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Personal Injury Litigation Support
Principle Contact: Ron Luke, JD, PhD
rluke@rpcconsulting.com
512/371-8166
Life Care Plans
Loss of Earning Capacity
Vocational Analysis
Medical Records Review
Calculation of Present Value of Damages
RPC provides plaintiff and defense attorneys with expert consulting and testimony in personal injury litigation. Our services include life care plans, vocational analysis, analysis of lost earning capacity/economic analysis, and medical records review.
Life Care Plans
RPC assists litigators and their clients by analyzing economic damages in personal injury litigation and business litigation. RPC accounting, valuation, life care planning and vocational evaluation professionals provide an integrated damages analysis. Our interdisciplinary team works closely with litigators, from discovery to mediation to trial to understand the case, develop an independent analysis of it, and provide a professional critique of the work of the experts retained by other parties to the litigation. Dr. Luke and his colleagues have been accepted as experts in federal and state courts and by administrative agencies. They understand the high standards for admissible expert testimony and carefully document the data, assumptions and analytic methods that form the basis for any opinions offered. RPC’s expert reports and expert testimony educate the parties, the judge and the jury on the issues we have been asked to address. Using written documents, the spoken word and graphic materials, RPC communicates complex facts clearly and succinctly.
RPC also has large-scale document management and data management resources that include the staff, hardware and software to review and index large numbers of documents and analyze large data files.
RPC is celebrating over 25 years of providing consulting and testifying expert services to plaintiff and defense counsel throughout the United States. We bring economic, clinical, vocational, accounting and valuation expertise that assists in discovery, mediation and trial of damages issues in personal injury and business litigation. In personal injury and wrongful death cases, RPC offers:
INTERDISCIPLINARY TEAM. Our professionals evaluate past and future medical expenses, loss of earning capacity, and value of household services in personal injury cases. In wrongful death cases, we value future support to survivors. If the injured party is self- employed, we analyze how an injury will affect a business or professional practice and evaluate how it affects a person’s life expectancy. The RPC team prepares a single, integrated report that addresses all economic damages.
DISCOVERY. We conduct a review of available medical and employment records and depositions to determine if additional records should be requested from the parties, healthcare providers, employers or government agencies. We also review plaintiff expert reports to determine deposition questions to ask each expert and what work papers should be requested. In some cases, we suggest that physician specialists be retained by the defense for opinions on rehabilitation potential and medical necessity questions.
MEDIATION. When possible, RPC interviews the injured party or family members to determine care needs and vocational potential and then provides reports for defense use in mediation. We focus on the rehabilitation services necessary to maximize the injured party’s independence and productivity. By comparing past and current treatment with projected care needs in the plaintiff’s life care plan, we help determine if projected long-term drug, therapy, counseling or other medical or assistance needs are reasonable. RPC tests the reasonableness of these costs by comparing prices in the plaintiff’s life care plan to actual prices from vendors and to payment rates for insurance programs available to the plaintiff. We frequently work with consulting physicians to develop rehabilitation plans to give the injured party more personal and economic independence at a lower cost to the defense.
The RPC team has the accounting and valuation expertise to help analyze how the injury will affect a business or professional practice. This can be crucial when the injured party is self-employed, the business has no long-term track record, or the view of future profits is unreasonably optimistic.
Determining life expectancy is significant in damage calculations when standard life tables by sex and race/ethnicity may not reasonably be applied to plaintiffs with chronic health conditions and other risk factors. RPC uses peer-reviewed literature to calculate adjusted life expectancy.
TRIAL. When the defense elects to call expert witnesses, RPC prepares effective reports and demonstrative exhibits. Depending on the issues in question, one or more RPC professionals may be called to testify. Our team members have the testimony experience to present our analysis effectively to the judge and jury and to respond appropriately to cross-examination.
Loss of Earning Capacity
Ron Luke and Mary Hoane provide analysis of loss of earning capacity in personal injury cases and damages in wrongful death cases. To calculate these losses, we gather available personal information, current government statistics and research, and income and benefit trends in relevant jobs. When the injured party is a business owner and the business is impacted, we provide a careful analysis of accounting records and a projection of lost profits. We consider differences between earning capacity and historical earnings. The analysis separately considers probabilities of survival, probability of being able to work and probability of employment. For a preliminary look at potential loss of earnings, visit our loss of earning capacity calculator.RPC has dealt with a wide variety of occupations, including laborers, physicians, helicopter pilots, miners, waitresses, missionaries, astronauts, and computer programmers. Following are a few examples:
- To accurately estimate the earnings of a waitress at the time of her death, RPC researched the trends of under-reporting tip income so that we could accurately estimate earnings at the time of her death and projected earnings if she had lived.
- In a wrongful death case of an American missionary living and working in Mexico with his wife and 2 children, RPC considered many factors when determining loss of earning capacity. These factors included comparing the lower cost of living in Mexico to purchasing power in the United States, since his family returned to the U.S. after his death; and the cost of benefits, such as housing and children's schooling, that were provided in Mexico. Since the man intended to become a minister in the United States, we also had to consider special tax benefits available to clergy and tax laws regarding foreign income earnings. We interviewed the man's missionary board to determine future pay increases due to tenure on job and cost of living adjustments, as well as specific employee benefits.
- Determining a physician's solo practice loss of earnings following his wrongful death required analysis of both personal and corporate tax returns and various sources for physician income growth projections, including Medical Group Management statistics, Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI growth, and Bureau of Labor Statistics change in median weekly physician wage. We also analyzed consumption patterns of a high-income individual, researched the value of the sale of physician practice, assuming that would have occurred at his retirement. RPC also projected asset accumulation, considering projected practice income and Social Security income after retirement net of tax and consumption.
- RPC analyzed the loss of earning capacity of a young woman who lost her arm in a car accident. We did vocational analysis, life care plan, and lost earnings capacity. We surprisingly found that she didn't have a loss of earning capacity due to the loss of her arm. She was in a field that did not physically require an arm, and our extensive research on amputees and lost earnings concluded that "average" statistics on this issue did not apply. While some jobs might not be open to her, many others did fit her capabilities and interests.
Vocational Analysis
Kacy Turner, RPC's vocational consultant, certified vocational evaluator, and rehabilitation counselor, produces the following to determine the pre-injury and post-injury employability of the injured party: - Vocational assessment – analysis of aptitudes, educational attainment and potential, and work history.
- Job requirements and employability assessment – analysis of medical limitations, retraining possibilities and adaptive technology.
- Rehabilitation plans.
- Definition of reasonable accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Medical Records Review
RPC provides medical record review both as part of our consulting services and as a separate litigation support service. We use SUMMATION®, one of the most widely used litigation support software programs, in the review process in order to organize large volumes of medical records and other documents used in medical record review. After our review, we can provide the client with not only a summary of the records, but also an indexed records database for use before and at trial, if the attorney has SUMMATION® capabilities.
Calculation of Present Value of Damages
For either medical or vocational damages it is necessary to calculate damages in future dollars and then discount these future damages to present value as of the time of trial. We compute different inflation rates for specific goods, services and wages. Our procedures ensure consistency between the inflation and discount rates used. The time series data used in these calculations of damages are continuously updated as government agencies publish new statistics.