“Pecuniary loss” means economic loss, the kinds of damages that a personal injury or wrongful death pays to cover expenses, lost earnings, and other monetary harm. These are an important part of any injury case and are the only damages you can get in a wrongful death claim.
Many pecuniary losses are calculated by looking at the bills and records of payment in the case. This is common for medical bills, vehicle repair bills, burial/funeral costs, etc. In all cases, damages are typically limited to what is “reasonable.” When someone becomes disabled or dies, calculating future lost earnings and medical expenses requires looking at tables or hiring financial experts.
If you were injured or lost a loved one, call our NYC personal injury lawyers at The Carrion Law Firm for a free case review at (718) 841-0083.
What Are Pecuniary Damages in a NYC Wrongful Death Case?
When people file for a loved one’s wrongful death, the damages they can get for themselves from the case are limited to “pecuniary” damages. This restriction is found in E.P.T. Law § 5-4.3, but the definition of “pecuniary injuries” is not there.
Whether you check a legal dictionary or a regular dictionary, the answer is the same: “pecuniary” just means related to money. This is no different than saying “financial damages” or “economic damages.”
In a court case, “pecuniary” or “economic” damages typically include the following:
- Lost income
- Lost support
- Medical bills
- Property damage
- Burial and funeral costs
- And any other expenses or costs the injury or accident caused.
Can You Claim Pain and Suffering or Loss of Companionship in a Wrongful Death Case?
Because of this restriction that damages have to be “pecuniary,” you cannot claim pain and suffering damages or loss of companionship damages for your family. However, you can still include pain and suffering in your case.
The victim’s own damages are also claimable when they die. This is done in a parallel case known as a “survival claim,” where their estate claims the damages they faced before death and distributes them to their heirs.
In that lawsuit, you can claim the victim’s pre-death pain and suffering. If they lingered for a long time or faced a very scary accident, these damages can be quite high.
Ultimately, family members cannot claim damages for their own suffering from a loss, but they can claim damages for the victim’s own suffering.
What Are “Reasonable” Damages?
Many economic or pecuniary damages in injury and wrongful death cases must be “reasonable.” This most commonly comes up when claiming “reasonable” medical expenses or “reasonable” funeral and burial costs.
Medical Expenses
The amount you actually paid or were actually charged might be higher than what is “reasonable,” but this is rare. In practice, doctors and hospitals typically only charge “reasonable” costs, and the insurance companies and patients typically accept these costs as “reasonable” and pay them.
If, instead, a hospital tries to charge you excessive fees, the defendant does not have to accept these as “reasonable” and may try to pay a lesser amount. Our Buffalo, NY personal injury lawyers may need to present evidence of common industry practices to show what is actually reasonable.
Funeral and Burial Costs
When it comes to burial and funeral costs, the “reasonable” requirement is there to cut off how much people can claim. For example, you should be able to claim the cost of a local burial, use of a funeral home, and fees for a religious ceremony, as these are reasonable parts of a funeral and burial service. However, you may not be able to claim the cost of extravagant extras.
Calculating Pecuniary Damages
Most pecuniary damages are calculated based on the bills you received for the service. This is common with medical bills, burial/funeral costs, and vehicle repairs. Other services, such as the cost of childcare while you are hospitalized, can also be claimed based on the bills/receipts you present.
Other pecuniary damages require more in-depth analysis, particularly lost wages.
Calculating Lost Wages in Injury and Wrongful Death Claims
If you were unable to work for a few days, weeks, or months, but you are now back to 100%, we can look at your typical wages to calculate how much you lost during those periods. When analyzing lost wages with ongoing disabilities or death, calculations are harder.
Info We Need
To calculate future losses, we have to look at two things:
- How much would the victim have made for the rest of their life without the injury?
- How much will the victim make for the rest of their life after the injury?
In many cases, the victim is dead or permanently disabled, so they will make $0 going forward. The losses would then equal how much they would have made.
In others, a victim who survived their accident might face disabilities that cause reduced pay, meaning we need to subtract these two amounts to find the total losses.
Calculating Individual Wages
To get to these amounts, we need the victim’s pay stubs, work history, etc., so that we can analyze how much money they were making. Many workers have set wages, sticking to an hourly wage or yearly salary. We can rely on tax records, bank records, and other proof of these values.
Some workers have odd schedules, working seasonal or part-time jobs. We can take these things into account by averaging out wages across longer periods.
Projecting Life-Long Wages
To look at what a person would make in their whole life, we need to consult experts. There are tables for many of these things that lawyers can use to project factors like…
- How many more working years does someone of the victim’s age, sex, etc. have left before retirement?
- How many raises or career changes might this person have faced?
From there, we can see what those factors look like post-injury and compare the two. For example, now that the victim has an amputated leg and changed careers, what are their growth opportunities like in the new job?
Consulting Experts
Some of these calculations require us to consult financial experts and actuaries who can help with these calculations and present them to the court. Often, we need to take into account the very real factors that life throws at you, such as what kind of work is available in your area with this new disability, and how might the disability affect your life expectancy?
Calculating Other Future Damages
Other things like medical bills might have future costs associated in injury cases, too. Calculating these future damages requires help from medical experts as well as financial experts.
Call Our NYC Injury and Wrongful Death Attorneys Today
Call The Carrion Law Firm at (718) 841-0083 for a free case review with our Syracuse, NY injury lawyers.