The Role of Vocational Economics in Injury Cases

Sara Ford:
What I do is to help a jury help the trier of fact — the decision makers — understand how disability impacts someone’s work: going back to the same job that they had before, going back to other jobs that are out there, and how that can impact their earnings and how much they will work.

David Craig:
I’m attorney David Craig, managing partner and one of the founders of the law firm of Craig, Kelley & Faultless. I’ve represented people who have been seriously injured or who have had a family member killed in semi or other big truck wreck for over 30 years. Following the wreck, their lives are chaos. Often they don’t even know enough about the process to ask the right questions. It is my goal to empower you by providing you with the information you need to protect yourself and your family. In each and every episode, I will interview top experts and professionals that are involved in truck wreck cases. This is After the Crash.

Hello ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to another episode of After the Crash, the podcast. Today we have Sara Ford as our guest. Sara is with a company called Vocational Economics, Inc. and she is a vocational economic analyst. She has her undergraduate degree in economics from University of Cincinnati, and then she has her master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling from the University of Kentucky. She does what we call forensic work, which means she testifies on behalf of parties before federal and state court, and I know she’s testified all over the country. So Sara, welcome to the podcast.

Sara Ford:
Well, thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.

David Craig:
So Sara, let’s start off with what is Vocational Economics, Inc., where you work? Can you explain to folks what that is?

Sara Ford:
It is litigation support firm. So attorneys using litigation tools like accident reconstructionists or anything like that. This is for litigation support, specifically for economic damages. It can be the vocational end economics. So you’re looking at certain person’s ability to work before and after injuries. It can be looking at planning out their future medical needs and that portion of the damages. It can be just applying earnings to wrongful termination cases or doing calculations for wrongful death cases. Anything that an attorney needs to quantify economically is what the firm does. It’s been around for more than 40 years, and I’ve been with the firm for 19 years.

David Craig:
And my understanding is this company will work for both what we call plaintiffs and defendants in civil cases. So the company will get hired by lawyers on both sides of the equation, is that true?

Sara Ford:
Absolutely. Both sides of the equation, nothing ever changes. It’s the same method. It’s the same way to calculate those damages. I would say, of course, it’s mostly plaintiff attorneys that use our services because the plaintiffs are the ones asking for damages, and they’re the ones that have to prove what those damages are.

David Craig:
And I think that’s important for people to understand, because the average everyday person who’s never been through this process may not understand. But as the plaintiff, the person who is injured or who has lost a loved one, or who is putting on a case against someone else for negligence, they have the burden of proof in every state. Indiana, for example, is more likely than not or probably truer than not true, that an injury happened and then what the damages are from that.

And so, we have the burden of proof, and so we have to hire people to put on our case. And that’s doctors, economists, folks like yourself, rehabilitation experts, medical care planners. I mean there’s all kinds of folks, whatever the case may warrant. And so your company is a company that lawyers turn to all over the country to help give guidance to figure, number one, calculate those damages, figure out what those damages are so that we can make an educated decision on what is a proper settlement or a proper jury verdict to ask a jury for.

Sara Ford:
Absolutely, and I think it’s important that it’s one of those things that I explain to people when I’m speaking with them, when I’m doing my work, that it’s easy for a person that may be injured that says, “I’ve missed out on earnings. I can’t go back to work, I can’t go back to doing these things.” It’s easy for them to say it. Oftentimes it’s easy for everyone to see it. But someone like me to be able to help in the litigation process, that can convince or help resolve the issues that are at question because you have someone that’s looking at it from a quantitative perspective and putting numbers to it, and not just reaching for things and making things up, so to speak.

David Craig:
So explain to the folks what your role is with vocational economics. What type of services do you provide? What type of services do lawyers hire you to help them with?

Sara Ford:
So I’m a vocational economic analyst, and what I do is to help a jury, help the trier of fact, the decision makers, understand how disability impacts someone’s work, how it impacts their access to jobs in the labor market, going back to the same job that they had before, going back to other jobs that are out there, and how that can impact their earnings and how much they will work.

Sometimes you have a case where someone has been injured and they go back to the same job, but they’re not working the overtime hours that they did before. There’s a loss there, and that can be quantified. Sometimes you have people that maybe haven’t worked, maybe they’ve stayed at home to care for their children and were intending to go back to work at some point. That is a loss if they’re injured and they have permanent limitations or they have permanent injuries to their ability to work; it’s a loss that can be quantified.

