Calculating Damages for Loss of Parental Nurture Through Multiple Regression Analysis

I. IntroductionMr. [Leon] Rogow was a well educated man of considerable intellectual achievement. He was obviously well equipped to provide his children with training and guidance of educational value to them.... Had he lived they would have received the benefit of his training and guidance for many years.(1)Mrs. [Regina] Spangler was unstintingly devoted to her family.... [H]er loyalty was expressed in an incessant activity, tireless energy, and never-flagging concern.... Mrs. Spangler was obviously one of those wife-mothers who give heart, body, and soul to the family.(2)Few would envy the task of compensating a child for the loss of a parent like Mr. Rogow or Mrs. Spangler.(3) Yet wrongful death statutes in virtually every American jurisdiction provide that a child who sues for the wrongful death of a parent can receive compensatory damages for loss of parental nurture.(4) Generally, wrongful death statutes restrict compensation to the plaintiff's actual pecuniary losses.(5) Although most courts recognize parental nurture's pecuniary value,(6) courts have difficulty calculating the value of a parent's care and guidance.(7) Although compensatory awards by definition should "compensate the injured party for the injury sustained, and nothing more,"(8) courts frequently ignore the purpose of compensatory damages by engaging in sheer speculation when calculating damages for loss of parental nurture.(9) As a result, damage awards for lost parental nurture appear speculative and arbitrary.(10)A legal system should strive for certainty in calculating damages(11) to avoid under- or over-compensating a plaintiff.(12) Because current efforts to assess the value of parental nurture produce capricious awards, courts should apply precise mathematical techniques for calculating nurtural damages.(13) Mathematical techniques exist that, if properly applied, can increase certainty in calculating damages for loss of parental nurture.(14)This Note argues that because current efforts at compensating plaintiffs for loss of parental nurture result in injustice for both plaintiffs and defendants, courts should improve the method of calculating damages by applying statistical techniques to determine damages for lost parental nurture. Part II of this Note analyzes courts' contemporary efforts at calculating damages for loss of parental nurture and concludes that courts have awarded plaintiffs speculative and arbitrary damages for lost parental nurture. Part III examines the injury that courts designed nurtural damages to remedy and suggests the child's loss of future income as the standard by which to measure damages for lost parental nurture. Part IV discusses courts' use and acceptance of multiple regression analysis. Finally, Part V describes a general statistical method for calculating damages for loss of parental nurture as a portion of a child's future income.II. Current Efforts at Calculating Damages for Loss of Parental NurtureA review of awards for loss of parental nurture suggests an imbalance in the scales of justice.(15) For example, in Rodriquez v. United States,(16) the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey awarded two separate families $500,000 each for loss of parental nurture when a plane accident killed the head of each family.(17) Although the district court found that each father was devoted to his family, made repairs around the house, valued education, and had moved to the United States during early adulthood,(18) the district court also found that several of the decedents' characteristics varied dramatically.(19) For example, the first decedent was survived by his wife and two children (aged two and three years) and had received vocational training as a machinist.(20) By contrast, the second decedent was survived by six children (aged two to sixteen) and held a bachelor's degree in engineering and master's degrees in computer science and business administration. …