What Is a Life Care Plan in a Wrongful Death Case?

Function: Used as a critical piece of evidence in settlement negotiations and at trial to justify the amount of damages sought.

When a family loses a loved one due to another party’s negligence, the legal system provides a path to seek justice through a wrongful death claim. These claims are not about punishment but about compensation for the losses suffered by the surviving family members. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), unintentional injuries are a leading cause of death in the United States, with millions of incidents each year resulting from events like motor vehicle collisions, medical errors, and workplace incidents. Each of these deaths leaves behind a family grappling with not only emotional pain but also a significant financial void.

The core of a wrongful death lawsuit is proving the extent of these losses. State laws, such as Georgia’s wrongful death statute (O.C.G.A. § 51-4-2), allow survivors to recover “the full value of the life of the decedent,” which includes both tangible economic contributions and intangible elements. To establish the tangible, economic side of this loss, legal teams often rely on sophisticated forensic tools. One of the most effective and detailed of these tools is a life care plan, which provides a structured, evidence-based calculation of the financial harm caused by the death.

While many associate life care plans with catastrophic injury cases where a victim requires lifelong medical treatment, their application in wrongful death claims is a powerful evolution of the concept. Instead of projecting the costs of future care for an individual, the plan projects the economic value that individual would have generated and contributed to their family. It transforms abstract concepts like “lost future earnings” and “household contributions” into a concrete, defensible figure. This document becomes the financial foundation of the case, detailing precisely what was taken from the family and what is needed to secure their future.

The Purpose of a Life Care Plan in Wrongful Death vs. Personal Injury

A common point of confusion is how a life care plan, a document traditionally designed for the living, can be used in a case involving a person who has passed away. The distinction lies in the plan’s objective and focus. The purpose shifts entirely from the needs of the victim to the losses of the survivors. Understanding this difference is key to appreciating its role in a wrongful death claim.

Projecting the Victim’s Future Needs (Personal Injury)

In a standard personal injury lawsuit, a life care plan is created for a plaintiff who has suffered a severe, life-altering injury, such as a traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, or amputation. The plan’s primary goal is to outline all the necessary medical treatments, therapies, equipment, and personal assistance the injured person will require for the rest of their life.

Elements in a personal injury life care plan typically include:

Projected surgeries and physician visits.
Medication costs.
Physical, occupational, and speech therapy sessions.
Mobility aids like wheelchairs and vehicle modifications.
Home health care or residential facility costs.
Architectural renovations to the home for accessibility.

This type of plan answers the question: “What will it cost to provide the necessary care for this injured person for the remainder of their life?” The damages are calculated based on the victim’s needs.

Quantifying the Survivors’ Economic Loss (Wrongful Death)

In a wrongful death case, the life care plan answers a completely different question: “What is the total economic value that the deceased would have contributed to their family had they lived a full life?” The focus is not on needs but on losses. The plan is created to benefit the surviving spouse, children, or other dependents by demonstrating the full extent of their financial deprivation.

Instead of medical bils, this plan quantifies:

The deceased’s projected lifetime earnings.
The value of lost employer-provided benefits, such as health insurance and 401(k) contributions.
The monetary value of services the person provided to the household.
The financial support and inheritance the dependents would have received.

The document essentially reconstructs the deceased’s financial life and projects it into the future, providing a clear picture of the economic engine that was lost.

A Shift in Focus: From Care Costs to Lost Contributions

The fundamental shift is one of perspective. The personal injury plan looks forward to calculate the cost of adding necessary services into a victim’s life. The wrongful death plan looks back at the deceased’s life and projects forward to calculate the value of what was subtracted from the family’s life. This makes it a tool for demonstrating pecuniary, or financial, damages. It provides a jury with a logical, data-driven basis for a compensation award, moving beyond pure emotional appeal to present a clear and compelling economic argument.

Who Creates a Life Care Plan and What Are Their Qualifications?

The credibility of a life care plan rests almost entirely on the expertise and objectivity of the person who creates it. This is not a document that can be drafted by an attorney or a paralegal. It requires a specialized professional who can withstand intense scrutiny from opposing counsel and present their findings clearly to a judge and jury.

The Role of the Certified Life Care Planner (CLCP)

The gold standard for this work is a Certified Life Care Planner (CLCP). This certification is granted by the International Commission on Health Care Certification (ICHCC) to professionals who meet rigorous educational and experiential requirements. Most CLCPs come from backgrounds in rehabilitation counseling, nursing, case management, or occupational therapy. Their clinical experience gives them a deep understanding of human development, career trajectories, and the practicalities of daily life.