So that’s my job, is to help put a quantity, help put a number to that, look at the vocational aspect, the working aspect, and then the economic aspect over the course of someone’s work life.

David Craig:
So to determine, so sometimes we hear the term loss of earning capacity, explain to us what does that mean?

Sara Ford:
Earning capacity, it’s the brains and the brawn. It’s what you bring to the competitive labor market that allows you to receive a paycheck. It is your skills, knowledge and expertise, and it allows you to have the job that you have or pursue a certain career. And in exchange, you have compensation for that.

When you’re talking about earning capacity, it can be measured for everyone. And that’s based on those skills, knowledge, and expertise aspects. Someone that hasn’t worked, someone that’s young, someone that maybe switched careers late in life. All of those things are earning capacity related. And you can look at histories, you can look at statistics to help you decide what that would look like.

And then the important part is how disability impacts that. Because we know that disability, when I talk about disability, it’s occupational disability. But we know that disability, the inability to do something, impacts everything in your life: taking care of yourself and your home, going to the grocery store. But it impacts work, too: the amounts or kind of work that you can do, which oftentimes will impact your earnings, and it oftentimes will impact your ability to maintain that work or find work that is compatible with your injuries.

David Craig:
So, earning capacity. It’s not as simple as saying, “Okay, I have an injured client, and that person’s making $18 an hour at their current job.” And so you would think you might say, “Okay, well let’s figure out $18 per hour until they’re 65, because they can’t work anymore.”

But it’s not that simple, because someone making $18 an hour, that may not reflect what they should be making or what they could be making as they get older, as they mature. So I think sometimes people, they’re stuck. They think, “Okay, well I make X dollars an hour. And so that’s what my lost future earnings is.” And that’s really not true.

Sara Ford:
Right. It absolutely can be. It absolutely can be reflective. If you’re making $18 an hour, it can be reflective of an earning capacity, what you could reasonably be expected to earn in the labor market for the remainder of your career.

But there’s also times when it doesn’t. There’s times when you’re young, you’re starting out from work. I know I had probably four to five different jobs just in my 20s. So when you’re looking at someone and you’re deciding an earning capacity, you want to look at both their work history, their educational background, the types of jobs that they’re doing, and see if that fits within the labor market.

I know with Covid, it was a change. A lot of people would either change careers or they took a different job, because the career that they were in was affected by that shutdown. So that’s another consideration. Are you doing something that’s outside of your full skills and abilities because of a different reason or a different choice? So that’s when you’re measuring earning capacity instead of a wage loss or a wage associated.

The other aspect of earning capacity is total compensation. Because remember, we don’t only receive wages, we receive other things from our jobs. It can be health insurance, it can be retirement benefits. All of those things can play into an earning capacity too. Some get take-home cars, company cars to take home, so then they don’t have the burden of having a car, or they have a gas card that they get to use when they’re driving around. So all of those things are included in an earning capacity.

David Craig:
So one of the things you’re taking into consideration then, in addition to wages, is the fringe benefits: the health insurance and retirement plans, and all those type of things?

Sara Ford:
Yes, absolutely. And if you’re not able to work, that’s something that’s not oftentimes able to come in. A lot of cases that I will talk to people and they say, “Well, I’d like to get this surgery or I would like to get this procedure, but I don’t have health insurance right now because I’m not working.” And so that’s something that you work for those things, and it’s something that needs to be compensated as well.

David Craig:
So if I’m 22-two-year-old person, man, and I’m physically able and I can make my living lifting, bending, carrying things, no physical limitations whatsoever. And I have some college, I have high school degree, some college [education]. So is there a way you look at that and say, “Okay, here are all the jobs that this person would qualify for,” and do you then look at that average income and say, “Okay, this is how much a person could be making based upon his physical ability, his education, his experience?” Do you look somewhere? Is there somewhere out there you can look and say, “Gosh, what does that mean? What does that correlate to?”

Sara Ford:
Sure. So in my job, it’s very important to use statistics, which is leading into this question. So a 22-year-old male with some college education, what types of jobs is he able to perform without any limitations?
And oftentimes instead of narrowing that scope and picking one or two occupations, what you really want to do is look at statistics for persons most like him that are males without any limitations with that same level of education.

The earnings, the actual earnings that accrue to those people, or the money that they actually make. Because then you can see those are the types of jobs that they have. It can be all-encompassing, anywhere from iron workers, to paramedics and EMTs, firefighters. It could be people that work in hospitals, people that work in offices. If they have that same level of education, those earnings are reflective of that.

