In a wrongful death matter the economic loss belongs to the survivors, and the question is what the decedent would have contributed to the household over an expected life. The analysis projects earnings and benefits, deducts the decedent's personal consumption, adds the replacement value of household services and other support, measures each survivor's loss over that survivor's period of dependency, and reduces the future portion to present value. The components are presented separately because states differ on which are recoverable and by whom.
A wrongful death economic loss analysis does not ask what the decedent would have earned in isolation. It asks what the decedent would have contributed to the people who depended on the decedent: financial support, household services, and, where the governing framework allows, guidance and care. Some frameworks give the claim to the survivors, some to the estate, and some divide it, with a survival claim for the decedent's own losses before death alongside a wrongful death claim for the survivors. The report is organized to the framework counsel identifies and presents each component separately so it can be included or excluded as the law requires.
The analysis starts as an earnings projection: the decedent's earnings base from tax returns and pay records, carried forward with a growth rate over a worklife expectancy for the decedent's age, sex, education, and labor force status, plus fringe benefits from plan documents or published employer cost data. Where the decedent was young or a career was interrupted early, the base is built from occupational earnings data for the path the record supports. Retirement income the decedent would have received and shared, such as a pension or Social Security benefits, is projected past worklife where the framework allows.
A decedent would have spent part of that income on personal needs rather than on the household, and the survivors' loss excludes that share. The personal consumption deduction is derived from published household expenditure data adjusted to the household's size and income: smaller households spend a larger share on each member, and the percentage typically falls as household income rises. Because the deduction scales the whole earnings figure it is the assumption most likely to be contested, and the report states the percentage, its source, and the result under the alternatives. The mitigation and offsets page describes the deduction alongside the others.
To the net earnings the economist adds the replacement value of the household services the decedent performed: cooking, cleaning, home and yard maintenance, household management, transportation, and care of children or other family members, measured from the household's account and time-use data and valued at local replacement wage rates. This component stands on its own and does not depend on the decedent having earned wages; for a homemaker or a caregiver it is often the largest component. Where the framework allows, the value of guidance, counsel, and care to minor children is presented as a separate component with its basis stated.
Each survivor's loss runs over that survivor's period of dependency. A spouse's loss of support typically runs through the decedent's expected life or worklife; a child's through majority or the completion of education, as the record and the framework support. Household services run over the decedent's life expectancy from the current published life tables, because household work does not stop at retirement. The report presents the periods separately so counsel can address each and so the trier of fact can see how the total changes with the horizon.
The future components are reduced to present value at a rate tied to low-risk yields, with growth and discount assumptions on a consistent basis, as the present value method page describes. The summary shows past and future loss by component and by survivor, and the sensitivity analysis shows the effect of the consumption percentage, the horizon, and the discount rate. Where the estate's claim and the survivors' claims are separate, the report presents the components applicable to each so the same figures support both without double counting.
It is taken whenever the claim measures the survivors' loss of support, which is the usual case. Some frameworks measure a different loss, such as the decedent's own lost earnings in a survival claim, where the deduction may not apply. The report follows the framework counsel identifies.
The earnings component may be small or zero, but household services, retirement income the decedent shared, and support to dependents remain. The analysis measures what the decedent actually contributed, whatever its form.
Only where the record supports it: a promotion already offered, a degree in progress, or a business whose financial statements show the trajectory. The report shows the result with and without the contested element.
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