Wrongful death analysis applied to medical malpractice litigation: methodology, deliverables, and case-specific considerations.
A medical malpractice wrongful death analysis follows the same structure as any wrongful death claim, with earnings, personal consumption, household services, and support to dependents, and one added question: the decedent's life and worklife expectancy may already have been shortened by the condition being treated. The economist uses the expectancy the medical evidence supports rather than population averages alone, measures the loss against the outcome proper care would have produced, and, where the physicians disagree on how long the decedent would have lived with proper treatment, presents the loss under each opinion so the fact finder can attach the number to its finding.
The economic loss to survivors when a wage earner or homemaker dies: the decedent's lost earnings and fringe benefits net of personal consumption, the household services the decedent would have provided, and the financial support that would have flowed to dependents. Which elements are recoverable, and whether the loss is measured to the estate or to the survivors, vary by state, so the analysis is structured to the framework counsel identifies and every assumption is stated so it can be examined.
The claim consists of lost earnings and earning capacity attributable to the injury, lost fringe benefits, the replacement cost of household services the patient can no longer perform, the present value of the incremental future care documented in a life care plan or the treating recommendations, and, where the patient has died, the survivor and estate components of a wrongful death analysis. The records that drive the analysis are the earnings and benefit history, the medical opinions that separate the injury from the underlying condition, and the care plan that distinguishes incremental care from the care the underlying condition would have required.
We issue the final report and provide deposition and trial testimony, rebuttal of opposing opinions, and supplemental calculations if the framework or the record changes.
It shortens every stream: earnings, household services, and support to dependents all end at the expectancy the medical evidence supports. The economist states the expectancy applied and its source and shows the total under the alternatives in the record when the physicians disagree.
Past medical expenses are documented from billing records and usually presented by counsel. The economist's work concerns the economic loss to the survivors and the estate from the death itself, projected forward and discounted to present value.
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