KW Economics prepares life care plan costing for personal injury cases venued in Louisiana: what the loss claim consists of, the records that drive it, and a present value built to Louisiana damages rules and venues. Plaintiff and defense.
For a personal injury claim the life care plan supplies the future medical and care items, and the economist's role is the economic translation of those items into a present value that reconciles with the plan. Each item's frequency, duration, and unit cost is carried forward with the medical cost growth appropriate to its category, summed year by year over the applicable life expectancy, and discounted with the rate stated. The result can stand alone or enter an integrated damages report on the same growth, discount, and life expectancy assumptions as the earnings and household services components.
Reduction of a life care plan's line items to a single present value. The plan's items, frequencies, durations, and unit costs are carried forward with medical cost growth appropriate to each category, then discounted over the applicable life expectancy. Plan authorship stays with the life care planner; our role is the economic translation of the plan into a damages figure that reconciles with the plan and can be examined item by item.
Which component dominates depends on the person's age, occupation, and residual capacity. For a young worker who can no longer perform a skilled trade, future earnings loss over a long worklife usually outweighs everything else. For a person who returns to work at reduced hours or lower pay, the loss is the gap between the but-for path and the post-injury path, and the size of that gap is the contested question. Where a life care plan exists, its present value is often the largest single figure in the report, and household services losses can be substantial when the injured person did most of the home's unpaid work.
Louisiana courts ask the trial judge to act as gatekeeper for expert testimony, examining whether the economist is qualified, whether the method is reliable and accepted in the profession, and whether it was applied reliably to the facts of the case. An economic damages report answers those questions by tying each input to the record and citing its published sources.
Highest court: Louisiana Supreme Court. Court system: lasc.org.
Federal venues: Eastern District of Louisiana, Middle District of Louisiana, Western District of Louisiana.
Outside the civil courts, wage-loss disputes in workers' compensation matters proceed before the Louisiana Office of Workers' Compensation Administration.
Louisiana's civil code provides a survival action for the decedent's own damages and a separate wrongful death action for the designated beneficiaries' losses, both measured under a pure comparative fault system. The collateral source rule applies with exceptions the courts have carved out for amounts written off by providers, and judicial interest runs on tort awards from the date of judicial demand.
We issue the final report and provide deposition and trial testimony, rebuttal of opposing present value opinions, and revaluation when the plan is updated.
For a personal injury claim the life care plan supplies the future medical and care items, and the economist's role is the economic translation of those items into a present value that reconciles with the plan. Each item's frequency, duration, and unit cost is carried forward with the medical cost growth appropriate to its category, summed year by year over the applicable life expectancy, and discounted with the rate stated. The result can stand alone or enter an integrated damages report on the same growth, discount, and life expectancy assumptions as the earnings and household services components.
Louisiana courts ask the trial judge to act as gatekeeper for expert testimony, examining whether the economist is qualified, whether the method is reliable and accepted in the profession, and whether it was applied reliably to the facts of the case. An economic damages report answers those questions by tying each input to the record and citing its published sources. Personal Injury cases venued in Louisiana are heard in the District Court (General jurisdiction; civil and criminal cases at the parish level), with final appeals to the Louisiana Supreme Court. Matters within federal jurisdiction proceed in the Eastern District of Louisiana, Middle District of Louisiana, and Western District of Louisiana.
Louisiana's civil code provides a survival action for the decedent's own damages and a separate wrongful death action for the designated beneficiaries' losses, both measured under a pure comparative fault system. The collateral source rule applies with exceptions the courts have carved out for amounts written off by providers, and judicial interest runs on tort awards from the date of judicial demand. The report presents past and future amounts separately, states every rate and table with its source, and shows the result under the alternatives the other side is likely to argue, so counsel can apply the Louisiana rules to a documented figure.
Request a consultation on Life Care Plan Costing or call (201) 343-0700. Plaintiff and defense counsel.