When we reflected on Juneteenth this year, the lesson that stayed with us was simple:
freedom declared on paper means nothing until someone fights to make it real. In 1865,
freedom had already been promised to the enslaved people of Texas for more than two
years before it actually reached Galveston. The promise existed. The reality lagged
behind — because powerful interests benefited from the delay.
We see a quieter version of that same gap in our civil practice every day. And it’s time
more people understood it.
How Much Is Your Future Worth? Someone Has Already Decided.
When a person is seriously injured by someone else’s negligence, one of the biggest
pieces of their case is the value of their lost future earnings — the income they would
have earned over a lifetime had they not been hurt. To calculate it, forensic economists
rely on data tables that project future wages.
Here’s the part most people never hear: for decades, many of those tables have been
race-, ethnicity-, and gender-specific. Because women and people of color have
historically earned less in this country — the direct result of generations of
discrimination — those same historical numbers get baked into the projection. The table
essentially assumes a Black child, a Latino worker, or a woman will earn less in the
future because people who look like them earned less in the past.
The effect is staggering. A widely cited 2016 Washington Post analysis found that, for
an identical injury and identical education, a 20-year-old African American woman might
be valued at roughly $1.24 million in future lost wages, while a white man in the exact
same position would be valued at about $2.28 million — nearly double. A 2009 survey
by the National Association of Forensic Economics found that a large share of
economists would factor in race, and the overwhelming majority would factor in gender,
even when projecting the earnings of an injured child.
This isn’t ancient history. In one New York case, G.M.M. v. Kimpson, the defense
openly argued that a young boy’s damages should be reduced because, as a Hispanic
child, he was supposedly less likely to attain an advanced degree. A child’s worth,
discounted in open court, because of his ethnicity.
Why This Is a Freedom Issue
Strip away the spreadsheets and what’s left is a system quietly telling people of color
that their futures are worth less. That the harm done to them counts for less. That their
potential — to rise, to earn, to build, to break the very patterns the data describes —
should be capped at what discrimination already cost their parents and grandparents.
That is the opposite of freedom. It takes the injustices of the past and projects them
forward as if they were destiny.
It also creates a brutal cycle. Lower projected damages mean lower settlement offers.
They can even make it harder for injured people of color to find a lawyer at all, since
many personal injury attorneys work on contingency and may pass on cases the tables
make look “too small.” And insurance adjusters know all of this. They know how juries
and tables tend to undervalue minority plaintiffs — so the very first offer that lands in
front of an injured client is often lower than it should be, betting they’ll feel pressured to
take it.
Freedom that’s earned but withheld. Owed but discounted. Kept just out of reach by
people who profit from the wait. We’ve heard that story before.
If you or someone you love has been seriously injured, don’t let anyone tell you what
your life is worth based on a number borrowed from the past. Call us at (713) 520-7000
or reach out at info@thesparkslawfirm.com for a free, confidential consultation.
Let’s make sure you’re valued in full.