Building a Daubert-Ready Economic Damages Report

Abstract

Admissibility frameworks ask whether an expert opinion rests on sufficient facts or data, applies reliable methods, and applies them reliably to the case. For economic damages testimony the discipline's methods are well established, so challenges target the inputs: an earnings base that departs from the records, a growth rate inconsistent with the discount rate, a horizon no table supports, offsets ignored, or a projection with no foundation. This paper sets out how a damages report is built so that each input is visible, sourced, and testable, and how the report, the work file, and the sensitivity analysis together answer the questions a gatekeeping court asks.

Key takeaways

• The frameworks rarely exclude the discipline; they exclude inputs the record does not support.
• Every input in a defensible report is stated, sourced to the records or a published series, and reproducible.
• Growth and discount assumptions must be drawn on a consistent basis and from comparable periods.
• A sensitivity analysis and an organized work file convert an admissibility fight into a dispute over weight.

What is inside

1. What the frameworks ask of an economic opinion
2. Foundation: the records and the assumptions adopted
3. The earnings base and the projection
4. Horizons: worklife and life expectancy
5. Benefits, offsets, and consumption
6. Discounting and consistency
7. Sensitivity, reproducibility, and the work file

What the frameworks ask of an economic opinion

Federal courts and most state courts apply a reliability-based gatekeeping framework under which the trial judge decides whether an expert's method is reliable and reliably applied to the facts, considering factors such as testing, peer review and publication, error rate, controlling standards, and general acceptance. A minority of states apply a general-acceptance framework that asks only whether the method is accepted in the relevant community. The federal versus state court guide compares them.

For economic damages testimony the distinction matters less than it might seem. Projection from documented earnings with published wage growth, worklife expectancy from published tables, replacement cost valuation of household services, personal consumption deductions from expenditure data, and discounting at low-risk yields are established methods taught in the field's literature and applied by economists on both sides of the bar. Courts excluding economic opinions almost always cite the application: a conclusion connected to the data only by the expert's assertion, an input with no source, or an assumption the record contradicts. A Daubert-ready report is therefore a report in which every input can be traced.

References

• Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993). supreme.justia.com
• Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137 (1999). supreme.justia.com
• General Electric Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136 (1997). supreme.justia.com
• Fed. R. Evid. 702. law.cornell.edu
• Fed. R. Civ. P. 26. law.cornell.edu
• Skoog, G. R., Ciecka, J. E., & Krueger, K. V. (2011). The Markov process model of labor force activity: Extended tables of central tendency, shape, percentile points, and bootstrap standard errors. Journal of Forensic Economics, 22(2), 165-229. doi.org
• U.S. Department of the Treasury. (n.d.). Daily Treasury par yield curve rates. home.treasury.gov
• National Association of Forensic Economics. (n.d.). NAFE's ethics statement. Retrieved August 27, 2026. nafe.net