I guess an economist should talk about unlimited needs and scarce resources. Because we have a similar situation with all kinds of different jobs and all kinds of different occupations, we’ve used the best statistics to help us understand what might occur. And that usually comes down to education levels and gender-specific roles, and then using statistics to help us understand from the U.S. government and from reliable sources so that we can understand what might occur into the future.

David Craig:
And how important is medical testimony or medical opinions to saying what somebody physically can do going forward in the future? How important is that in your evaluation?

Sara Ford:
Absolutely. Terribly important, because I’m not in any way, shape, or form a medical doctor. So I need medical testimony; I need medical opinions or doctor’s notes. I need something to be able to rely on to say, “This person has this impairment.” When we talk about impairment, that’s the injury to the body. It’s your broken hand, you’re missing your foot, anything like that. That’s the impairment. And then my job is to say, “How does that impairment impact you when you’re working?”

If I lost a foot, it might be more difficult for me to work. But I sit down a lot, so it might not be as hard. So that’s something that you have to adjust for is what types of jobs you’re doing, how your impairment might affect that, and then look at going forward, how your work might be impacted.

David Craig:
There’s a lot of people who have catastrophic injuries or very serious injuries that are going to affect them for the rest of their life. It seems like it not only affects the jobs they can do, but also has an impact on how long they could do the job, how long they can work.

Sara Ford:
Absolutely. So the saying is, I guess the only thing that gets better with age is fine wine and good cigars. It’s the same with all of us; we all wear down as we get older. But research, the research from all of the major surveys, shows that disability exacerbates that when you’re working with a disability — when you have limitations in the amount of work you can do — as you get older, it gets harder and harder to do that job with those limitations.

So you think about someone that’s maybe injured. And not even catastrophically, maybe they have the ability to go back to doing their job. They just do it with some difficulty. They have people help them lift. They have shifts where they can sit and stand as they need.

If they’re young, a lot of times you hear, “Okay, I’m doing pretty well at my job and this is okay.” As they get older is where the projection comes in. How long are you going to be able to do what you’re doing? What do the statistics show about when someone’s in their 50s and 60s working with disabilities, versus when they’re in their 50s and 60s and they don’t have disabilities or problems working? And that’s where a difference can come in over your work life.

Ultimately, that’s what my job is, to help a jury to look into that future to say, “Hey, this is what it looks like over the course of someone’s work life, and what it looks like 20, 30 years down the road.” This is the only chance that someone has to recoup that and to say, “Hey, I’m injured today. In 30 years, I’m going to need this and this is what that looks like.”

David Craig:
Yeah, there’s been times where I’ve represented clients that have been with a company for quite a while, but they get injured and then they have limitations. And what I find is that the employer really likes them, they really care about them. And so as a result, they end up working around them, and I’ll interview witnesses and they’ll say, “Well, he can’t carry the ladder and carry stuff anymore, so I carry it for him, or he has to take more breaks.” It’s kind of a favored work environment. Do you ever see that? Can that be taken into consideration in your calculations, or do we have to assume he’s going always be able to stay at that same job forever?

Sara Ford:
No, so in earning capacity, that’s another good way to bring us back to earning capacity. It’s not measured by one job. Again, it’s measured by your skills, and your knowledge, and your expertise. So what we’re really examining is what what’s most likely to occur. If this employer is a great employer and they’re working around someone at this point, that’s great. But we know there’s a reality of economic factors that come into play for businesses. There’s a reality of maybe this business is going to face some down times. Maybe they’re going to go out of business, maybe they’re just not going to have as much production from this worker as they could get from someone else. So they end up letting that person go.

So when you’re looking at the loss, what you’re examining is access to the labor market. If you have a reduced access to that job, you were performing your job one day and now you have a reduced ability to perform that job, then you have a loss of earning capacity. You have a loss, a lifetime loss of earnings expected. And you’re projecting into the future to say, “Yeah, it’s going okay now, but over the course of a lifetime, that person is more likely to lose their position. That person is more likely to face the hardships of having to maintain that work.”

There’s a saying within the disability community that persons with disabilities are often the last ones hired and they’re often the first ones fired. It’s not just a saying, it’s backed up by statistics, backed up by what we know about employment rates for persons that have limitations and their ability to work for money, is that they are often the first ones looked at when you’re having to make changes to your production, when you’re having to make changes to your teams. Because rightly or wrongly, they’re perceived as not being as productive as they once were or as their non-disabled counterparts.

