What not to say in a deposition about your spouse...

Below is an excerpt from an economic expert's deposition in a wrongful death case. At this point in the depo, the economist is discussing the role of family income on the calculation of personal consumption.

Q. [By attorney] Did the issue of the amount of the deceased wife, was that relevant to any of your -- any of your calculations?

A. [By economist] It would have been. But I didn't get any idea of what her earnings were. If I had had some idea, it would have impacted (the analysis)... Normally, when people are living together, part of the spouse's income would be consumed by the decedent. In this case, though, they weren't living together.

And the extreme example of that would be if my wife died, economically I would be better off. She doesn't work. She wouldn't be consuming any of my income. That's the extreme view of it. But, again, I saw nothing in her (deceased's wife) deposition indicating how much she worked, how much she made, anything like that to where I could take that into account.