In wrongful death litigation, the facts underlying economic loss claims often vary significantly from case to case. Many consultants mistakenly apply a one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter approach to calculating economic damages in wrongful death claims. By either remaining unaware of or ignoring key case-specific facts that frame economic loss in such claims, they simply get it wrong, sometimes to the detriment of their client. At Spectrum, we reject the flawed methodologies and ad hoc or counterfactual assumptions too often relied upon by other consultants and base our wrongful death loss evaluations on relevant case-specific facts, sound economic analysis and the most current research and data. For example, we:
- Project earnings based on established past work/earnings patterns, labor agreements and the most current compensation growth forecasts;
- Project self-employment earnings based on a detailed analysis of business revenues and expenses;
- Base the family’s loss of medical insurance benefits on the expected incremental cost of coverage, using the most current health benefit survey data;
- Apply actual retirement benefit formulae and contribution rates to calculate losses related to Social Security, private, state, federal or military pensions;
- Base worklife/retirement on the actual pre-death circumstance, including any early retirement incentives;
- Adjust for mortality and likelihood of employment given pre-death circumstance;
- Correctly offset for decedent’s personal consumption from total household income;
- Base household services loss on the decedent’s and family’s actual pre-death circumstance;
- Discount to present value using current bond yields.