“Willingness to award” nonmonetary damages and the implied value of life from jury awards

Abstract

Juries in the United States routinely compensate plaintiffs for “pain and suffering” beyond their out-of-pocket losses, under the theory that these payments will make the victim “whole.” This paper examines the jury’s “willingness-to-award” nonmonetary damages in over 1200 cases of consumer product related injuries and intentional assaults. By comparing awards to the injuries and out-of-pocket losses sustained by the plaintiff, we compute the implicit value of a statistical life from jury awards for nonfatal injuries. We find that jury awards are predictable (although with a high degree of variability), and that the implied value of a statistical life is approximately $1.4 to $3.8 million. This figure is well within the range of estimates derived independently from wage-risk studies. One implication of our findings is that “scheduling” pain and suffering awards based on the statistical value of a life would reduce uncertainty and not affect overall award levels.