What is a human life worth? That is an impossibly abstract question, so let’s ask a more concrete one. Suppose that while walking home at night, Mary Jones, a forty-year-old doctor, was killed by a negligent driver who was texting and not looking at the road. Suppose that Jones’s widower and children sued the driver, claiming that he committed the tort of “wrongful death” and seeking damages. How much money should they get?
The legal system offers some answers: Jones’s family should receive an amount to compensate for the “pain and suffering” that she experienced before her death; the cost of any medical treatments she may have had as a result of the accident; funeral expenses; and the earnings that the family would have received as a result of Jones’s “lifetime income.” The last amount is often the largest. Because Jones was a doctor and only forty years old, she would likely have earned a lot of money over the rest of her life, and her survivors would be entitled to it.
