Opinion ID: 490593
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Lost Future Earnings and Retraining Expenses

Text: 19 The appellants contend that Mr. Wolkenhauer is entitled to recover damages for his retraining expenses and for his future lost earnings. Appellants claim that Mr. Wolkenhauer should receive compensation for the tuition, rent and commuting expenses he incurred while he received training as a robotics technician. Appellants further maintain that an award of future lost earnings is necessary because Mr. Wolkenhauer's injury impaired his ability to work and reduced his future earning capacity. Appellees contend that the district court properly denied Mr. Wolkenhauer any award for retraining expenses because he discontinued the training and is physically capable of driving a truck. The appellees also claim that Mr. Wolkenhauer is not entitled to recover damages for future lost wages because such an award would be speculative. In appellees' view, Mr. Wolkenhauer's inability to work resulted generally from the unavailability of trucking positions and specifically from the insolvency of his former employer, Briggs Transport Company, not from his injury. 20 The district court carefully evaluated whether Mr. Wolkenhauer was entitled to damages for retraining expenses and concluded that the appellees need not compensate appellants for those expenses. We do not find the district court's finding to be clearly erroneous. The district judge initially thought that an award for retraining expenses was appropriate, but, upon reflection, concluded that such an award was unwarranted. He noted that Mr. Wolkenhauer expressed doubts about continuing in the robotics training program. Mem. op. at 14-15. Further, because Mr. Wolkenhauer was actually driving trucks, retraining as a robotics technician was not necessitated as a result of any disability he suffered from the accident. While Mr. Wolkenhauer experiences some pain from driving a truck, the pain does not prevent him from driving trucks and he has received compensation for that pain in the form of the $50,000 pain and suffering award. 3 21 We also do not find the district court's conclusion that Mr. Wolkenhauer is not entitled to recover future lost wages to be clearly erroneous. Under Illinois law, the measure of damages for impairment of earning capacity is the difference between the amount which plaintiff was capable of earning before his injury and that which he is capable of earning thereafter. Robinson, 70 Ill.Dec. at 380, 449 N.E.2d at 254. The difference between the plaintiff's actual earnings before and after the injury does not constitute the measure of damages. Rather, [d]amages should be estimated on the injured person's ability to earn money. Id. 22 Based upon the testimony at trial, the court determined that the major factor preventing Mr. Wolkenhauer from finding permanent employment was the bankruptcy of the trucking company for which he had previously worked. The court noted that the reduction in the use of appellant's left arm is only 5% and that he has been able to drive trucks on a part-time basis. After reviewing the evidence presented, the court concluded that there are too many other causative factors present in the record (e.g., economic conditions in the trucking industry) to permit the Court to say that the injury he received in the accident is a proximate cause of his present or future unemployment. Mem. op. at 17. In view of Illinois case law requiring that recovery for impairment of earning capacity be limited to such loss as is reasonably certain to occur, Christou v. Arlington Park-Washington Park Race Tracks Corp., 104 Ill.App.3d 257, 60 Ill.Dec. 21, 24, 432 N.E.2d 920, 923 (1982), the district court correctly determined that Mr. Wolkenhauer's loss of future earnings resulting from the accident was too speculative to be compensable.