When a person has been injured due to the negligence of another person or corporation, that person (known as the Plaintiff) has the right to file a lawsuit for monetary damages against the party at fault.
In an injury case, the monetary damages that Plaintiff has the right to obtain money for consists of the following categories:
- Past and future medical costs
- Past and future loss of earnings
- Past and future pain and suffering
Some injuries involve only past loss of income, which is easy to demonstrate at trial by showing the jury the Plaintiff’s normal earnings in the past. However, proving future loss of earnings is much more involved, and it can sometimes be the basis of the largest part of the jury verdict or settlement.
The loss of future income is calculated by retaining two experts who, in conjunction, provide expert testimony demonstrating the Plaintiff’s loss of income. These are the Vocational Rehabilitation expert and the expert economist.
A Vocational Rehabilitation expert is a person trained in examining a person’s injuries and, assuming they are permanent injuries, determines if those injuries will force the Plaintiff to give up his or her current job and seek a new job. Some serious injuries, such as a facial scar, are horrible but do not result in a loss of income. Other common injuries, such as injuries to the back, can result in the Plaintiff no longer being able to perform his previous job function. The task of the Vocational Rehabilitation expert is to survey the employment market and determine what types of employment the Plaintiff is still capable of performing.
The figure calculated by the Vocational Rehabilitation expert can result in a huge amount of monetary damages. For example, assume that a plumber was earning $60,000 per year, but the highest wage job that the injury sustained by the Plaintiff may result in an ability to earn only $40,000 per year. If the injured Plaintiff was 30 years old, he would have a 35 year work life expectancy. Thus, multiplying $20,000 times 35 produces a loss of $700,000.
That number is then provided to the economist in order to come up with the present value of $20,000 per year paid over 35 years. Because of inflation, coupled with the fact that future payments divided into $20,000 per year result in a value somewhat smaller than $700,000 paid immediately.
The use of Vocational Rehabilitation experts and economists is expensive, probably adding about $10,000 to the litigation costs in a lawsuit. However, their retention is critical for a Plaintiff to obtain full damages for the injuries he or she has sustained due to the fault of another person or corporation.