David Craig:
And I think that’s a perfect example of a case where sometimes clients will come to me and say, “Well, we’re still working in my job.” And a lot of times it’s smaller companies, and they’ll say, “I’m still getting paid,” and of course the defense lawyers will tell me the same thing and say, “Well, there’s no loss here,” but I think that if you’re one of the people that are injured or you’re a lawyer representing those people, you have to say, “Okay, but what if?” And you need to hire somebody to provide you that guidance. Now, whether or not you listen to it or whether or not you take it, who cares. But how can you make a decision on what is the loss or future earnings, making an assumption that somebody’s going to be able to stay at a job forever? Because that’s just not reality, at least in my experience.

Sara Ford:
Exactly, yes. And that’s the point too, is that if they’re saying that they’re having problems performing their work, then it can be quantified; it can be looked at. It might be that they’re in the same job and you say, “Okay, you still have the ability to perform this job, but you’re going to do it for less amount of time. Your work life expectancy is going to be less, so you’re not going to retire as late as you once would. You’re not going to make it to 67.” Statistically, you might make it to 62, you might make it to 60, because of the limitations that you’re having doing the job right now.

David Craig:
And so how do you go about… Do you interview by Zoom, or maybe you don’t interview at all, the folks that are injured? Do you look at medical records? How do you go about doing your job?

Sara Ford:
No, absolutely. So medical records, I like to look at medical records first, because that helps me to understand the person’s injuries. I have to say, I don’t like to look at pictures of accidents. I don’t like to look at pictures of injuries, and I don’t like to ask people their opinions on how something occurred or why something occurred. And I don’t even oftentimes ask what happened. I can look at the medical records and see what your injuries are, and then talk to you about day-to-day activities. How are you impacted on a day-to-day basis? Are you able to do your laundry? Do you have problems reaching in to grab the laundry when it’s wet and move it to the dryer? Difficulties with feeding your dogs, feeding your chickens, working on your cars. Those are the types of things that I want to know and really get an understanding of because it helps me to understand, okay, well if this person is definitely saying problem fending, feeding their dog, fending to get laundry, working on cars, that can translate to other jobs.

So it can translate to stocking shelves at a retail company. It can translate to even being in an office and loading up printer paper or things of that nature. So I like to speak to the person, definitely, to find out what their limitations are.

A lot of times, I’m speaking to them and they really do a great job. They understand that their activities are limited, and they’ll tell me about the fact that they used to go fishing and now it’s harder for them to walk on uneven terrain, or playing with their kids and pushing them in the swing is harder. All of those things are impacted.

And it’s not just work. It’s as I mentioned earlier, inability to do things with your daily life. So absolutely Zoom interviews, telephonic interviews is the most common. I think we’ve all been looking at ourselves enough over the past several years with Covid. And then prior to the Covid pandemic, I did a lot of in-person interviews. But not necessary, and I feel like it just creates more of a burden with timing and with scheduling than it needs to.

David Craig:
When somebody’s been injured and it has an impact on them, and it’s a permanent condition, is there a certain level of injury it has to be before an analysis like yours is helpful. Is there a rule of thumb? I see it impacting a lot of different people, but how about you, from your perspective? Is there a rule of thumb?

Sara Ford:
So my rule of thumb is, and what’s required to reduce earning capacity, reduce work life, is permanent impairment. So you think about someone that’s injured in a car accident, maybe they broke their arm. After they get that treated, they have their cast on for six weeks, they go back to doing everything they want. There’s no permanent injury there. They’re not having any problems, not recording pain, not recording problems with their grip strength.

That’s usually not something that I’m involved with, because there’s nothing there to quantify. Usually if there is, it’s more in the range of, “I was making $18 an hour, I missed 40 hours of work. Here’s what that amount looks like.” What I’m involved with is the permanency cases, the times where we don’t heal up, the times where we have a residual impairment, residual difficulty with performing work or earning money. You think about brain injury, and you think about someone that, you take some time off and they say, “Okay, I’m going to recover. I’m still having these headaches,” and then it continues, and they can’t focus and they can’t concentrate on their work as well as they did before. So they end up taking more breaks and they end up having to take naps during the day just to get through their work day.

