Measuring Public Safety Retirement Plan Wealth: Implications forAssessing Economic Loss

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Journal of Legal Economics

Volume

11

Issue

2

Publication Date

2003

First Page

61

Last Page

80

Abstract

In the typical loss appraisal in a wrongful death or personal injury case, an addition to the loss is made for foregone retirement benefits. Often, this is done by adding an amount based on the percentage of wage earnings that is based on the employer's contribution (either explicitly or implicitly) to some sort of retirement plan. If the plan is actuarially fair,1 this approach does accurately measure the loss. However, some plans are not actuarially fair or have specific arrangements that make this standard approach invalid. Alternatively, a projection of retirement benefits is made on "with" and "without-injury" bases with the loss measured as the present value of the differences over time.

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