Methods

Transferable skills analysis (TSA) is a vocational methodology that identifies occupations a person could perform based on skills developed in past work, applied to current medical and functional restrictions and labor market conditions.

A labor market survey (LMS) documents the availability of specific occupations in the claimant's relevant labor market, typically including wage ranges, employer names, and openings.

Worklife expectancy is the number of additional years a person of a given age, sex, education, and labor force status is expected to be economically active. Published tables are used to bound future earnings projections.

Present value analysis reduces a projected stream of future damages to a single lump sum equivalent in today's dollars, accounting for the time value of money and expected growth of the underlying cash flows.

Where a court allows a figure, an economist values hedonic damages, the damages claimed for the loss of enjoyment of life, in four steps: a value of life from published value-of-statistical-life studies, converted to a value per year, multiplied by the share of life's enjoyment the injury took, and projected over the person's life expectancy at present value. Whether the loss can be recovered, and whether an economist may put a number on it for a jury, are decided by each forum's law, and courts have reached different answers.

Collateral source analysis addresses the effect of insurance, public benefits, or third-party payments on damages, depending on the jurisdiction's collateral source rule.

The Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) is a U.S. Department of Labor reference that classifies over 12,000 occupations (U.S. Department of Labor, 1991) by title, code, physical demands, working conditions, and specific vocational preparation (SVP).

O*NET OnLine is the U.S. Department of Labor's successor to the DOT (National Center for O*NET Development, n.d.), providing continuously updated information on occupational tasks, skills, knowledge, abilities, work activities, and labor market statistics.

Life care plan development is a structured process that translates treating-team recommendations, peer-reviewed literature, and geographically matched cost data into a comprehensive projection of future medical and non-medical care needs.

A functional capacity evaluation (FCE) is a performance-based assessment, usually given by a licensed physical or occupational therapist, that measures the work a person can safely do. Kincaid Wolstein Vocational and Rehabilitation Services (KWVRS) does not perform functional capacity evaluations; its experts, retained by plaintiff and defense counsel, read FCE reports prepared by others and account for them in their own opinions.