Just because they might be at the same job, doesn’t mean that there’s not a loss there because they’re taking more time to do the same thing, and we can quantify that. And if it’s permanent, it’s been going on for a long period of time and the doctors are saying, “This is kind of as good as it gets,” then we can look into the future with it too and say, “Well, you’re taking naps now, but what does it look like in 10 years? How many more naps are you going to have to take? Or how much work are you going to be able to get done within a day’s time period? And is that less than what it otherwise would’ve been?”

David Craig:
How about psychological injuries? I mean anxiety, post-traumatic stress. Can someone who has a diagnosis and a doctor who says they’re going to have an ongoing issue for the rest of their life, recommend counseling, can that have an impact on their earning capacity? If say it’s not physical but it’s mental.

Sara Ford:
PTSD absolutely is one of those things you see people returning… We often think about soldiers returning from war and PTSD, but there’s a reality that PTSD is created from a lot of different things in our culture, and it impacts you. Dog bite cases are a big one. When you’re bit by a dog and you have a lot of PTSD around dogs. I know the cliche is that mailmen get bit by dogs or mail persons get bit by dogs. I’ve had several cases where a mail carrier has gotten bit by a dog and then could not return to that position because of the PTSD. There may have been some other walking, but overall the PTSD, the very scared reality of running into another dog kept them from working. So absolutely, you can quantify it based on that too.

David Craig:
Yeah, and I’m kind of biased because my dad was a psychologist, so mental injuries always were just as real to me as physical injuries. But I’ve had a case where a truck driver, an over-the-road truck driver was in a really bad wreck caused by another semi, where people died. And he didn’t receive any physical injury whatsoever, but mentally he could not — even despite counseling — get back in a semi and drive it. And he was a relatively young person. And so no physical injuries, but mentally, the anxiety and the post-traumatic stress was so horrible that he could never go back to driving.

Sara Ford:
Absolutely. I had a case recently here in the Louisville area, a little girl that already had some cognitive difficulties. She was a bus rider. She gets off the bus, and her backpack gets caught in the door. The bus driver didn’t see her backpack there, got caught. She was dragged by the bus. I don’t want to say how many feet, but it was a long time before the bus driver found her.

Residually, she had some physical limitations, but the biggest thing that was going to impact her and her ability to work is that she was just scared to death of buses. She couldn’t go on field trips. She was still a young girl and still in school. She couldn’t go on field trips because she couldn’t ride the bus.

Now you’ve taken a girl that may or may not have been able to drive as an adult, and now you’ve taken away access for her to be able to get to a job because she won’t get on a bus from a psychological standpoint. And that resulted in a very big verdict, because you’re taking her access to jobs, which is already small, and then making it essentially even smaller and cutting off her access to those things because of that psychological impact of seeing a bus and being around buses.

David Craig:
I know you write in this area, you speak in this area. But you’re very good at it. You’re very passionate about what you do. And I’m curious because there’s a difference. I love what I do. Every morning, it’s easy for me to get up because of the difference I can make. But I’m just curious, what makes you so passionate? What makes you so good at your area?

Sara Ford:
I have to say probably number one, I love putting a value on things. That comes from my economic background, that comes from just being in economics. And then I also love to be able to explain to people what it means when someone has difficulties with working or when someone has a disability that makes it hard to do things. It’s just a lot of empathy, I think. Just going to the grocery store and understanding that the person that’s bagging your groceries or the person that’s scanning your groceries, sometimes you can’t see what’s going on with them. Sometimes you can’t understand if they’re having difficulties with remembering what is the next step or moving the item because it’s too heavy.

And so I think it’s just a lot of empathy, and you hear all of these stories and you talk to people. It’s just appreciation for the fact that there are a lot of people out there that are very hardworking, that are continuing to work hard, but it’s different now, and making sure that it’s accounted for, what that difference would be over their work life.

I grew up in Cincinnati. My parents were both hardworking people, and I guess just watching them overcome different things. My dad slipped on the ice at work at one point, fell on his toolbox, and I remember driving to see him in the hospital with a broken rib and just seeing people having difficulties and limitations, and then work still and to be out there.

And I don’t know. Gosh, I’ve never answered that question before, but that’s the only thing I can think of is that the empathy factor is there for me.

David Craig:
Well, I think one of the other things that makes you wonderful at it is that you’re a good teacher. I mean, I think that there’s a lot of these concepts that are not that easy, relatively speaking. I’m not an economist, and I don’t do what you do, but I think we want people who can explain it in a way that we understand it, and you’re very good at that.

