Economic Damages in the Death of a Minor Child in Missouri: The Debate over the 2005 Revision of §537.090

In 2005, the Missouri legislature modified the Missouri Wrongful Death Act by adding language to §537.090 specifying how economic damages were to be calculated if the wrongfully killed person was under the age of 18. The new language immediately created uncertainty about the meaning of the new language that has continued from that enactment to the present. No appellate decisions have ever been reached that have provided clarity about the meaning of that language. Economic experts have taken two broadly defined positions that have endured for the past sixteen years. Over that period there have been four decisions covered by LEXIS that have indicated that the four courts making those decisions have been unwilling to interpret the meaning of the statutory revisions, allowing the debate over the meaning of the statutory language to continue. The courts have effectively said that they will allow testimony based on both interpretations to continue. This paper describes the two positions taken by the plaintiff and defense bars and the four legal decisions interpreting the new 2005 language that are available on LEXIS. The difference in damages based on the two interpretations is very large, as will be discussed in reference to the most recent of the four decisions in Eagen v. United States (2022).