Opinion ID: 1938319
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Personal consumption expenditures.

Text: Deductions for personal consumption are of course important calculations in determining the extent of lost accumulations. See Iowa Uniform Jury Instruction No. 3.10. Defendants assert trial court erred in failing to grant their motion for directed verdict because there was inadequate evidence of decedents' level of personal consumption expenditures. While plaintiff's economist attempted no projected calculations of this factor, there was considerable evidence adduced as to decedents' life-styles and frugality. We think the rationale of Haumersen v. Ford Motor Co., 257 N.W.2d at 17-18, applies. In discussing the lack of evidence as to maintenance of a minor male child we there stated: Plaintiffs might indeed have attempted to estimate such cost, but for that matter, so could the jurors themselves, who are presumed to have been reasonable men, acquainted with the ordinary affairs of life, and doubtless as well informed as plaintiffs themselves regarding the expenses reasonably incident to the support of a boy of the age of the deceased. Id. at 18. The same commonsense ability to estimate personal consumption deductions should be accorded a jury under the record before us. See also Baker v. Beal, 225 N.W.2d 106, 111-12 (Iowa 1975).