Expert Witness Profiler

Tag: Future Earnings

  • Economics Expert Was Allowed to Opine on the Value of Companionship Services

    Economics Expert Was Allowed to Opine on the Value of Companionship Services

    Plaintiff Tabria Montgomery’s father, Michael Montgomery sustained fatal injuries while operating a Bobst Mastercut 145 PER 2.0 Die-Cutter machine. She asserted claims individually on behalf of herself and her father’s estate against Defendant Bobst Group North America, Inc. (“Bobst NA”) for strict products liability, negligence, wrongful death, and survival.

    Bobst NA filed a motion to exclude the testimony of Plaintiff’s economic expert, Kristin K. Kucsma, M.A.

    Economics Expert Witness

    Kristin K. Kucsma, M.A. has worked extensively on cases involving personal injury, wrongful death, employment law, wrongful incarceration, mass torts, punitive damages and lost profits.

    She spent over 13 years teaching economics at the undergraduate and graduate level at Saint Peter’s College, Rutgers, Seton Hall and Drew Universities. Her areas of expertise include American Economic History, Applied Micro Economic Theory, banking and financial markets and corporate finance. Ms. Kucsma is an active member of the National Association of Forensic Economics and the Eastern Economics Association, a member of the American Economics Association, and a former Member of the District Ethics Committee, Office of Attorney Ethics of the Supreme Court of New Jersey. She earned a B.A., summa cum laude, in Economics from Seton Hall University, an M.A. from Rutgers University, and currently is ABD at Rutgers University.

    Want to know more about the challenges Kristin Kucsma has faced? Get the full details with our Challenge Study report.

    Discussion by the Court

    A. Reliability

    1. Lost Future Earnings

    Bobst NA argued that Kucsma’s selection of Montgomery’s 2020 earnings as his “projected earnings base” is unsupported and “driven by assumptions supplied by counsel rather than by verifiable employment data.”

    It argued that 2020 was a “marked spike” in earnings because Montgomery worked significant amounts of overtime as a feeder that he never did as a die cutter operator. Bobst NA also highlighted that Kucsma could not state when Montgomery changed roles or how long he was out of work in 2021 during her deposition.

    The Court found that Kucsma’s opinion on Montgomery’s lost future earnings is reliable and may be offered to a jury. She bases it on her significant knowledge, experience, and review of the record, including Montgomery’s paystubs from November 2016 until February 2022, his federal tax documents from 2017 to 2022, and responses to a general “preliminary fact-finding questionnaire.”

    Bobst NA repeatedly contended that Kucsma’s deposition testimony shows that she relied on Plaintiff’s counsel’s representations rather than the objective record. In any event, Bobst NA cited no authority for the proposition that an economics expert may not partially rely on an attorney’s representations.

    Bobst NA also attacked Kucsma’s conclusions as inconsistent with the record. It maintained that the work detail report shows Montgomery worked less overtime as a die cutter operator than as a feeder and only worked as a feeder in 2020. These are not “significant errors” that go to the admissibility of Kucsma’s opinion. They go to its weight.

    Kucsma can rely on Montgomery’s 2020 earnings because that figure is not “substantially higher than his average annual income.” While a jury may find that “an average or median of Montgomery’s earnings over several years is a more sensible approach” to calculate future earnings loss, Kucsma’s use of Montgomery’s last full year of earnings did not render her opinion unreliable for Rule 702 purposes.

    2. Intangible Damages

    Bobst NA argued that Kucsma’s opinions regarding damages for loss of companionship and advice-related services are unreliable and unsupported.

    It maintained that Kucsma provided “no analysis” or peer-reviewed studies showing that parental interaction is economically equivalent to hourly wages for paid companions, social workers, and financial advisors.

    In rendering her opinion, Kucsma relied on certain facts and assumptions about Montgomery, his adult children, and their relationships. There is no indication that Kucsma exaggerated, falsified, or misinterpreted the children’s responses. Indeed, she testified that Montgomery’s children had the opportunity to review the information in her report for its accuracy. Kucsma testified that she followed “the generally accepted method among economists” to attribute a pecuniary value to the intangible losses for which Plaintiff seeks to recover.

    The Court held that Kucsma has “good grounds” for her opinion based on her professional experience as a forensic economist and her testimony that her application of a services-based valuation framework is generally accepted within the relevant professional community.

