Economics Expert’s Opinion on Lost Household Services Excluded
Posted on June 17, 2025 by Expert Witness Profiler
The current dispute arises from a motor vehicle accident that occurred on October 26, 2022. While Plaintiff Altagrace Exume was following behind a tractor-trailer driven by Defendant Alexys Figueredo, a spare tire fell from the truck and struck Plaintiff’s vehicle. Plaintiff allegedly suffered injuries as a result of the collision. Plaintiff alleged that Defendant United Cargo Logistics, LLC (“UCL”) is liable for Plaintiff’s injuries under a variety of negligence and vicarious liability theories.
UCL filed a motion to strike Plaintiff’s expert economist, Roberto Cavazos, arguing that his opinion was unreliable, speculative, and unsupported by the evidence.
Economics Expert Witness
Roberto Cavazos is a professional economist with over 30 years of experience. He holds a BA, MPA and PhD from the University of Texas. Cavazos has worked on labor issues including lost earnings litigation matters, labor management relations for global multinationals and research and evaluation for the U.S. Department of Labor. He has been a faculty member of The University of Texas at San Antonio, Florida International University and Carnegie Mellon University where he taught graduate level economics and statistics.
Discussion by the Court
Continuance Until Cavazos is Deposed
Plaintiff urged the Court to postpone consideration of UCL’s Motion until after UCL deposes Cavazos. Discovery closed on March 20, 2025. Neither party has alerted the Court that Cavazos was deposed, even though months have passed since the filing of UCL’s motion. Thus, the Court found that ample time has passed, and it should rule on the instant motion.
While the deposition of an expert witness is undoubtedly best practice and helpful to the Court when evaluating a Daubert challenge, a deposition is not required before a party moves to exclude the testimony.
While UCL had the right to depose Cavazos to explore his opinions and chose not to do so, the right to depose an expert does not extinguish Plaintiff’s obligation to comply with Rule 26 and Daubert.
Plaintiff has cited no binding authority for the proposition that an expert must be deposed before this Court can rule on UCL’s motion to strike. Further, UCL is correct that Rule 26 requires a complete statement of all opinions the expert will express, the basis for them, and the facts and data considered by the expert in forming those opinions.
Cavazos’ Expert Report
Cavazos’ general methodology to calculate lost wages and earning capacity is simple. First, he makes his conclusion that Plaintiff will lose $15,000 per year in wages for the rest of her working life due to her injuries. Next, he estimates that Plaintiff has sixteen remaining years for her work. After determining Plaintiff’s remaining work life based on a single source, he then applied a corresponding annual increase to the $15,000 of 3.5% for inflation and annual present value of discount of 4.527%.
Notably, Cavazos concluded, with no factual support, that Plaintiff’s lost wages will remain constant, meaning that he concluded that Plaintiff’s injury is permanent and will affect her earning capacity for the rest of her life. He then concluded that Plaintiff has suffered $248,219 in past and future lost wages and earning capacity.
Cavazos provides a similar analysis for loss of household services. First, he concludes that prior to her injury, Plaintiff spent approximately 2.89 hours per day on various household services. His basis for this conclusion is a “survey” presumably conducted after Plaintiff’s accident . Additionally, Cavazos concludes that Plaintiff can only perform 50% of these household services for the rest of her life, due to her injury. He then states that Plaintiff will perform those services until her actuarial projected death, which is projected to be at the age of seventy-eight. After collecting the underlying conclusions, he then applies the same annual inflation and present value discount multipliers to conclude that Plaintiff has suffered a total of $395,294 in past and future loss of household services. To conclude his report, he adds all of Plaintiff’s economic damages together for a grand total of $643,513.
Lost Wages and Earning Capacity
Cavazos’ expert report has serious gaps in reasoning that make his opinion about the Plaintiff’s lost wages and reduced earning capacity unreliable. His main conclusion is that the Plaintiff will lose about $15,000 per year. To support this, he says he relied on an interview with the Plaintiff conducted on July 23, 2024. However, the report merely references the interview without explaining why she would lose that specific amount or even stating what her job is.
