Calculating the economic loss of minors is simple using Lawcalc, in which economic loss will not commence until say age 18 when they leave school.
When calculating the economic loss of minors, as there is no past earning history from which to use as a base for probable earnings, it is often necessary to look to other sources to provide a guide as to their probable earnings capacity.
Possible sources include:
- Earnings, occupation and education of the parents.
- Pre-accident school reports as an indicator of future education possibilities and career trends. High performers may have a greater likelihood of attending university etc.
- Average weekly earnings of full-time adult males or females. This is commonly used alternative especially where future career opportunities cannot be determined reliably. It is advisable to consider this as an alternative scenario.
- Average weekly earnings of a particular occupation or group of occupations.
There are two ways that you can use Lawcalc to calculate the economic loss of minors:
1. Simple Economic Loss
This presents a simple straight line economic loss using say, average weekly earnings and setting the Start Work Age to 18 – as seen shown below. In this alternative, economic loss will not be calculated until the plaintiff reaches age 18. If age 18 is in the future, no economic loss would be calculated. I would suggest that CPI – No Increase is selected when using average weekly earnings.
2. Complex Economic Loss
This alternative is useful when a particular career progression is able to be determined. Examples would include professionals such as:
- solicitors (law clerk, solicitor, associate, senior associate, partner)
- doctors (intern, resident, specialist)
- trades people (apprentice 1, apprentice 2, employed tradesperson, sub-contractor, own licence).
- accountants (graduate, CA qualified, senior, manager, partner)
Using the complex economic loss option, you would enter the dates and the earnings for the various earnings levels as shown below:
And a sample of the future economic loss calculations is shown below, in which the tax rates, discount multipliers etc are all applied correctly:
Any questions, please leave a comment below.