    B. Fit

    Bobst NA also argued that Kucsma’s intangible damages opinion will not assist the jury, i.e., it does not fit, because it “invades the province of the jury.”

    The Court found that Kucsma’s explanation of the pecuniary value of advice, counsel, and companionship services will be “helpful in providing the jury with guidance and in avoiding the potential for undue speculation.” Specifically, her testimony regarding the hourly rates for companionship and advice-related services will assist the jury in assigning value to Plaintiff’s intangible losses.

    However, testimony concerning the frequency with which Montgomery provided such services is more appropriately elicited from his children themselves. Likewise, Kucsma’s presentation of specific damages calculations—derived from mathematical formulas incorporating the average hours of services rendered—would not assist the jury in assessing Plaintiff’s damages. As such, “there is no need for her expert testimony on these issues.”

    Held

    The Court granted in part and denied in part Bobst NA’s motion to exclude the testimony of Kristin K. Kucsma. Bobst NA’s motion is granted to the extent it sought to exclude Kucsma’s opinions as to the number of hours that Montgomery provided advice, counseling, and companionship services to his children, as well as her calculation of Plaintiff’s damages based on those estimates. Bobst NA’s motion is denied to the extent that it sought to exclude Kucsma’s opinions about Montgomery’s lost future earnings and the pecuniary value of advice, counseling, and companionship services.

    Key Takeaway

    It is within the trial court’s discretion to determine when a Plaintiff’s testimony about the decedent’s services will suffice and when an expert’s further testimony will aid the jury to make a reasonable evaluation of those services. Where such testimony is admitted, it should be followed by a charge that the expert’s opinion is only advisory, and that the jury should make its own determination of the economic value of decedent’s lost services.

    Please refer to the blog previously published about this case:

    Biomechanics Expert Allowed to Opine on the Cause of Death

    Pathology Expert Allowed to Opine on Pain and Suffering

    Case Details:

    Case Caption: Montgomery V. Bobst Mex SA
    Docket Number: 2:24cv367
    Court Name: United States District Court, Pennsylvania Eastern
    Order Date: April 30, 2026
  • Law And Legal Expert’s Speculative Calculations of Future Earnings Excluded

    Law And Legal Expert’s Speculative Calculations of Future Earnings Excluded

    Drew Dixon alleged that the Defendant, Antonio Marquis “L.A.” Reid sexually harassed her and refused to allow her to succeed unless she acquiesced to his demand to be alone and in close proximity to her while she was employed as an A&R executive at Arista Records from 1996 to 2002.

    Dixon claimed that Antonio Reid sexually assaulted her twice in 2001.

    Dixon departed Arista in 2002, leaving the music industry to pursue a degree at the Harvard Business School.

    Defendant filed motions to preclude the testimony of Plaintiff’s expert witnesses, Michael Selverne, Mark Plotkin, and Dr. Chitra Raghavan, pursuant to Federal Rules of Evidence 702 and 403.

    Law And Legal Expert Witness

    Michael Selverne is an attorney who, for the past 39 years, has specialized in the field of executive compensation in the music industry. Over the course of his career, he has represented artists in their contract negotiations for recording and performance agreements, record executives in their negotiations of compensation packages with their employers, and music labels in their negotiations with executives.

    Get the full story on challenges to Michael Selverne’s expert opinions and testimony with an in-depth Challenge Study.

    Music Industry Expert Witness

    Mark Plotkin holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from a joint program between Case Western University and The Cleveland Institute of Music and has over two decades of diverse experience in the music industry. Plotkin is a member of the Recording Academy, co-founded Decision Desk and Wifi Music School, and is the founder and CEO of Beast Music A.I., a media platform utilized by record labels such as RCA Records and Atlantic Records. Plotkin further serves as a Professor and the Area Head of Business and Technology at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute of Record Music.

    Fortify your strategy by reviewing a Challenge Study detailing grounds for excluding Mark Plotkin’s expert testimony. 

    Psychology Expert Witness

    Dr. Chitra Raghavan is a licensed clinical psychologist with more than twenty years of experience. Raghavan received her doctorate in clinical and community psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and post-doctoral training at Yale University. Currently, she serves as a Professor of Psychology, Director of the Forensic Mental Health Counseling Program, and Coordinator of Victimology Studies in Forensic Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

    She has previously testified as a witness for the prosecution in other cases regarding the effects of traumatic abuse and coercive control and given over 150 conference presentations and published over forty articles in various publications on subjects related to domestic violence, sex trafficking, and trauma.

