Wrongful death analysis applied to motor vehicle accident litigation: methodology, deliverables, and case-specific considerations.
A fatal crash turns the motor vehicle accident claim into a wrongful death loss to the survivors. The economist documents the decedent's earnings and benefits from tax returns and employer records, projects them over a worklife expectancy with wage growth, deducts personal consumption where the framework requires it, values the household services the decedent provided, and measures the support each dependent would have received. Because policy limits often frame the practical range, the report presents each component and each survivor's loss separately so the same analysis serves settlement evaluation and trial, and it can be restructured if the venue or the pleading changes which components are recoverable.
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 is made up of past lost earnings while the person was out of work, future lost earnings or reduced earning capacity where the injury limits the work the person can return to, lost fringe benefits, the replacement cost of household services during recovery and afterward, and the present value of future care costs when a life care plan or treating recommendations exist. For a fatal crash the analysis becomes a wrongful death loss to the survivors. The drivers are the earnings and benefit history, the employer's records on the period out of work and any accommodation, and the medical and work-capacity opinions in the record.
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.
Several years of tax returns and W-2s, recent pay stubs, the employer's personnel and benefit records, and union or pension records. For a self-employed decedent, business returns and financial statements replace the wage records. The household's composition and the decedent's role at home come from family members' accounts.
The earnings component may be small or absent, but the household services component stands on its own and can be substantial, and any pension or other income that would have supported dependents is measured over the period it would have continued. The report is built from the components the record supports.
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