Opinion ID: 197150
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Remittitur

Text: 12 Starlight claims that the trial court miscalculated the remittitur at $254,212.50. 3 Starlight first projects a total future economic loss as low as $27,199, by using Conde's 1987 income, rather than the higher 1988 income figure, for arriving at a base annual salary. As Conde was injured in mid-August, 1988, however, the jury reasonably could have looked to Conde's higher 1988 income projection as a more accurate reflection of his future earning power than the 1987 income. See Eastern Mountain Platform Tennis, Inc. v. Sherwin-Williams Co., 40 F.3d 492, 502 (1st Cir.1994) (in ruling on remittitur motion, court examines evidence in the light most favorable to the prevailing party); see also Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. v. Pfeifer, 462 U.S. 523, 538, 103 S.Ct. 2541, 2551, 76 L.Ed.2d 768 (1983) (It is both easier and more precise to discount the entire lost stream of earnings back to the date of injury--the moment from which earning capacity was impaired.). 4 13 Starlight next argues that the 3% per annum adjustment for inflation in non-agricultural workers' wages from 1988 to 1995 (i.e., 20.25% in aggregate) was excessive because a commercial fisherman would not be classified as a non-agricultural worker and recent federal restrictions upon commercial fishing on Georges Bank have depressed fishermen's wages. Starlight offers no evidentiary support for its contention that a commercial fisherman would not qualify as a non-agricultural worker (i.e., one who does not cultivate land) for purposes of the 1995 Economic Report of the President, which the parties otherwise stipulated as a source of the applicable non-agricultural inflation rate. Nor did Starlight adduce any evidence as to how its suggested offset to the stipulated inflation rate should be calculated. We therefore conclude that it has failed to demonstrate any conscienceshocking adjustment in calculating an inflation rate. See supra note 3. 14 Finally, Starlight argues that the trial court used the $118,500 jury award for past economic loss to calculate the relevant base year salary (i.e., Conde's lost income for 1995) with which to extrapolate his future (i.e., post-1995) economic loss, rather than predicating the base figure calculation directly on the trial evidence. 5 Although neither we nor the parties have been able to reconstruct the exact mathematical calculations utilized by the district court, 6 the trial evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to Conde, would yield an approximate discounted future economic loss of $196,236. 7 15 The unknowable and unquantifiable factors involved in calculating a future stream of lost income (e.g., future inflation rates; actual work life), militate against a search for 'delusive exactness,'  since [i]t is perfectly obvious that the most detailed inquiry can at best produce an approximate result. Jones & Laughlin, 462 U.S. at 546, 552, 103 S.Ct. at 2555, 2558. Even viewing the trial evidence most generously to Conde, however, the $254,212.50 award for future economic loss effectively disregards a significant and practicably quantifiable factor: the need to reduce future economic loss to present value, even if only by the most conservative discount figure (1%), see supra note 7, particularly since the parties stipulated below that some present value reduction would be appropriate, albeit reserving the precise discount rate (1% or 2%). Cf. id. at 548, 103 S.Ct. at 2556 (noting that use of discount rate between 1% and 3% in Jones Act case would not be an abuse of discretion). 8