Personal injury economic damages analysis applied to workers' compensation litigation: methodology, deliverables, and case-specific considerations.
When a work injury also gives rise to a third-party action, the integrated report measures the full economic loss the civil claim can reach: lost earnings and fringe benefits, household services, and the present value of future care, components the compensation system pays only in part or not at all. The economist builds each component from the wage records, the carrier's payment history, the work-capacity opinions, and the treatment projection, and presents the gross loss alongside the benefits already paid so lien, offset, and collateral source questions can be answered from the same numbers. The compensation measure and the civil measure are reconciled so the same facts support both.
An integrated economic damages report for an injured person: lost earnings and fringe benefits, lost household services, and the present value of future medical and care costs supplied by treating providers or a life care plan. One report carries every economic component to a single present value with consistent growth, discount, and life expectancy assumptions, so counsel can present the damages as a whole and the jury sees one set of numbers.
Depending on the setting, the claim consists of the present value of future indemnity payments under the schedule that applies, the wage loss or reduced earning capacity that benefits are meant to replace, the lost fringe benefits and household services that the compensation system does not pay but a third-party claim may, and the present value of future medical treatment where a settlement closes future medical liability. The drivers are the pre-injury wage records, the carrier's payment history, the post-injury earnings if any, the work-capacity opinions in the record, and the treatment projection when future medical is being valued.
We issue the final report and provide deposition and trial testimony, rebuttal of opposing economic reports, and recalculation when the life care plan or the medical record is updated.
It identifies them and reports them separately from the gross loss rather than netting them, unless counsel asks for a net presentation. Counsel can then address lien, offset, and collateral source questions under the governing framework with the amounts in hand.
No. The treatment projection comes from the treating providers or a medical cost projection prepared by others. The economist takes the items, frequencies, and costs from that document, applies cost growth, and calculates present value on the same assumptions as the other components.
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