Sara Ford:
I’ve always thought about being a teacher for sure. I love teachers, but just never had the desire to really immerse myself in the teaching career. But again, economics, loving the process of putting numbers on things, and then the ability to teach. And yes, the ability to explain to someone what it means. When you see, as I mentioned, a grocery store bagger and maybe they only have one arm. And it’s easy to see, okay, I understand you’re putting the groceries in one at a time because you have one arm. It’s not easy to see if they’re putting the meats and the cheeses together or the frozen stuff in with the breads, because maybe they just don’t understand the difference or maybe they have a brain injury that makes processing difficult.
And so I find that aspect pretty amazing too, to just be able to empathize and say, “Yeah, this is what might be going on, and it’s great that they’re working,” but we can tell that there’s a difference.

David Craig:
So if somebody has been seriously injured in a wreck, and that’s the audience that I hope to reach with this podcast, so that what I want to do is educate folks so that they know what questions to ask, either ask their lawyer or ask the people around them. What do you think people should be looking at? When should they ask their lawyer about, “Hey, maybe we should talk to a vocational expert?”

Sara Ford:
A lot of times it’ll be something as simple as they haven’t gone back to work yet, and they are not sure that they’ll ever be able to get back to their job. A lot of companies are required to hold your job for a certain amount of time. But if it looks like they’re not going to be able to be released, if it looks like they’re not going to be able to go back to that job, that’s the obvious one.

The less obvious one is, “Hey, I went back to work and I’m having a lot of difficulties. I’m having problems with the amount of work I’m doing, or I’m having problems with coming home at the end of the day and just being physically, mentally exhausted and having to get up the next morning and go do it again, and recover enough to be able to do it. And it’s not going away. It’s not getting any better.”

Some people say, “Oh, well, you just get back at it, and you just have to get back in routine of things.” But when you’re noticing that you’re not the same, you’re not doing the same amount of work that you were doing, or you’re doing it differently, if it hurts. Doctors always say, “If it hurts, don’t do it.” That’s one of those things too.

If I’m at work and it’s hurting me, then that might be a situation where you say, “Hey, is this going to get better? And if it’s not, am I in danger of losing my job, or do I need to consider changing jobs to do something where it doesn’t hurt when I’m sitting or it doesn’t hurt because I get to stand the whole time or I don’t have to lift?”

David Craig:
And I think people should understand that, so if you’ve got an issue, you think, “Oh guys, this injury I have may affect my ability to earn money in the future,” you should go and be encouraged. Just talk to your lawyer, ask your lawyer, talk to your lawyer about it because there’s no harm. I mean we should all, if your lawyer’s not willing to talk to you and answer your questions, then that’s a bigger problem. But most lawyers that I find that do personal injury are willing to talk to you, and listen to you, and explain that. And I think one thing people don’t understand is that it doesn’t cost them money out of their pocket upfront.
And so I’m always willing to hire experts because a lawyer pays for the expert like yourself, and then we get reimbursed at the end of the case if we get anything. And so I would much rather, at least personally, I would rather advance those expenses and find out what type of loss we’re looking at, because otherwise I’m not sure how I can make an intelligent decision on a value of a case for someone who can’t work or who’s working hurt.

Sara Ford:
And I will add to that to say that I get a lot of calls from attorneys that say, “Hey, I just want to see if this is something that you might be able to help with.” So I feel like there’s a lot of attorneys that maybe are thinking in this realm, and there’s times where I will say, “No, I’m sorry. I just don’t think I can help with that.” Or, “I don’t want to put the rest of your case in jeopardy.” Because as we talked about at the beginning, there’s things like medical needs that might be there. I could never put a value on pain and suffering. And for me to say, “Oh, I’m going to manufacture a loss where there’s not one,” would put the rest of the case in jeopardy.

So for me, it’s call me and I will ask you questions. I will talk to you and I will say, “Okay, so is this person reporting that they’re having difficulties with performing their work?” If they’re not, I will usually say, “I don’t know how much I can help you.” There are some caveats, if a person is expecting an additional surgery that they haven’t gotten yet, or if it’s something like we talked about, where maybe a career option has been taken away from them, that can be something that can be adjusted.

