Recent Legal Decisions Regarding Hedonic Damages : An Update

This paper examines trends in court decisions involving hedonic damages as a follow up to an earlier survey of cases described by Ireland, Johnson and Taylor in a 1997 article. The trend continues to be against admissibility of expert economic testimony on hedonic damages or other methods for placing dollar values on intangible losses. However, there have been successes for hedonic damage testimony that receive special attention in this paper. Paper also addresses special factors that apply to decisions in the states of New Mexico, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio and Texas. It also examines the nexus between law and economics concerns about “value of life” issues in tort litigation and what judges are actually considering. Finally, it provides an analytic examination of a special “whole life” issue posed by the treatment of survival actions in New Mexico in conjunction with requirements of consciousness for awards of hedonic damages in other states