This article is part of a two part Life Expectancy series:

• Part 2 - Valuing Changes in Life Expectancy

Life Expectancy Changes

Personal injury actions often require experts to assess and value changes in life expectancy. In this blogpost, we will look at how to input life expectancy from opinion testimony and value the result. We will use a medical malpractice scenario to illustrate.

Medical Malpractice Example

In medical malpractice actions, life expectancy is often one of the major points of contention between the parties. A plaintiff will argue that had the alleged negligence not occurred, cancer would have been caught and treated. The defendant will argue that even if they were negligent, the patient’s underlying cancer would have shortened their life expectancy anyway.

Digging deeper into this example, let’s suppose a patient gets annual physical exams. His physician retires after treating the patient for 15 years and his care is transferred to a new provider. Upon switching, the new physician orders PSA testing for the first time. The PSA test comes back abnormally high. Follow-up testing confirms the patient has metastatic prostate cancer that has spread to his bones.

Since the patient was always healthy and followed his physician recommendations, he can’t believe this could have happened. He seeks out the opinion of an attorney to see if he has a claim for medical malpractice. The attorney begins his research and finds out the 5-year survival rate for metastatic prostate cancer is approximately 34%, while the survival rate for localized or regional prostate cancer is above 99%.*[1]

The attorney lets the client know he may have a case if it can be proved a reasonably prudent physician would have ordered PSA testing. After speaking with medical experts, the attorney decides to pursue the case.

Damages from Delayed Diagnosis of Cancer

During litigation the defense attorney reveals his expert will testify the patient has a five-year reduction in life expectancy. The plaintiff’s attorney responds that his expert will testify the patient would have lived to a full life expectancy if diagnosed at his last appointment. Both experts agree the patient has six additional months to live due to the advanced stage of his cancer.

Counsel reaches out to the Juris Economics team and asks for help calculating his client’s damages. We’ll go over how to use custom life expectancy calculations in Part II of this blog.

Contact Juris Economics

If you need assistance calculating damages in your case, contact Juris Economics at (858) 477-9537 or sales@juriseconomics.com