Undocument worker' lost wages in NY

From Bender's Immigration blog:

"[U]ndocumented workers who violate IRCA may not recover lost wages in a personal injury action based on a violation of New York Labor Law." Ambrosi v. 1085 Park Ave. LLC, S.D.N.Y., Sept. 25, 2008

See decision...

Value of housework by gender, income, and race

In injury and death cases, the value of lost household work that would have been performed by the injuried or deceased is frequently an issue. In these cases, the value of the lost household work is determined by first calculating how many hours the person would have normally performed. Second, the market value of the lost household services experienced by the person is calculated. The market value of the household services is determined by the average hourly wage of individuals who perform similar services in the labor market. The total value is found by multiplying the value and number of hours performed.

The question is does the person's gender, income level, and race matter in the calculation?

The answer is yes, yes, yes.


In a Princenton working paper titled: Does Household Work Matter Anymore?
Comparisons of Household Production and the Distribution of Income in the United States
in 1965-66 and 2003' the authors, Cathleen D. Zick, Ph.D., W. Keith Bryant, Ph.D., and Sivithee Srisukhumbowornchai, M.S. provide some insights.

They find that the value of household production is:

* higher for women
* decreases as income goes up (less hours worked)
* African-American and Hispanic males have fewer household production hours
* Hispanic females work more household production hours

See also:


Bryant, W.K., C.D. Zick, and H. Kim. 1992. The dollar value of household work. Ithaca, NY:
Conrell University, College of Human Ecology.

Calculating economic damages when death is imminent

Q: In a case where a person is diagnosed with a terminal condition, such as mesothelioma – and who has 12 to 24 months to live at the most. Would you treat this as a personal injury case or a wrongful death case?

[Note: The issue revolves around the fact that in personal injury cases, the economist would need to remove personal consumption from the damages. Personal consumption factors would make the final damages number anywhere from 10 to 40% lower in a PI case than a wrongful death case]

A: Here are some responses from a popular forensic economics list serv:

1. you don't have a choice. He is not dead. What you have is a 'lost years' case, assuming the defendant was the cause of his current condition.
2. Yes. Deduct consumption starting at when the docs say he is likely to die. Or give alternatives based on l. e. of both 12 and 24 months. ( Try to get a doc's opinion on how long he is likely to be able to work, perform household services, etc. If unable to get that, assume conservatively that he will be able to keep going until he dies
3. ....How one defines short is problematic, but the FE need not be concerned with this definition if GIVEN a probability of death within two years. As has been repeated on this list several times, one way to avoid a plaintiff bias in such a case is to run two separate but linked columns on your spreadsheet with a crossover to ascending and descending column for values during life and death in any given year....

Daubert watch: Admissible police practices testimony in a personal injury case

From: dauberttracker.com


4. Bates vs. King County
Date of Decision: 5/9/2007
Jurisdiction: Federal
Docket Numbers: C05-1348RSM
Court: Washington, Western District
Judge(s): RICARDO S. MARTINEZ, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE.


Case Summary:

Plaintiff, Byron S. Bates, filed an action for damages and municipal liability against defendants King County, et. al., The plaintiff alleged that he was shot and injured at the time of his arrest by a deputy and asserted that King County failed to sensitize its police personnel on best police practices. The plaintiff proffered the testimony of Lee Libby, as an expert witness in police practices.The defendants filed a motion to exclude the testimony of Mr. Libby.

The court found that Mr. Libby had applied reliable methods to collect and analyze information related to this case and had followed proper procedures for a police practices expert.The trial court held that Mr. Libby's testimony would help the trier of fact to assess the reasonableness of the deputies' actions and the internal investigation performed by King County. The trial court observed that the probative value of Mr. Libby's testimony as to proper police officer and police department conduct was not substantially outweighed by any unfair prejudice, potential for confusion of issues, or danger of misleading the jury. Motion to exclude denied.

