Spinal cord injury matters involve permanent loss of function that typically ends the person's prior occupation and creates lifetime care and equipment costs. The economic claim brings together lost earnings and benefits, the household work the person can no longer do, and the present value of the life care plan, and the economist's role is to build each component from the record and reduce it to a number the court can rely on.
In short
The claim consists of lost earnings and earning capacity, measured as a total loss when the person cannot return to work or as the gap between the prior path and a sedentary or part-time alternative when they can; lost fringe benefits; the replacement value of household services across the person's life; and the present value of the life care plan, which for spinal cord injury is dominated by attendant care, wheelchair and equipment replacement cycles, supplies, home and vehicle modifications, and periodic hospitalization for complications. The drivers are the earnings and benefit history, the work-capacity opinions in the record, and a life care plan with frequencies and replacement intervals stated for each item.
The present value of attendant care over a lifetime is usually the largest figure, followed by future lost earnings for a person injured early in a working life. Equipment costs recur on replacement cycles and are sensitive to the cost growth rate applied, and home and vehicle modifications add one-time and recurring items. Because the level of injury determines attendant care hours and the person's capacity for alternative work, the report's total moves with those inputs, and the life expectancy the medical evidence supports sets the horizon for every stream.
The economist builds the but-for earnings path from the person's history and occupational data, projects it over a worklife expectancy with wage growth, and compares it with the post-injury path the work-capacity opinions support, which may be no earnings, reduced earnings, or earnings after retraining. Fringe benefits are valued from plan documents or employer cost data, household services from time-use data and local replacement rates, and the life care plan item by item with the cost growth rate appropriate to each category and the replacement intervals the plan specifies. Every future stream is discounted to present value with the rate stated, and the report presents home-based and facility-based care scenarios when the plan offers both.
Stage-by-stage guidance on working with a forensic economist in spinal cord injury litigation.
Each item is scheduled at the interval the life care plan specifies, priced at current cost, grown at the applicable rate to each replacement date, and discounted back to present value. The report lists the schedule so counsel can see how many replacements the horizon contains.
Yes, where the record supports it. The post-injury path can include earnings from sedentary or remote work after retraining, with a delay for the training period and a wage level from occupational data. The remaining gap between that path and the but-for path is the loss.
At the local market rate for the level of care involved, for the hours the plan and the record support. The economist states the rate source and shows the value of family-provided care separately from paid care so counsel can present it under the governing framework.
Medical goods and services have historically grown at a different rate from general prices, and the economist applies category-specific growth drawn from published price indexes, stated in the report, rather than a single rate for the whole plan.
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