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The Cost of Household Services, Alberta, 2018: A Survey
by Christopher J. Bruce and Jody Prevost The cost of hiring individuals to perform household services such as housecleaning, snow removal, and handyman repairs can amount to a significant percentage of the damages in a personal injury or fatal accident claim. Yet, despite the importance of these costs, reliable estimates of the components of a household services… Continue reading
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Summer 2018 issue of the Expert Witness newsletter (volume 22, issue 2)
Contents: In this issue of The Expert Witness, we present two articles concerning the component of the plaintiff’s award that is referred to as the “management fee.” What we argue is that there are actually two types of such fees. The Cost of Managing the Plaintiff’s Investments The first of these, and the one that… Continue reading
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The Cost of Managing the Expenditures of a Plaintiff with Reduced Mental Capacity
by Christopher J. Bruce When referring to plaintiffs with normal mental capacity, the term “management fee” usually refers to expenses that plaintiffs incur for advice concerning investment decisions. Decisions concerning how their awards are to be spent – on medical care, accommodation, transportation, etc. – can generally be left to the plaintiffs themselves. Plaintiffs who have… Continue reading
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The Cost of Managing the Plaintiff’s Investments
by Christopher J. Bruce As most individuals are unaccustomed to managing large sums of money, it may be appropriate for plaintiffs to employ advisors to assist them with the investment of their awards. In these cases, it has often been argued that the cost of hiring such advisors should be added to the value of the… Continue reading
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Spring 2018 issue of the Expert Witness newsletter (volume 22, issue 1)
Contents: This issue contains one article. Christopher Bruce investigates the principles that the courts have developed to determine whether experts and their evidence should be admitted into court. Admissibility of Expert Evidence: Personal Injury Litigation Dr. Bruce argues that these principles can usefully be divided into four categories: the requirement that expert testimony be useful; the identification of… Continue reading
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Admissibility of Expert Evidence: Personal Injury Litigation
by Christopher J. Bruce The admission of expert evidence has required that the courts maintain a fine balance between, on the one hand, caution against the possibility that witnesses may usurp the court’s role of forming opinions and drawing conclusions; and, on the other hand, recognition of the fact that juries and triers of fact may… Continue reading
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Spring 2017 issue of the Expert Witness newsletter (volume 21, issue 1)
Contents: This issue contains one article written by the staff at Economica. Selecting the Discount Rate (2017) Recently, Economica undertook a detailed re-evaluation of our recommendations concerning the discount rate. We argue that plaintiffs have available two alternative methods of investing their awards for future losses: the annuity approach, in which plaintiffs use their awards… Continue reading
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Selecting the Discount Rate (2017)
Recently Economica undertook a detailed re-evaluation of our recommendations concerning the discount rate. We argue that plaintiffs have available two alternative methods of investing their awards for future losses. In the first, which we call the annuity approach, plaintiffs use their awards to purchase life annuities or structured settlements. In the second, which we call… Continue reading
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Summer 2016 issue of the Expert Witness newsletter (volume 20, issue 2)
Contents: This issue contains two articles. In the first, Christopher Bruce and Derek Aldridge examine the effect of a criminal record on earnings. In the second, Christopher Bruce and Kelly Rathje discuss the structure and content of expert cost of care reports. The Effect of Incarceration on Future Earnings In the first article, Dr. Bruce… Continue reading
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The Structure of a Cost of Care Report
Dr. Bruce and Ms. Rathje provide an economist’s perspective on various issues that arise in the presentation of cost of care reports. These include issues such as incremental costs, requirements that will vary over a plaintiff’s lifetime, the approach to ranges of estimates for costs or replacement frequencies, the costs of housekeepers and personal care… Continue reading