TEA.3.3

Description

The decision in Howard v. Crystal Cruises Inc., 41 F.3d 527 (9th Cir. 1994) addressed a narrow issue in forensic economic analysis–whether the personal consumption deduction in a wrongful death action should be based on the income of the family of the decedent or be based on only the income of the decedent. This issue is narrow enough that it had been addressed in the literature of forensic economics only by Gilbert in 1991, Bruce in 1997 and in a series of three short papers by Ward, Trout and Ireland. Subsequently, Paul Taylor found specific discussion of that issue in the Howard case, which provides the central example for this paper. The second section of this paper discusses the Howard case itself. The third section discusses the existing literature on this subject, which consists of papers by Gilbert (1991), Bruce (1997) and the 1999 papers by Ward, Trout and Ireland. The fourth section discusses a set of further unresolved research questions posed by Howard for which family economics literature provides that at least partial answers. The fifth section provides a brief discussion of Overly v. Ingalls Shipbuilding, Inc., 74 Cal. App.4th 164 (1999), a California case that cites Howard.