Household services analysis applied to traumatic brain injury litigation: methodology, deliverables, and case-specific considerations.
After a brain injury the household services loss often extends beyond the physical tasks to the management of the household itself: bill paying, scheduling, supervising children, and the planning that family members now perform. The economist measures the hours lost by category from the household's account and time-use data, distinguishes the tasks the person can no longer do from those they can do with supervision, and prices each category at the local replacement wage. Where the life care plan also carries attendant care or supervision hours, the valuation reconciles the two so the same hours are not claimed twice.
Replacement-cost valuation of the household production an injured or deceased person can no longer provide: meal preparation, cleaning, home and vehicle maintenance, shopping, child care, and care of other household members. The hours are drawn from national time-use data adjusted to the person's household composition and pre-injury role, and each category is priced at the local wage for the occupation that would replace it, then projected and discounted over the period of loss.
The claim consists of lost earnings and earning capacity, often a total loss when the person cannot return to competitive work or a partial loss when they can work only with supports or at a lower level; lost fringe benefits; the replacement cost of household services, including the supervision and management of daily affairs that family members now provide; and the present value of the care plan, which in serious injury includes attendant care, therapy, medication, and case management over a lifetime. The drivers are the earnings history, the neuropsychological and work-capacity opinions in the record, and a life care plan that specifies each item's frequency and duration.
We issue the final report and provide deposition and trial testimony and rebuttal of opposing household services opinions.
The planning, bill paying, and coordination of a household are household work and are counted when the record shows the person performed them and the injury has ended or limited that role. The hours are drawn from the household's account and time-use data and valued at the local rate for the service that would replace them.
By checking the plan's attendant care and supervision hours against the household services categories. Where the plan already pays for hours that cover a household task, the valuation excludes those hours from the household services claim and states which document controls each category.
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