holding that “predicting lost future earnings entails some degree of speculation[; h]owever, that alone does not justify excluding reliable economic evidence since imprecision is inherent in any computation of lost future benefits”
How later courts described this case
- holding that “predicting lost future earnings entails some degree of speculation[; h]owever, that alone does not justify excluding reliable economic evidence since imprecision is inherent in any computation of lost future benefits”
- pointing out that, during the period 1975 through 1988, the annual increase in an employee’s hourly value to his employer (which correlates with wage growth) *66 ranged from 11.8 percent in the semiconductor manufacturing industry, to negative 1.4 percent in the laundry business
- holding that courts shall consider the victim’s lost future productivity and that “future inflation shall be presumed equal to future interest rates with these factors offsetting.”
- directing that the award for lost future earnings □ was not to be discounted to present value because, as a matter of law, the future inflation rate was presumed to offset totally the future interest rate
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Helpin v. Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, 608 Pa. 45 (2010)
We cannot agree that this Court’s approach to damages based on lost future earnings, as set forth in Kaczkowski, is inapplicable to the circumstances presented here.
The opinion
FLAHERTY, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
While I fully concur in the view that- Havens v. Tonner, 243 Pa.Super. 371 , 365 A.2d 1271 (1976), should be unceremoniously eliminated from the law of this Commonwealth as unrealistic, I must dissent to the majority’s adoption of what it calls the “total offset method”, a “per se rule” of doubtful validity. True, such an approach is a simple one, but it does not achieve justice, and, has only been adopted in one jurisdiction, i.e., Alaska. We should simply permit expert testimony on the issues of inflation and productivity. Such testimony, on both sides of the issue, is, of course, subject to cross-examination and argument as to its validity and weight. Thus, the jury is free to weigh the evidence before it and render its verdict. This is also simple, and provides justice in accordance with our time honored principles.