To create the plan, the CLCP conducts a meticulous investigation into the deceased’s life. This involves:

Reviewing employment records, pay stubs, and tax returns.
Analyzing academic transcripts and professional certifications.
Interviewing family members, friends, and former colleagues.
Researching industry standards for salary growth and promotion potential.

The CLCP synthesizes this information into a comprehensive report that outlines the deceased’s likely life path and the economic value associated with it.

Collaboration with Other Experts

A life care planner rarely works in a vacuum. To create a truly robust and defensible plan, they collaborate with a team of other forensic experts. This interdisciplinary approach ensures that every aspect of the final report is supported by specialized knowledge.

Vocational Experts: These professionals assess the deceased’s earning capacity. They analyze the person’s education, work history, and skills to project their likely career path, including promotions, raises, and potential career changes. They can provide testimony on what the deceased could have earned over a full work-life expectancy.
Forensic Economists: The economist takes the data compiled by the life care planner and vocational expert and performs the final calculations. They apply economic principles to project lost earnings over time, adjust for inflation, and then calculate the “present value” of those future losses. This is a critical step, as a jury award is a lump sum paid today to compensate for losses that would have been spread over decades. The economist determines what that lump sum should be.

The Importance of Objectivity and Methodology

The work of these experts must be based on a sound, repeatable methodology. Opposing attorneys will challenge every assumption and calculation in the life care plan. Therefore, the experts must be able to defend their conclusions with established data, industry standards, and logical reasoning. Their role is not to be an advocate for the family but to be an objective expert witness who presents factual information to the court. This commitment to objectivity is what gives the life care plan its power as a piece of evidence.

Key Components of a Wrongful Death Life Care Plan

A life care plan in a wrongful death action is a detailed ledger of a life’s economic value. It is broken down into several key components, each meticulously researched and calculated to present a complete picture of the family’s financial loss.

Lost Income and Earning Capacity

This is often the largest component of the economic damages. It is not simply the deceased’s salary at the time of death multiplied by their remaining work years. A proper analysis considers the person’s full earning capacity.

The calculation includes:

Base Salary or Wages: The starting point is the deceased’s income at the time of death.
Projected Growth: The vocational expert will project regular raises, cost-of-living adjustments, and potential promotions based on the person’s performance, industry standards, and economic trends.
Bonuses and Commissions: Any history of variable pay is analyzed and projected forward.
Work-Life Expectancy: Using data from sources like the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the expert determines the probable number of years the deceased would have remained in the workforce before retiring.

For a young person just starting their career, the expert will look at their education and the earning potential for their chosen field to project a lifetime earnings trajectory.

Loss of Household Services

This component recognizes that a person’s value to a family extends far beyond their paycheck. The loss of household services, or “replacement services,” calculates the cost to hire people to perform the tasks the deceased used to handle. This is a critical element, especially when the deceased was a stay-at-home parent or primary caregiver.

Examples of valued household services include:

Childcare: The cost of daycare, nannies, or after-school care.
Housekeeping: Cleaning, laundry, and general home maintenance.
Cooking and Meal Preparation: The cost of hiring a cook or the increased expense of takeout and prepared meals.
Home and Auto Maintenance: Tasks like lawn care, repairs, and vehicle upkeep.
Financial Management: The time and expertise involved in managing family budgets, paying bills, and preparing taxes.

Economists use government data and local market rates to assign a monetary value to the hours the deceased spent on these tasks each week.

Loss of Guidance, Care, and Companionship

While some states categorize this as a non-economic loss (related to pain and suffering), many jurisdictions, including Georgia, recognize the tangible value of a parent’s guidance and counsel to a child. A life care plan can attempt to quantify the economic aspect of this loss. For example, it might calculate the cost of hiring tutors, mentors, or coaches to provide the instruction and support a deceased parent would have offered. This is a more complex area, but it acknowledges that a parent’s contribution to a child’s future success has a real economic dimension.

Lost Benefits and Retirement Contributions

A person’s total compensation is more than just their salary. The life care plan includes the value of lost employment benefits, which can be substantial.

These benefits include:

Health Insurance: The cost for the surviving family to purchase a comparable health insurance plan on the open market.
Retirement Savings: The lost value of employer contributions to a 401(k), 403(b), or pension plan over the remainder of the deceased’s career.
Life Insurance and Disability Insurance: The value of any employer-provided insurance policies that are now lost.
Other Perks: The value of a company car, stock options, or education assistance.

By including these elements, the life care plan ensures that the full scope of the financial relationship between the deceased and their employer is accounted for in the damages calculation.

The Methodology: How Damages are Calculated and Projected

Creating a life care plan is a systematic process that combines data collection, expert analysis, and complex economic modeling. The methodology is designed to be transparent and defensible, allowing every step of the calculation to be explained and justified in a legal setting.

