Critiquing a plaintiff’s claim for the value of lost household services
- Claims for loss of household services often rely on broad demographic time-use data.
- Generic assumptions may not accurately reflect a specific household’s pre-injury or post-injury circumstances. These assumptions may also ignore recovery prospects, normal aging and pre-injury intentions.
- Careful scrutiny of assumptions can uncover weaknesses in household services damage claims.
Claims for the value of lost household services are a commonly asserted form of economic damages following alleged personal injury or wrongful death events.
Long-standing legal opinions support the intuitive belief that the inability of a person to perform their pre-injury level of household services represents a compensable loss. However, the methodologies frequently used to estimate such losses come with limitations inherent in applying broad data to individual circumstances.
Here’s an overview of some common pitfalls and alternative approaches that can help you in evaluating or challenging these claims:
How do you determine the value of lost household services?
Many plaintiffs’ claims for the value of lost household services are based on data compiled by Expectancy Data and published under the title, “The Dollar Value of a Day.”
This publication provides an accounting of hours spent, on a weekly basis, for men and women in a variety of age groups, employment statuses and household situations. The publication refers to these groupings as “Demographic Time Use Tables.”
Plaintiffs’ claims often rely upon the hours from the “Household Production” and “Caring and Helping” subcategories. These subcategories anecdotally represent activities that an average person would normally provide to the household.
The difference between the hours contributed by an average household member versus the post-injury hours contributed by the injured household member represents the hours lost by the household.
The publication also compiles market wage rates that can be used in conjunction with the loss of hours to estimate the market value of losses to the household.
What is the market value of lost household services?
From the plaintiff’s perspective, the value of the lost household services is a proxy for either the actual payments by the household to replace lost services or the household services that are no longer being provided, i.e., the household is “going without.”
In either situation, the household has lost the “free” services formerly provided by the injured party.
Basis for critique of lost household services claims
Advancing the initial concept of a loss of household services based on generic data to a quantified loss for a specific household requires several assumptions.
Predictably, most plaintiffs’ experts use simplifying assumptions while defense experts seek to identify exceptions between the generic data and the specific household.
The following items describe five commonly cited exceptions:
1. Differences between the injured party’s household and Time Use Tables
An implicit assumption for most plaintiffs’ claims is that the pre-injury time contributed to the household is similar to the generic Time Use Tables for their demographic.
The generic results represent a predicted amount of time that the injured party formerly contributed to the household. Most injured parties can perform some level of household services, which would result in a reduction to the total time to reflect the only lost time.
The post-injury amount of time contributed to the household is frequently based on interviews with the injured party’s family, which are converted to a summary of hours or percentages.
At least two issues should be recognized when measuring the lost time for the household:
- How similar were the generic Time Use Tables to the specific household prior to the injury?
- How reliable are the post-injury time estimates contributed by the injured party?
2. Simplistic concept of lost household services
Many plaintiffs’ claims for lost household services rely on a “snapshot” of the injured person’s pre-injury and post-injury time contributions. The claims frequently assume that the extent of this impairment will persist indefinitely — frequently until end-of-life.
Reliance upon a snapshot ignores a large variety of household dynamics that can be expected to change as people age, even in the case of severe injuries.
3. Pre-injury intentions for the household matter
Snapshots of pre-injury time contributions also ignore the intentions that the injured party may have had prior to their injury.
For example, an injured 45-year-old male could immediately lose their ability to perform needed lawn maintenance because of an injury. A proper claim would represent the cost, actual or implied, of hiring a lawn care service to replace the service previously performed by the male.
However, it is conceivable that this same male would have chosen to retain a lawn service at some point in the future — even without an injury.
Most plaintiffs’ claims fail to reflect such pre-injury intentions.
4. Recovery prospects from the injury should not be ignored
The snapshot often fails to differentiate between permanent injuries and injuries where recovery is apparent or a distinct possibility.
For example, a blind person will permanently lose the ability to drive an automobile, thereby reducing their contribution to household production.
Alternatively, a person with prospects for recovery, full or partial, may be expected to resume the household services they are currently unable to perform. Vocational experts can be helpful in estimating the extent of recovery or time periods of impairment.
Note that the recovery prospects for the injured party should be viewed in conjunction with their pre-injury intentions and the reasonableness that they would continue to provide household services past some future age.
5. Changing composition of the hours
Many of the plaintiffs’ claims for household services perform their calculations at the Household Production and Caring and Helping subcategory levels.
Plaintiffs frequently argue that specific activities falling within the Household Production and Caring and Helping subcategories are allowed to evolve, thereby keeping the lost hours consistent over time.
For example, the hours of lawn maintenance performed by a 45-year-old male may eventually be replaced by grocery shopping or other less physically demanding tasks.
Defense may alternatively argue that the specific contributions lost at the time of the injury reflect the entirety of lost household services. Once these specific activities were expected to cease, the claim similarly ceases. Future anticipated activities are not claimable.
How Wipfli can help
Need support evaluating or challenging complex economic damage claims? Learn how Wipfli’s fraud investigation and litigation support team can help you assess assumptions, quantify damages and strengthen your case strategy.
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