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I am a stay-at-home mom with three young children, recently confined to bed for three weeks due to injuries suffered in an automobile accident. My husband works full time. How do you calculate my lost earning capacity? How do I document it?
Just because you do not work outside the home does not mean you do not have any lost earning capacity or even lost wages. You are not “just a homemaker”. You are a person with an education, skills, and possibly some work experience prior to deciding to stay home, and you have earning potential. Moreover, there is economic value to the household services you supply to your family every day, from childcare and grocery shopping, to cooking, cleaning, paying bills, and general household management. If you had to hire someone to do it all, you would certainly have to pay quite a bit for those services.
So, lost earnings have these two components, not only for a homemaker, but for everyone else, as well. If you were working for minimum wage in a store, but you had a master’s degree in science, your wage loss would be the money you lost not just working in your current job while healing from your injury, but your lost earning capacity as a master in science. This comes into play particularly if you were disabled for a long period of time; your losses would be much more, because a master’s in science could have great long-term value.
Let’s look at an example. Suppose you have a degree in elementary education. You were a teacher for 5 years prior to deciding to stay at home. Your pre-injury earnings average out to $30,000 a year. Your earning capacity, however, is not just limited to what you did before you were injured, but what you are capable of doing later with your education, experience and background. So all of these factors are taken into account and put together, usually by an economist in the case of a long-term disabling injury. Because you were only “disabled” for 3 weeks, your attorney may choose to handle it him or herself perhaps basing it on other similar cases he or she has had. Maybe those three weeks would have a value of about $4,000 with your background for lost earning capacity. Then, let’s assume you would have to pay someone to do the cooking, ironing, shopping, cleaning, gardening, etc. while you are in bed. That might amount to about $1,500 for the 3 weeks. Your losses could be as much as $5,500 for the 3 weeks given your earning capacity. An experienced attorney should be able to make this argument for you.
Much of this is speculative based on what you and your attorney are able to prove convincingly to a jury. This example is based on fictitious figures and facts, so your individual case may vary from this substantially. For information on how to value your specific claim for lost earning capacity, contact an attorney who is familiar with these types of cases and ask how he would go about proving your losses. |
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