Measuring undocumented Mexican worker wages: Collecting information

For Mexican undocumented worker cases, specialized and more specific work life expectancy estimates for the injured or deceased worker can be constructed using the methodology in research such as: 'How Long Do Mexican Migrants Work in the U.S.?', Journal of Forensic Economics 19(2), 2006, pp.217-229.

However there is some data and information that must be collected about the deceased or injured undocumented worker that is not routinely collected in injury and death cases. The check list of items to collect in undocumented worker cases is below.


* Gender
* Age
* Maritial status
* Years of education (home + U.S)
* Does the worker have familiy in U.S.?
* Was the injured or deceased involved in sports or social organizations prior to the injury?
* Injured or deceased does not BOTH speak and read english
* Individual was earning more than minimum wage at time of injury
* Person is legalized or authorized worker
* City in U.S. in which they lived
* Date of migration
* Total years in U.S

Where to get life care cost data

Survey data for cost of services, supplies, durable medical goods and equipment. etc. has been collected annually by MediSys, Inc., for over 15 years.

Among the companies surveyed are:
Apria Medical
Alamo Mobility
APC Home Care
Girling Health Care
Central Texas Rehabilitation Associates
Columbia Case Management, Inc.

Estimating economic damages based Mexican wages

Sources of Mexican wage information:

www.inegi.gob.mx: The Mexican version of the U.S. BLS gold standard for wage information. A wealth of information on salaries (salarios, ingreso, and -->Remuneraciones). Many of the statistics and wage information is provided in U.S. dollars. Tables showing the salary distribution (rangos de ingreso mensual) can also be found.

Information can also be found on the age distribution of Mexican workers. The age distribution is useful because it can help determine a reasonable Mexican work life. There are also statistics on the unemployment rate and the minimum wage for Mexican workers. The minimum wage varies by Mexican state.

(In some setting, the low end estimate of the loss of Mexican earnings capacity can be determined using the minimum wage)

Other sources:

Annuario Estadistico De Los Estados Unidos Mexicano

Instituto Nacional De Estadistica Geografia e Informatica

Life care planners in their own words

How do life care planners determine the cost of medical services and future medical care needs for injured plaintiffs? Here is an interesting exceprt from a life care planner deposition in Madison, Iowa.:



Page 1

13 Now, one of the things you indicate here is that
14 the current cost data represents the fair market value of
15 goods and services in the geographic domain where the
16 majority of care is anticipated. Is that where those
17 figures come from?
....
23 A. Right.
24 Q. -- represents the fair market place for goods and
25 services in a geographic domain where the majority of care

Page 2
1 is anticipated.
2 A. Yes, sir.
3 Q. Is that what was used here?
4 A. Well, actually, we used the Madison, Iowa and
5 surrounding area where we expected the majority of her
6 specialty care to be performed.
7 Q. And where -- where do I get that data from the
8 Madison, Iowa area regarding costs or services?
9 A. Those things in which it's tied to a geographic
10 factor, such as Physicians' Fee Reference, where we have
11 physicians' service and therapeutic services and
12 diagnostics are geographically adjusted. For my inpatient
13 hospitalizations, we're using 75th percentile for the
14 nation, because the nation is broken in 11 regions
15 throughout the United States and then bundled. And so
16 we're representing the 75th percentile; that's Solucient.
17 The Physicians' Fee Reference is what has the
18 geographical adjustments. So physicians' services,
19 surgeons' services, psychological services,
20 physical/occupational therapy services and all the
21 diagnostic services, anything that CPT code generated is
22 adjusted for the geographical factor.
23 Q. You said you use a 75th percentile?
24 A. Seventy-fifth percentile for both: the
25 professional services and hospitalization. I'll let you

Page 3
1 know, by the way, Solucient has been acquired this year by
2 Thomson. Thomson Healthcare Corp. If you're going to do
3 a research on it.
4 Q. Thomson Healthcare Corp?
5 A. Thomson Healthcare something; I'll have to go
6 back and get it. Just renewed our data with them and are
7 going through evaluating it again.