Under Florida law, What is the Reduction of Damages to Present Value?

The Florida Supreme Court and Florida Legislature have not adopted one method over the various methods available for calculating present money value. Thus, under Florida law, economists and courts use varying (and sometimes complicated) methods to determine the present value of damages in a civil lawsuit. The jury will determine the present value of future economic damages based on the evidence presented by the parties or by its own common knowledge and argument. Florida has adopted the following jury instructions to guide the determination:

Any amount of damages which you allow for any future economic loss, such as a loss of earnings or an estate’s loss of net accumulations, should be reduced to its present money value and only the present money value of these future economic damages should be included in your verdict.

The present money value of future economic damages is the sum of money needed now which, together with what that sum will earn in the future, will compensate the claimant for these losses as they are actually experienced in future years.

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