The loss of society and companionship is the most emotional aspect of the claim. Out of an unrealistic fear that juries would be tempted to award excessive damages, the Wisconsin legislature has consistently over the years seen fit to enact a cap on damages for the grief of the survivors. Wisconsin is still one of a small minority of states with such a cap. The cap is amended by the legislature from time to time, but any attempt to apply the amendment retroactively would fail on constitutional grounds. Because defense counsel have a proclivity to suggest that juries award most of the damages for loss of society and companionship, while knowing that there has been a cap in place, the law now permits the judge to advise the jury of the cap.
Most cases involve expert testimony from physicians, vocational experts and economists.
Plaintiffs' counsel often retain these experts to estimate and give forensic testimony on the largest aspect of the claim, the pecuniary loss. The experts take into account the decedent's and survivor's age, condition of health before the injury and death, earning capacity, life expectancy, work-life expectancy, probable future income, probable future personal consumption expenditures, probable support to the survivor, the effect of inflation, the present value of future losses, the value of household services, and the probable accretions to the estate from savings in the event that death had not occurred. Estate of Holt v. State Farm Mut. In the typical case of the death of a wage earner, plaintiff's attorney can easily employ traditional methods of garnering the evidence. Much of the proof comes from school records, employment records, tax returns and witness accounts of the decedent's industriousness.