KW Economics prepares life care plan costing for product liability cases venued in Colorado: what the loss claim consists of, the records that drive it, and a present value built to Colorado damages rules and venues. Plaintiff and defense.
Product liability injuries such as burns, amputations, and neurological injuries produce life care plans with long horizons and heavy recurring items, and the injured person is often a child whose plan runs for a full life expectancy. The economist carries each item forward with category-specific medical cost growth, schedules replacements at the plan's intervals, and discounts the stream over the life expectancy the medical evidence supports. In a mass tort setting the same growth, discount, and life expectancy conventions are applied across the claimants' plans so the valuations are consistent in method and each traces to its own plan.
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.
The exposure tracks the injury: burns, amputations, and neurological injuries produce large future earnings and care losses; less severe injuries produce a bounded past loss and limited future treatment. Because product cases often involve children, homemakers, and retirees, the household services and care components frequently outweigh the earnings loss, and the analysis must be built from those components rather than from wage records that do not exist. For fatal injuries the exposure follows the wrongful death structure with the personal consumption deduction as the key assumption.
Colorado applies a liberal but reliability-based inquiry: the trial court asks whether the economist's principles are reasonably reliable, whether the witness is qualified to apply them, and whether the testimony will help the jury, without requiring general acceptance. A damages report meets that inquiry by showing the published basis for each assumption and its application to the record.
Highest court: Colorado Supreme Court. Court system: courts.state.co.us.
Federal venues: District of Colorado.
Outside the civil courts, wage-loss disputes in workers' compensation matters proceed before the Colorado Division of Workers' Compensation.
Colorado's wrongful death action is measured by the net pecuniary loss to the heirs plus a limited allowance for grief, while the survival action for the estate excludes the decedent's pain and suffering. Awards are reduced after verdict by collateral-source payments other than benefits the plaintiff paid for by contract, recovery is barred once the plaintiff's fault reaches half, and prejudgment interest on personal injury awards runs from the date the claim accrued.
We issue the final report and provide deposition and trial testimony, rebuttal of opposing present value opinions, and revaluation when the plan is updated.
Product liability injuries such as burns, amputations, and neurological injuries produce life care plans with long horizons and heavy recurring items, and the injured person is often a child whose plan runs for a full life expectancy. The economist carries each item forward with category-specific medical cost growth, schedules replacements at the plan's intervals, and discounts the stream over the life expectancy the medical evidence supports. In a mass tort setting the same growth, discount, and life expectancy conventions are applied across the claimants' plans so the valuations are consistent in method and each traces to its own plan.
Colorado applies a liberal but reliability-based inquiry: the trial court asks whether the economist's principles are reasonably reliable, whether the witness is qualified to apply them, and whether the testimony will help the jury, without requiring general acceptance. A damages report meets that inquiry by showing the published basis for each assumption and its application to the record. Product Liability cases venued in Colorado are heard in the District Court (General jurisdiction; larger civil cases, felonies, domestic relations, probate), with final appeals to the Colorado Supreme Court. Matters within federal jurisdiction proceed in the District of Colorado.
Colorado's wrongful death action is measured by the net pecuniary loss to the heirs plus a limited allowance for grief, while the survival action for the estate excludes the decedent's pain and suffering. Awards are reduced after verdict by collateral-source payments other than benefits the plaintiff paid for by contract, recovery is barred once the plaintiff's fault reaches half, and prejudgment interest on personal injury awards runs from the date the claim accrued. 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 Colorado rules to a documented figure.
Request a consultation on Life Care Plan Costing or call (201) 343-0700. Plaintiff and defense counsel.