Massachusetts Forensic Economics Expert Services

The Superior Court, which its page describes as a trial court of general jurisdiction with justices sitting in every county, in the personal injury, medical malpractice, wrongful death and employment actions where KWVRS's economic evidence is offered; the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, with divisional offices in Boston, Worcester and Springfield, in federal damages matters; the Probate and Family Court where a support or earning capacity question has an economic component; and the Department of Industrial Accidents, which decides the benefits in a disputed workers' compensation claim. The Appeals Court and the Supreme Judicial Court review the trial courts' decisions. Attorneys confirm the governing rule for their case.

Lost earnings to the date of the report and lost earning capacity from that date forward, the fringe benefits attached to the lost earnings, the household services the person can no longer perform and the cost of the life care plan, each reduced to present value. In a wrongful death matter the analysis values what the decedent would have provided in earnings, benefits and household services, less the decedent's own personal consumption; in an employment matter, the earnings and benefits lost until the person is expected to find comparable work.

Worklife expectancy is read from published worklife tables for the person's age, sex and education and fixes the years over which the loss is carried. Each year's loss is projected with an earnings growth assumption from government series and discounted to the valuation date with a rate from the same kind of source. The report states each input and where it came from, and shows how the present value total changes as each input is varied across its reasonable range, so that the court can see what turns on any one assumption.

Fringe benefits are valued from the employer's documented contributions where the payroll and benefit records show them, and otherwise from the Bureau of Labor Statistics program on Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, which measures the average employer cost per employee hour worked for wages and salaries and for benefits such as paid leave, insurance, retirement and legally required benefits. Household services are valued at the replacement cost of the hours the person can no longer perform, from the person's own account of the household's work checked against published time-use data and priced with published wage data for the occupations that would replace the work.

The economists on the KWVRS roster, who are set out with their credentials on the forensic economics practice page. Every report names its author and documents the method, the records and data relied on and each calculation, so that the opposing economist can reproduce the figures and cross-examination can test the assumptions rather than the arithmetic. The vocational evaluation and the life care plan the analysis draws on are prepared by the roster's vocational experts and certified life care planners and cited rather than restated.

Yes, when it is written to the disclosure requirements of the forum in which the matter is pending, which differ between the Superior Court, the federal district, the Probate and Family Court and the Department of Industrial Accidents. The report documents the method, the data sources and every calculation so that it can be served as the economist's disclosure and reproduced by the other side. Massachusetts expert disclosure summarizes the state's practice; attorneys confirm the governing rule and its timing for their case.

A complete report is typically 30 to 60 days from receipt of complete records. Within that range the timing turns on the tax returns, payroll records and benefit statements to be collected and on whether the analysis waits for a vocational opinion or a life care plan; a disclosure deadline in the Superior Court or the federal district is met by fixing the schedule at engagement, and a rush timeline is arranged case by case when counsel asks for it.

No. Plaintiff and defense counsel receive one analysis, built from the same records, the same worklife tables and the same government series whichever side retains it, so that the opposing economist can rerun every figure. The retaining attorney frames the question; the records and the published data decide the answer, which may be a smaller loss than the claim asserts or none at all. A rebuttal engagement applies the same discipline to an opposing economist's report, stating each difference of data, assumption or method with its effect on the total.