Effectively presenting lost social security benefits to a jury

What is the most effective way to tell a jury about the losses that a plaintiff or a deceased person suffered to their social security retirement benefits? That is a question that our economists many times have to face in cases involving the death or serious injury of a wage earner. We have found:

*Many people, and hence potential jurors, do NOT know how social security benefits are actually calculated.

As a result we have found that it is very useful to explain briefly how social security benefits work. It is especially important to explain how the amount that is deducted from an employees check is matched by the company.

*If the social security benefits are relatively important, it will most likely be easier to explain the loss by simply setting up a table that shows the expected social security payouts and the dates the social security payments were scheduled to occur.

While this is not an overly involved calculation, it is important to recognize that the employee’s contribution will have to be taken out of the individual income loss schedule. This is to avoid double counting since the employee’s contribution is used to fund the social security retirement benefit that is shown in expected social security payout table. The employer’s contribution will also have to be taken out of any fringe benefit modifier that is used to value the individual’s fringe benefit package.

*If the social security benefits are relatively unimportant, it may be easier to explain the loss by just adding the value of the employer’s social security benefit into the fringe benefit loss. Fringe benefit losses are usually shown and valued contemporaneously with the loss of income estimates. Many economist use a fringe benefit multiplier that includes the employer social security match. .