What are household services-related economic damages?

The chores and tasks performed for one’s family and around one’s house is referred to as household services. Household services also include the care and helping of others within the household.

When individuals become injured, their ability to perform household services may be diminished. In these cases, and in wrongful death cases, the damages related to household services are calculated as the difference between the market-value of the household services the individual could perform prior to the injury, and the market-value of the household services they are capable of performing now that the injury has occurred.

Household services chores and tasks include

• Interior cleaning, laundry, sewing, storing items, carrying groceries
• Food and drink preparation, setting the table, serving food, kitchen and food cleanup
• Interior arrangement, decoration, house maintenance, building and repairing furniture, exterior cleaning and repair, lawn, garden, and pool care, vehicle repair
• Financial management, household and personal organization and planning, receiving and sending mail, home security
• Grocery shopping, purchasing gas and items for the home, comparison shopping
• Using professional and personal services such as interior cleaning, home maintenance, lawn and garden care, pet care, vehicle maintenance
• Travel related to household services
• Adult care including physical care, looking after, providing medical care
• Child care including physical care, reading, playing, arts and crafts, sports, homework, meetings, providing medical care

After an injury, some individuals are no longer capable of performing the household services they performed before the injury. The economic damages related to these losses are determined utilizing the market-value of these services. That is, the cost to replace the services the injured party previously performed. For example, if the individual can no longer clean their home, a set of tasks which took approximately ten hours per week, the damages are calculated by determining the market-value, or the rate of pay a domestic worker would receive for those same services.