Gathering Foundational Data

The first step is a deep dive into the deceased’s personal and professional life. The life care planner and their team will collect and analyze a wide range of documents to build a comprehensive profile.

This evidence includes:

Financial Records: Several years of tax returns, W-2s, and pay stubs.
Employment History: Resumes, performance reviews, and employment contracts.
Educational Background: High school, college, and vocational school transcripts.
Personal Testimony: Interviews with the surviving spouse, children, parents, and co-workers to understand the deceased’s habits, ambitions, and contributions to the household.
Household Bills: Records that can help quantify expenses and household management tasks.

This foundational data provides the raw material for all future projections.

Using Actuarial Tables and Economic Models

Once the data is gathered, experts use established statistical tools to make projections.

Life Expectancy Tables: These tables, published by government agencies like the Social Security Administration, are used to determine how long the deceased was likely to have lived.
Work-Life Expectancy Tables: These tables from the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimate how many more years a person of a certain age, gender, and education level would likely have remained in the workforce.
Economic Growth Models: Economists use models to project wage growth and inflation rates over the coming decades.

These tools allow the experts to move from known facts about the past to reasonable, evidence-based assumptions about the future.

Adjusting for Inflation and Present Value

A dollar today is worth more than a dollar 30 years from now due to inflation and investment potential. A wrongful death award is paid as a single lump sum, so it must be adjusted to account for this. This is one of the most critical and often contested parts of the calculation.

Project Future Losses: The economist first calculates the total losses year by year for the duration of the deceased’s expected work-life and life expectancy.
Apply a Discount Rate: They then apply a “discount rate” to this future stream of income and services. The discount rate represents the rate of return the family could reasonably expect to earn by investing the lump-sum award. A lower discount rate results in a higher present value, while a higher discount rate results in a lower present value.
Calculate Present Value: The process of applying the discount rate reduces the total future losses to their “present value.” This is the amount of money that, if invested prudently today, would be sufficient to cover all the projected future losses.

Case Study: A Hypothetical Example

Consider a 35-year-old engineer who was killed in a car accident. She earned $100,000 per year and had a husband and two young children.

Lost Income: A vocational expert determines she had a work-life expectancy of 30 more years and would have received average annual raises of 4%. The economist projects her total future earnings.
Household Services: Her husband testifies that she spent about 20 hours per week on childcare, cooking, and managing finances. The planner assigns a conservative market rate of $20/hour to these services, valuing them at over $20,000 per year.
Lost Benefits: Her employer contributed 6% of her salary to her 401(k) ($6,000/year) and provided a family health plan valued at $15,000/year.
Present Value Calculation: The economist totals all these annual losses, projects them over 30 years, and then applies a discount rate (e.g., 2%) to arrive at a final present value figure. This single number, which could be several million dollars, represents the family’s total economic loss.

Presenting the Life Care Plan in a Wrongful Death Lawsuit

A life care plan is not just an internal document for an attorney’s file. It is a strategic tool used throughout the legal process, from initial negotiations with an insurance company to expert testimony in front of a jury. Its presentation is key to its effectiveness.

The Life Care Plan as a Settlement Tool

Most wrongful death cases are resolved through a settlement rather than a trial. The life care plan plays a crucial role in these negotiations. When the plaintiff’s attorney presents the defendant’s insurance company with a settlement demand, the life care plan is often included as a primary piece of evidence.

This serves several purposes:

Justifies the Demand: It shows the insurance adjuster that the settlement figure is not arbitrary but is based on a detailed, expert-driven analysis.
Demonstrates Seriousness: Submitting a professionally prepared life care plan signals that the plaintiff’s team is prepared to go to trial and has already invested in building a strong case for damages.
Frames the Negotiation: It forces the defense to respond to specific, calculated losses rather than arguing in generalities. The negotiation becomes about the assumptions and figures within the plan, not just a random number.

A well-crafted plan can significantly increase the value of a settlement offer by clearly articulating the full scope of the family’s financial damages.

Expert Testimony at Trial

If the case does not settle, the life care planner and the forensic economist will be called to testify at trial as expert witnesses. Their job is to explain their findings to the jury in a way that is clear, credible, and easy to understand.

During testimony, the expert will:

Establish Their Credentials: They will detail their education, training, and certifications to show the jury why their opinion should be trusted.
Explain Their Methodology: They will walk the jury through the process they used to create the plan, explaining the data they collected and the assumptions they made.
Present Their Conclusions: They will present the final figures for lost income, services, and benefits, and explain how they arrived at the total present value of the economic loss.
Use Visual Aids: Experts often use charts, graphs, and summaries to help the jury visualize the financial impact of the death over time.

