarities with PTSD and other related psychological traumas but specifically emphasizes the compensatable impact and direct causality of another's actions on the affected individual's psychological state.