Forensic economist (lost earnings)
Expert class library · Personal injury · Either side
Calculates lost past and future earnings, household services, and the present value of future care costs. Applies worklife expectancy, wage growth, and discount rates to the facts of the injured or deceased person.
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Questions this testimony turns on
- What would the plaintiff have earned over a full worklife but for the injury or death?
- What earning capacity remains after the injury, and what is the net loss?
- What wage growth and discount rates should be used to reduce future losses to present value?
- In a death case, what deductions for personal consumption or living expenses are appropriate?
Methods
- Worklife expectancy analysis
- Earnings capacity projection
- Present value discounting
- Household services valuation
How the testimony is attacked
- Assumptions unsupported by the record. The most common attack is that the model's inputs do not match the evidence. In Elcock v. Kmart the Third Circuit held the plaintiff's economist should have been excluded because his model rested on empirical assumptions about her losses that the record did not support.
- Speculative career paths. Defendants challenge projections for careers the plaintiff never pursued. In Doe v. Trustees of Dartmouth College the court excluded the economist's cardiologist earnings scenario because the plaintiff had planned to become a primary care physician.
- Lack of case-specific experience. Opponents argue an economist who has never valued a similar plaintiff is unqualified. The Dartmouth court rejected that argument, holding that general experience with lost earnings analyses and physician practice valuations was enough.
- Disputed inputs such as living expenses or alternative jobs. Defendants attack omitted offsets, such as personal consumption in a death case or jobs the plaintiff could still hold. Courts in Dartmouth and Walton v. Cole treated those disputes as matters for cross-examination rather than exclusion.
- Race-, sex-, or ethnicity-based worklife data. Plaintiffs increasingly challenge defense projections that lower damages using demographic tables. In G.M.M. v. Kimpson the court scrutinized a defense economist's reliance on ethnicity-based earnings data in a lead paint injury case.
- No admissible foundation for impaired capacity. Without medical or vocational support for reduced earning capacity, the economist's numbers have nothing to rest on. In Ow Buland v. NCL the Eleventh Circuit affirmed exclusion of the passenger's economist and a directed verdict on lost earning capacity.
What the public record shows
Courts have filed at least 1 opinions since 2015 that discuss this class of testimony and cite Daubert or Rule 702, as of October 2, 2026. Three that show how courts handle this class of testimony:
| Outcome | Case | Court | Year | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Excluded | Elcock v. Kmart Corp.233 F.3d 734 | 3d Cir. | 2000 | The Third Circuit held that the plaintiff's economist's lost future earnings opinion should have been excluded because his damages model relied on assumptions that lacked foundation in the record. |
| Limited | Doe v. Trustees of Dartmouth College2023 DNH 131 | D.N.H. | 2023 | The court found the plaintiff's economist qualified and her present-value earnings method reliable, but excluded her projections of earnings as a cardiologist because the plaintiff had planned a primary care career. |
| Admitted | Walton v. ColeDel. Super. Ct. Jan. 3, 2022 | Del. Super. Ct. | 2022 | In a wrongful death case the court admitted the plaintiffs' forensic economist as relevant and reliable, rejecting the argument that he failed to account properly for each decedent's living expenses. |
Each case links to the free opinion text on CourtListener.
In federal court: amended Rule 702
In federal court, since December 1, 2023, Rule 702 says expressly that the party offering an expert must show the court it is more likely than not that the testimony meets each requirement: that it rests on sufficient facts or data, uses reliable methods, and reflects a reliable application of those methods to the case. Questions about the basis of an opinion are no longer automatically matters of weight for the jury. For how the circuits have applied the amendment, see the Rule 702 tracker, which follows each court of appeals; for what that means for preparing or attacking this class of expert, see the guide on amended Rule 702.
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Updated October 2, 2026. How this page is built: rulings are found by searching court opinions on CourtListener. The summaries are written by AI working from the full text of each opinion, and every citation and link is checked automatically. Outcomes are labelled by what the court did with the expert’s testimony. No individual expert is named. This page summarises public decisions for orientation and is not legal advice; read the opinion before relying on any ruling. Spotted an error? Tell us.