Future Damages
Future damages are the anticipated losses that a personal injury plaintiff is expected to incur after the date of the trial or settlement as a result of their injuries. They represent compensation for ongoing and future consequences of the defendant's wrongful conduct — medical treatment that has not yet occurred, income that has not yet been lost, and suffering that has not yet been experienced. Because these damages concern events that have not yet happened, they must be proven with reasonable certainty through expert testimony and sound methodology.
Future medical damages are typically established through testimony from a life care planner — a specialized expert who assesses the plaintiff's long-term medical needs and calculates the cost of future treatment, rehabilitation, medications, medical equipment, personal care assistance, and other medical-related expenses. The life care plan must be grounded in the plaintiff's specific medical history, current condition, and prognosis, as established by treating physicians and medical experts. Future medical costs are often among the largest components of damages in catastrophic injury cases.
Future lost earnings require a forensic economist to project the income the plaintiff would have earned had they not been injured, taking into account their age, educational background, career trajectory, expected work-life expectancy, and applicable economic variables such as wage growth and inflation. The projected future income stream must then be discounted to present value — because a dollar received in the future is worth less than a dollar received today. Different jurisdictions handle present value discounting in different ways, and this technical analysis is often contested between competing experts.
The standards for proving future damages require a showing that the future losses are reasonably certain to occur — not merely possible or speculative. Courts distinguish between uncertainty about whether a future loss will occur (which makes it too speculative to recover) and uncertainty about the precise dollar amount of a certain loss (which is acceptable as long as the loss itself is reasonably certain). The burden of proving future damages with reasonable certainty can be challenging, but it is essential for ensuring that seriously injured plaintiffs receive compensation for the full lifetime impact of their injuries.