Trends in Legal Decisions Involving Hedonic Damages from 2000 to 2012

This paper evaluates trends in legal decisions from January 1, 2000 to October 21, 2012 that involved either economic experts testifying about “loss of enjoyment of life”or “hedonic damages”or discussions of the circumstances under which those damages can be awarded. The primary method used to find these decisions was searches using the search capacities of LexisNexis® Academic with the keywords “hedonic”and “loss of enjoyment of life.”All decisions covered in this paper can be found using those keywords in searches of the LexisNexis database. The searches themselves were conducted on almost a daily basis over the past 12 years, but a comprehensive search was made as part of the preparation of this paper. Many of the descriptions that appear in the third section of this paper were written contemporaneously as decisions were reached and posted on LEXIS, and were made available at www.umsl.edu/~irelandt/Hedonic Damages.htm, but many of the descriptions have been revised in preparation of this paper.