Wrongful death litigation is a way for grieving families to seek closure. They ask the courts to affirm that a person or business caused the death of an individual through negligence or wrongful acts. They can also request financial compensation for the economic impact of the tragedy. The lost earning potential of the deceased individual could very well be the biggest contributing element to the total amount of compensation sought in a wrongful death lawsuit.
How can families properly calculate the unearned income their loved one could have provided?
Remember that wages don’t stay stagnant
People often underestimate the complexity of calculating lost income. They count the number of years until retirement and then multiply that by the deceased person’s salary. While that can provide a rough estimate, it is far from accurate.
Most professionals continue to seek advancement opportunities and raises throughout their careers. What they earned at the time of their death may have been far less than what they could have earned by the time they retired if they had not died.
Even those who may have intended to remain in the same profession and position permanently may have received cost-of-living wage increases from their employer occasionally. Beyond that, there are employment benefits to consider. The benefits that employers provide are often worth up to 30% of the salary earned by the professional.
Families may need help looking at wage information and calculating what a deceased loved one could have contributed to the household if they had survived. They may need support calculating other economic and non-economic losses as well.
Accurately estimating lost wages is a key step when preparing for a wrongful death lawsuit. The more ambitious an individual was and the more years they had left in their career, the better the chances that their current wages do not accurately represent their long-term earning potential.