When someone is seriously injured in a truck accident, the damage may go far beyond medical expenses. There are often long-term financial consequences that can be tough to project and calculate, so lawyers often bring in economic experts who can help a jury understand just how much the accident has—and will—cost the victim. So how exactly could an economist be helpful in a truck accident lawsuit?

Answer: When a case has sufficiently high losses, such as a catastrophic injury or wrongful death truck accident case, it often makes sense to enlist the expert testimony of an economist to give a more systematic approach to calculating the victim's losses.

In this article we'll look at how an economist's help is extremely useful in defining damages during a truck accident lawsuit.

How Can an Economic Analysis Benefit My Case?

A major element of winning personal injury lawsuits is proving damages—the various economic and non-economic costs incurred by the victim as a direct result of the injuries they suffered from the accident. This isn't about just picking numbers out of the air; at the end of the day, a jury decides the amount of damages. Texas juries are generally very fair when it comes to awarding damages, which is to say they go where the evidence takes them. Therefore, expert testimony from a reputable economist can serve as evidence to bolster your claim in the eyes of a jury.

An economic analysis helps establish two things: The quantitative damages of a case (damages backed up by numbers, like bills and lost wages), and the reasonable values of qualitative damages (things like pain and suffering, mental anguish, and others without objective costs).

• Most quantitative damages can be proven with relative ease because they have paper trails. Medical bills and those from other creditors like landlords or utility companies can be compiled and shown as evidence of economic damages in court. Simply adding up the bills' amounts isn't really enough, though, as projecting how those costs would extend into the future is a whole other matter.
  
• Economic analysis becomes even more crucial when considering the qualitative side of damages. What are the lost years of your life worth? Thousands? Millions? What about all the everyday joys no longer afforded to you—quality time with your loved ones, say, or even just the ability to wake up without pain?
  
  The simple fact is that nobody knows for sure what the verdict would be in any one case, since this loss extends to nearly every quantitative loss in at least some way. On that note, intangible losses are also challenging to include in an overall "formula" of damages. This is exactly where an economist can come in handy.

Let's look at an example of how an economist can help with proving damages: Suppose Bill was injured in a commercial truck accident to the point he is no longer able to work. At the time of the crash, Bill made $50,000 per year and had another 20 years to work.

If we just used "back of the envelope" math—$50,000 X 20 years—you might think it makes sense to ask for $1,000,000 in lost future earnings. Of course, that flat calculation only makes sense if you forget about inflation (something an expert economist will never do).

Assuming that inflation runs at its historical average of 3%, then Bill is actually short over $1.3 million in lost wages. Of course, what are the odds that Bill wouldn't acquire more skills, get better at his job, and earn raises above inflation over the next 20 years? For most workers, the odds of not making more money in the future are pretty slim. In that situation, economists can look at the typical career progression for someone in Bill's profession with his skillset and come up with a better estimate of Bill's losses than basic arithmetic and guesswork can provide.

As you can probably see from this example, an attorney who doesn't bring in an economist when there are serious losses, particularly future losses, isn't making the best case possible for his client.

Why Should an Economist Testify in Court?

Some might not see the value in having an expert deliver the results of an economic analysis in court—can't just about anyone read a bunch of numbers off to a jury?

Not exactly. It’s one thing to look at figures, formulas, and spreadsheets, but it’s another thing entirely to make sure jury members fully understand what they're seeing. That’s where an economist really shines: Most jurors don’t naturally think in terms of lifetime earnings, future care projections, or economic value of lost services, and most plaintiffs can't necessarily explain them in accessible ways. When an economist clarifies those complex calculations in plain language, it can convey the full scope of a client's losses to the jury.

While doctors and accident experts can explain how the crash happened and the resulting injuries, an economist steps in to explain in clear terms what those injuries will cost—now and far into the future. That’s often the difference between getting full value for a case and—to be perfectly blunt—the victim effectively paying for someone else's mistake.

All of this underscores the importance of having a qualified economist involved—to ensure that financial losses are fully understood, fairly valued, and clearly communicated to a jury of ordinary people. However, the average accident victim doesn't necessarily have an expert economist on speed dial or even know where to find one who can help assess their damages.

Grossman Law Can Help

As you can see, economic analysis and the testimony of a qualified economist can be extremely useful in making sure a jury understands the scope and scale of loss. As with any profession, though, some economists' abilities surpass others'. An experienced attorney will likely have established relationships with a network of trusted experts, including economists who are clear, credible, and ready to help persuade a jury.

The Texas truck accidents at Grossman Law Offices have decades of experience helping accident victims seek and obtain every penny they're owed from negligent trucking companies. Over the years we have developed strong working relationships with leading industry experts in many fields, including veteran economists with plenty of practice evaluating and presenting truck accident damages. If you were hurt or lost a loved one in an accident with a commercial vehicle, contact Grossman Law today for a free and confidential consultation. We are available to talk with you 24/7.