Effective expert testimony can transform the life care plan from a complex document into a compelling story of the family’s loss.

The Discovery Process: Deposition and Scrutiny

Before trial, the experts who prepared the plan will be questioned by the opposing attorneys in a deposition. This is a formal, under-oath interview where the defense team will probe for any weaknesses in the plan. They will challenge the expert’s assumptions, question their calculations, and try to find any inconsistencies in their report. The life care planner and economist must be prepared to defend every aspect of their work with confidence and clarity. This rigorous testing process ensures that only the most well-supported and credible plans make it to a jury.

Common Challenges and Defenses Against a Life Care Plan

When a life care plan is presented in a wrongful death case, the defense will not simply accept its conclusions. Their own experts will scrutinize the report, and their attorneys will work to undermine its credibility at every turn. Understanding these common challenges is important for appreciating the legal fight that often surrounds the issue of damages.

Questioning the Expert’s Assumptions

The projections in a life care plan are based on a series of assumptions about the future, and this is where the defense often focuses its attack.

Common arguments include:

Uncertain Career Advancement: The defense may argue that projections of promotions and significant raises are speculative. They might claim the deceased would have stayed in their current role or that their industry was facing a downturn.
Retirement Age: Defense experts might suggest the deceased would have retired earlier than the work-life expectancy tables suggest, thereby reducing the total period of lost income.
Personal Consumption: The defense will argue that a portion of the deceased’s income would have been spent on their own personal needs (food, clothing, hobbies) and should be deducted from the family’s loss. This is a standard and valid adjustment, but the percentage of that deduction is often a point of contention.

Arguing Against the Value of Household Services

The value assigned to lost household services is another frequent target. A defense attorney might try to minimize these contributions by:

Claiming the number of hours the deceased spent on chores is exaggerated.
Arguing that the surviving spouse or older children could and should have taken over these tasks.
Using a lower hourly rate to calculate the replacement cost of these services.

The plaintiff’s attorney must be prepared to counter these arguments with testimony from family and friends who can corroborate the deceased’s role in the home.

The “Failure to Mitigate” Argument

In some legal contexts, a defendant can argue that the plaintiff failed to “mitigate” their damages, meaning they did not take reasonable steps to reduce their own losses. In a wrongful death case, a defense attorney might subtly suggest that a surviving spouse should have returned to work or gotten a higher-paying job to offset the lost income. This is often a delicate and potentially unsympathetic argument for the defense to make, but it can arise, particularly when a long period has passed between the death and the trial.

Scrutinizing the Economic Calculations

The work of the forensic economist is highly technical and provides fertile ground for disagreement. Defense economists will often present their own calculations using different variables.

The Discount Rate: This is the most common point of dispute. The defense will advocate for a higher discount rate, which would lower the present value of the award. The plaintiff’s expert will argue for a lower, more conservative rate. A difference of even a single percentage point can change the final award by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Inflation Projections: The two sides may disagree on the appropriate rate of inflation to use when projecting future wage growth and costs.

These challenges highlight why the life care plan must be built on a foundation of solid evidence, conservative assumptions, and a transparent methodology.

Conclusion

In a wrongful death case, a life care plan serves as a critical bridge between a family’s profound loss and the legal system’s requirement for quantifiable proof of damages. It is far more than a simple calculation of lost salary; it is a comprehensive forensic analysis that honors the full economic value of the person who is gone. By meticulously documenting lost income, benefits, and the irreplaceable value of household services, the plan provides a clear, data-driven narrative of the financial devastation a family has endured. It shifts the focus from an abstract loss to a concrete, defensible figure that can be understood by insurance companies, judges, and juries alike.

This powerful document is the result of a collaborative effort between certified life care planners, vocational experts, and forensic economists who work to reconstruct a life’s economic trajectory. Their objective analysis provides the foundation for fair compensation, ensuring that the damages awarded are not based on guesswork but on sound methodology and verifiable evidence. The plan is an indispensable tool in both settlement negotiations, where it justifies the family’s financial needs, and at trial, where it educates a jury on the true measure of what was taken. It ensures that the final resolution addresses the long-term financial stability of the survivors.

If you are facing the difficult task of proving the full value of a loved one’s life in a wrongful death claim, understanding the role of a life care plan is a critical first step. This document can be the key to ensuring your family is not left with an uncertain financial future. To secure the stability your family deserves, it is essential to speak with a qualified wrongful death attorney who can explain how this powerful tool can be used to build a strong and compelling case on your behalf. Contact us today for a free evaluation. Whether you’re dealing with a personal injury, criminal charge, or family matter, we’ll provide the guidance you need to make informed decisions. Reach out now, and let’s work together to build a strong case on your behalf.