Moreover, his report does not mention the nature of the Plaintiff’s injury, how it has affected her ability to work, how long she may be unable to work fully, or whether he consulted a vocational expert for a more thorough evaluation.
The Court could reasonably find Cavazos’ opinion unreliable for these reasons alone.
Social Security Earnings Statement
Moreover, Cavazos’ opinion is wholly inconsistent with the evidence on the record. Three pay stubs from 2024 and Plaintiff’s Social Security Earnings Statement supported Cavazos’ claim that Plaintiff will lose $15,000 per year. However, the Social Security Earnings Statement shows earnings before her injury at $70,816 for 2020 and $64,855 for 2021. In 2022 (the year of her injury) she earned $69,330. In 2023 (the year after her injury) she earned $61,169. Thus, even using the highest amount Plaintiff earned in the period of 2020–2023, Plaintiff’s maximum earning was $70,816 and her lowest earnings after the injury was $61,189. That leaves a difference of $9,647, which is nowhere near the claimed $15,000 per year.
Pay Stubs
Likewise, Plaintiff’s pay stubs from 2024 show a similar problem. The three pay stubs are for March 15, March 29, and April 26. The pay stubs show that Plaintiff was paid on a biweekly basis. Averaging the three together yields an average biweekly pay of $2,599.37. Thus, simple math shows that Plaintiff’s yearly salary for 2024 based on the average biweekly pay would be $67,583.71. The difference between Plaintiff’s yearly earnings for 2020 and the approximate amount for 2024 is only $2,602.29.
Assuming that Plaintiff was paid in accordance with the records she provided, her “lost” earnings are miles away from the claim of $15,000. Problematically, Cavazos did not explain how Plaintiff’s claim of losing $15,000 per year is consistent with any of her prior financial earnings. He concluded, with no analysis or discussion, that Plaintiff’s losses are what she claims, even when all of the documentary evidence suggests a contrary conclusion.
The Court held that the largest gap in Cavazos’ analysis is his glaring assumption that Plaintiff’s injury, whatever it may be, will remain constant as a permanent disability for the remainder of her life. In short, Cavazos’ entire opinion is based on his own ipse dixit that Plaintiff will lose $15,000 per year and that her injury is permanent.
Loss of Household Services
In determining household services Cavazos again assumed that Plaintiff will be permanently disabled by assuming that her injury will decrease her ability to perform household services by 50% for the rest of her life. He stated that Plaintiff is projected to live until the age of seventy-eight. In performing his calculations, he states that Plaintiff will only be able to perform 50% of the household services she used to perform based on her injury.
His chart shows that the amount of time she can dedicate to those tasks will remain constant for the remainder of her life. Yet, as with lost wages and earning capacity, the Court held that there is no evidence to support that her injury is permanent and will hinder her from performing household services for the remainder of her life, nor of the factual basis to determine the amount of time Plaintiff spends on the daily household services.
For conclusions vital to the reliability of his opinion, he relied on an interview with Plaintiff. As far as the Court can tell, the interview consisted of two questions: (1) how much money do you expect to lose each year, and (2) what percentage of your household services can you no longer perform.
Held
The Court granted the Defendant United Cargo Logistics, LLC’s motion to exclude the testimony of Roberto Cavazos.
Key Takeaway:
Cavazos appears to have accepted the Plaintiff’s claim at face value, basing his entire analysis on her unverified statement that she would lose $15,000 annually. While experts may consider what a party tells them, they are still required to conduct their own independent analysis. In this case, Cavazos failed to do so and instead relied solely on the Plaintiff’s word.
Expert testimony is never appropriate when the witness merely synthesizes a party’s trial arguments and presents them as an expert opinion. Here, Cavazos relies upon an unsupported conclusion that Plaintiff is permanently disabled.
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Altagrace Exume V. United Cargo Logistics, LLC, Et Al |
| Docket Number: | 4:24cv205 |
| Court Name: | United States District Court, Texas Eastern |
| Order Date: | June 16, 2025 |
