KW Economics prepares life care plan costing for personal injury cases venued in Michigan: what the loss claim consists of, the records that drive it, and a present value built to Michigan 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.
Michigan courts require the trial judge to act as gatekeeper for expert testimony, asking whether the economist is qualified, whether the opinion rests on sufficient facts and reliable principles and methods, and whether those methods were applied reliably to the case. A damages report meets that inquiry by naming the published source behind every assumption and tying each to the record.
Highest court: Michigan Supreme Court. Court system: courts.michigan.gov.
Federal venues: Eastern District of Michigan, Western District of Michigan.
Outside the civil courts, wage-loss disputes in workers' compensation matters proceed before the Michigan Workers' Disability Compensation Agency.
Michigan's wrongful death act gathers the survival and death claims into a single action: the estate recovers the decedent's conscious pain and suffering and medical and funeral expenses, and the surviving family recovers lost financial support, services, society, and companionship. Awards are reduced after verdict by collateral-source payments other than those subject to a lien, a plaintiff whose fault exceeds half loses noneconomic damages while economic damages are only reduced, the court reduces future damages to present value under a statutory formula, and interest on the judgment runs from the filing of the complaint.
We issue the final report and provide deposition and trial testimony, rebuttal of opposing present value opinions, and revaluation when the plan is updated.
The same four steps apply to a personal injury case venued in Michigan; the damages framework above decides which components enter the total. Establish the but-for earnings and fringe benefit base from the tax, wage, benefit, and personnel records, or from occupational data for a career still in training. Project the base over a statistically expected worklife with a stated wage growth rate and compare it with the post-injury path the record supports. Value household services from time-use data and local replacement rates, and price the future care in the life care plan item by item with medical cost growth. Discount every future stream to present value at a stated rate and show the sensitivity of the total to the contested assumptions.
Michigan courts require the trial judge to act as gatekeeper for expert testimony, asking whether the economist is qualified, whether the opinion rests on sufficient facts and reliable principles and methods, and whether those methods were applied reliably to the case. A damages report meets that inquiry by naming the published source behind every assumption and tying each to the record. Personal Injury cases venued in Michigan are heard in the Circuit Court (General jurisdiction; larger civil cases, felonies, domestic relations), with final appeals to the Michigan Supreme Court. Matters within federal jurisdiction proceed in the Eastern District of Michigan and Western District of Michigan.
Michigan's wrongful death act gathers the survival and death claims into a single action: the estate recovers the decedent's conscious pain and suffering and medical and funeral expenses, and the surviving family recovers lost financial support, services, society, and companionship. Awards are reduced after verdict by collateral-source payments other than those subject to a lien, a plaintiff whose fault exceeds half loses noneconomic damages while economic damages are only reduced, the court reduces future damages to present value under a statutory formula, and interest on the judgment runs from the filing of the complaint. 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 Michigan rules to a documented figure.
Request a consultation on Life Care Plan Costing or call (201) 343-0700. Plaintiff and defense counsel.