All cases are so very different, that it’s important to really understand your specific picture to see if there might be a loss that could be quantified. I remember I talked to an attorney at one point and he called and said, “I have a kid that got shot. He was with a friend that shot in the eye with a bow and arrow. They were shooting with a bow and arrow. He went through treatment, he got everything that he needed done. Now he has 20/40 vision without a corrective lens in one of his eyes. Is there something you can do to help me?” And I chuckled, and I said, “Well gosh, I really wish I had 20/40 vision without corrective lenses. I mean, my eyes need to be corrected a whole lot more than that.” So 20/40, I said, “I just don’t see there being a whole lot there that I can help with quantifying earning capacity, quantifying loss of earnings, because 20/40 is kind of okay that he’s going to be okay.” And yes, I know that there’s a whole lot other issues with the medicals and with pain and suffering. But in terms of earnings, working, being able to perform the work that he did, he’s probably going to be okay, especially with that corrective lens issue. Even the military now accepts corrective lenses. So that’s a good thing.

David Craig:
And I think that most lawyers are going to tell you that you don’t want to overreach, because that’s the kiss of death. If you overreach in a jury, juries are smart. They’re not dumb people. They’re average everyday people, and I believe they do a great job. And the worst thing you can ever do is to put something out there like that and claim something that just doesn’t make sense, because then you do jeopardize the rest of your case.

Sara Ford:
Absolutely. And I think that comes into play, especially when you have children or people that haven’t started working yet. And you get big dreams, big ideas. “Well, my 14-year-old said that she wanted to be a doctor, so why don’t we use doctors’ earnings? Why don’t we use PhDs? Why don’t we really reach?” And some of that is fine, but then you’re just really jeopardizing because you’re saying, “This is a 14-year-old. We don’t really know what’s going to happen.” But we can use statistics to say, “These are the scenarios that are most likely to occur.” And if the jury thinks it’s something else, then they can listen to it, pick that one too. But giving a foundation to say, “This is solid. This is a reasonable expectation.” And then yes, if the jury thinks doctor is appropriate, then this is what that is, too.

David Craig:
Yeah. How do you like testifying live at trial versus deposition?

Sara Ford:
I love trials. Trials are my absolute favorite. I love to look at jury. Like you said, juries are smart. They understand what’s going on. I love to be able to look at them and really, as you mentioned, teach them and then see how they’re responding to me.

So if I’m in Northern Indiana, I can use more examples that are based in what their local concepts are. If I’m in Texas, I could talk about oil fields and oil field workers. Attach to the jury, something that they can connect to be able to say, “Yeah, yes I have an uncle that injured his back in the oil field and can no longer do that type of work. So I understand what this person might be going through.” Depending on all of the evidence, of course, that they hear and what their decision might be. But I love trials.

Depositions, it’s part of the game. I don’t mind depositions. Sometimes they’re a little bit more cantankerous than they need to be. But again, that’s part of the job. That’s part of my occupation, is to be able to defend my opinions and to really say, “This is my opinion, and that’s all that it is. I have master’s degree, I have an undergraduate in economics, and I’m using statistics to back up my opinions. These are the reasons that I’m using those. And I have 19 years of experience in looking at those statistics and talking to people that have disabilities.”

But really all that is, is an opinion. It could never be known with any kind of certainty. I’m just here to help and to say, “Hey, the jury thinks that money should be awarded, that damages should be awarded for this item. This is likely what it looks like. More likely than not, this is what that number would be.”

David Craig:
So what else would you like to talk about that I haven’t covered? What do you think is important for people to know or something that maybe I’ve just completely missed?

Sara Ford:
No, I think we’ve talked about everything. I would say it’s important to understand that I’m not saying with certainty that someone is going to stop working at a certain time or that they’re not going to be able to work, they’re not going to be able to continue. I say a lot of times when I’m speaking to people, “Well look, I’m going to get my report over to your attorney so that you know it’s not going to say that you can’t work. It’s going to say that it’s different now and that it’s harder for you to do the same thing that you did before.” And I think that that’s an important thing. It’s not an absolute statement. It is based in statistics from the U.S. government. The government gives us a lot of statistics, and something that they give us a good handle on is the population with disabilities, what their employment rates look like, what their earnings look like, to be able to help make decisions.

David Craig:
Those statistics, they used to not bother me 38 years ago when I started practicing and I tried the cases with life expectancy, it didn’t bother me. Now they’re like, “What? Where are they, really?”

Sara Ford:
You’re not kidding. Part of my job is household services, when you’re talking about someone that can’t perform the services of a house and you’re replacing that value, because that has a value too. But they’re broken into categories, too. And the one that always gets me is married women between the ages of 45 and 54: one child under the age of 18, spouse employed. And then you look at the number of hours that they spend statistically on average working in the house, doing inside housework, doing outside housework, traveling, and those are the numbers that get me too along with the life expectancy where you’re like, “Oh, wow okay.”

