Vocational Rehabilitation in Injury Claims — How Work Disability Is Calculated

## Vocational Rehabilitation Experts and Lost Earning Capacity

When a catastrophic injury permanently prevents a plaintiff from returning to their pre-injury employment — or from working at all — a vocational rehabilitation expert is essential to documenting and quantifying the lost earning capacity. This expert evaluates what the plaintiff could have done but for the injury, what they can still do, and what the economic difference between those two scenarios is worth over a lifetime. Combined with a forensic economist's present value analysis, the vocational expert's work becomes one of the largest components of catastrophic injury economic damages.

The difference between a skilled trade worker with 20 pre-injury earning years and no ability to return to manual work after a spinal cord injury, versus a theoretical sedentary job earning 30% of pre-injury wages, can produce lifetime lost earning capacity damages of $1 million to $2 million on a moderate income — before adding any medical costs.

What a Vocational Rehabilitation Expert Does

A certified rehabilitation counselor (CRC) or vocational rehabilitation expert analyzes the plaintiff's pre-injury work history, education, skills, and earning capacity, then evaluates how the specific injury limitations affect those work capacities.

• Review of the plaintiff's complete employment history, education records, and training
• Review of the medical records to understand what functional limitations the injury has created
• Assessment of the plaintiff's transferable skills — what they could still do with the injury
• Labor market research to identify available sedentary or less physically demanding positions within the plaintiff's functional capacity
• Earnings comparison between what the plaintiff would have earned in their pre-injury career and what they can realistically earn after the injury

Types of Vocational Findings in Catastrophic Cases

• **Total work disability:** The plaintiff's injury prevents any competitive employment — the strongest finding that maximizes lost earning capacity damages
• **Partial work disability:** The plaintiff can work in some capacity but at reduced hours, in different positions, or at lower earnings than pre-injury — generates lost earning capacity for the difference
• **Future employability changes:** Some injuries will result in progressive decline (degenerative spinal changes from SCI, cognitive deterioration from TBI), affecting earning capacity further over time

How the Forensic Economist Uses Vocational Findings

The economist takes the vocational expert's pre- and post-injury earning capacity assessments and projects them over the plaintiff's remaining work-life expectancy, accounting for expected wage growth, career advancement, and the present value discount. The result is a specific dollar figure for total lifetime lost earning capacity — a critical component of the damages demand in catastrophic injury cases.