David Craig:
I’m getting closer.

Sara Ford:
That number’s getting smaller.

David Craig:
Yeah, it’s like, whoa.

Sara Ford:
Yeah.

David Craig:
One other comment you mentioned is all you do is provide statistics, and what’s more probably true than not true, and I wouldn’t say it doesn’t mean that someone can’t work or they may not be able to work longer. But the opposite is also true. Unfortunately, it also doesn’t mean people are going to actually make it until your predicted age, because sometimes it’s an educated guess that we can rely upon in determining. But all too often I hear the defense say, “Well guys, that doesn’t mean that they won’t keep working beyond this date.” But on the other hand, it also doesn’t mean that people aren’t going to work less, because sometimes injuries get worse over time and they have to get out of the workforce quicker.

Sara Ford:
Yeah, absolutely. And that’s all it is a statistic, an average. So if you ask me, like you said, the life expectancy statistic, it’s that number. You could live way past that number. You could also not make it to that number. So we’re using statistics to have a basis in making a decision.

We use statistics every day of our lives. I guess the best example is, hey, I’m trying to decide what car insurance company to go with. And all of those rates are based in statistics, and they’re saying, “Okay, well you’re a 16-year-old boy that drives a red car. Your rate is going to be higher than the 16-year-old girl that drives a minivan.” Those are all statistics, and it’s based in numbers. The actuarial tables that they’re using for life insurance, those are all based in statistics too.

So we all use statistics to make our decisions, if I’m going to buy a lottery ticket or not. That’s probably the worst example because we buy the lottery ticket when the number is really high, when the statistics are way worse than winning when the numbers are really low. But we’re using statistics to still make that decision.
Or, I’m a huge baseball fan. So looking at someone that comes up to the plate and saying, “Okay, well they’ve got a good batting average and that’s a statistic.” Or, “They’ve got a good on-base percentage,” or runners in scoring positions, and their slugging percentage. You’re getting your hopes up based on that, that they’re going to be able to score a run or you’re going to be able to do something. You’re making bets at a casino, you’re making bets in a sports book. That’s all statistics based.

So using statistics in this way is just a helpful tool for a jury, a helpful tool for anyone that’s trying to put a number on it. I can’t imagine having to come together and say, plaintiff side, defense side, “All right, let’s pick a number.” But if we can put a statistic to it and say, “Hey look, this is what it would be,” then you can still come together and make the number work in an agreeable fashion, hopefully.

David Craig:
Well, Sara, thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast. And how do people reach you or your company if they’re interested?

Sara Ford:
So the company, Vocational Economics, Inc. we have a website. It’s vocecon.com. V as in Victor, O-C, and then E-C-O-N.com. Vocecon like Vocational Economics. You can find me there. Like you mentioned, we have offices across the country. I’m mainly in the Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky area, but I’ve done work in Georgia, and Texas, and Florida. Gosh, by now I think I’ve testified in 11 different states by trial and 13 or 14 by deposition.

So, slowly building that number up. Hopefully 50 will be my last one in Hawaii and I’ll just retire out there. But definitely on the website, it’s easy to find me. Or I’m sure if they contacted you, you have my contact information too. Happy to talk to anyone that wants to run a case by me. Like you said, no charge. I’m happy to hear it and to work through it if there’s something where I think I can help, but I just need more information, I’d be happy to do that too.

And I should mention, a lot of times when I’m involved in cases, if I’m missing something or if I really think, “Hey, this person definitely needs a life care plan,” or this other aspect that would help my testimony or that would help the individual, I’m happy to relay that information, too, and say, “Hey, Mr. or Ms. attorney, this is something that you probably want to pursue at some point with your case as well.”

David Craig:
Great. Well, thank you very much, Sara.

Sara Ford:
Thank you. Have a great day.

David Craig:
Thanks.

This is David Craig, and you’ve been listening to After the Crash. If you’d more information about me or my law firm, please go to our website ckflaw.com. Or if you’d like to talk to me, you can call 1-800-ASK-DAVID. If you would like a guide on what to do after a truck wreck, then pick up my book Semitruck Wreck: A Guide for Victims and Their Families, which is available on Amazon, or you can download it for free on our website, ckflaw.com.