    Want to know more about the challenges Chitra Raghavan has faced? Get the full details with our Challenge Study report. 

    Discussion by the Court

    Michael Selverne

    In connection with this litigation, Selverne submitted an expert report setting forth his opinions regarding Plaintiff’s lost future compensation. In rendering his opinion, Selverne reviewed Dixon’s compensation package during her time at Arista.

    While the Plaintiff was hired in 1996 as a Senior Director for a two-year term, she was promoted to the position of Vice President when one of her “designated artist” albums sold 500,000 records. Selverne opined that the improvement in her compensation package and title in such a short time span indicated that Arista viewed Plaintiff as a “budding superstar.”

    Reviewing the compensation packages of contemporaries of Plaintiff who rose to the ranks of CEOs for major music labels, Selverne concluded that, if Dixon had “continued along the trajectory she was on when she departed Arista, it is highly likely that Dixon’s earnings would have reached seven or eight figures annually. It is equally likely that Dixon would have created a joint venture with a major record company and see her fortunes rise into the nine figures.”

    Analysis

    Selverne did not purport to calculate Plaintiff’s lost earnings based on her actual compensation at the time she left Arista. Indeed, he did not purport to calculate her lost earnings at all. He did not, for example, specify how long Plaintiff would have expected to work in the industry, with reference to verifiable statistics regarding longevity in the industry or even actuarial tables reflecting life expectancy. He did not calculate the value of lost benefits.

    Selverne’s lack of methodology in reaching his opinion on future earnings loss is reflected in his failure to quantify such damages. Selverne vaguely asserted that Plaintiff suffered damages in the range of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars.

    Selverne conjectures that Plaintiff not only would have continued to have a successful career in the music industry, but that she would have reached the pinnacle of the profession to become the CEO of a major record label or otherwise enter into a lucrative joint venture agreement. The Court held that these hypothetical promotions, bonuses, and business deals lack sufficient evidentiary foundation, and thus cannot form the basis of an expert opinion.

    Mark Plotkin

    Plaintiff retained Marc Plotkin to provide an expert opinion regarding the hypothetical earnings Plaintiff would have received from her A&R commission structure had she successfully signed Kanye West and John Legend.

    Plotkin first looked to Plaintiff’s employment agreement for the relevant formula and then researched West and Legend’s first contracts with Def Jam and Columbia Records, respectively, as well as their sales data year by year to ultimately determine how many records and singles were sold across various mediums and the price per unit.

    Analysis

    Defendant objected to Plotkin’s reliance on historical data regarding record sales as the basis for his opinion. Defendant contended that it rests on the faulty assumption that West and Legend would have released the same albums while at Arista and thus earned the same revenues. 

    The Court held that these are the types of assumptions that go to the weight of the evidence, not admissibility. The use of historical data may not provide exactitude, but allows for calculations to a reasonable certainty, which is all the law requires.

    Defendant also argued that the entirety of Plotkin’s opinion is speculative, in that it is unknown whether these artists would have signed to Arista if offered the chance or that they would have been deemed Dixon’s designated artists if they had done so. Defendant misapprehended the nature of Plotkin’s inquiry. Plotkin is not purporting to offer an opinion as to whether West or Legend would have signed to Arista, or if they had whether Dixon would have been responsible for signing them. Rather, his opinions are limited to a calculation of what commissions Plaintiff would have been entitled to under the terms of employment contract in the hypothetical world where she was responsible for signing the artists while at Arista.

    Dr. Chitra Raghavan

    Raghavan opined that she “found Dixon’s reported history to be believable” because she reported a decrease in recent symptoms rather than an increase, a pattern that would be typical of malingerers; Plaintiff’s emotional and physical responses were consistent with the experiences she relayed; she was able to clearly explain the abuse fact pattern and her narratives over multiple interviews; and three objective tests indicated that she responded genuinely about her mental health.

    She further opined that Defendant “used numerous tactics of coercive control to maintain his abusive power” over Plaintiff, including physical violence, manipulation, sexual abuse, retaliation, and microregulation. Raghavan opined that the “sexual assaults and the atmosphere of coercion and hostility” that Plaintiff suffered triggered a severe episode of complex PTSD.

    Analysis

    The Court held that Raghavan’s anticipated testimony is replete with improper opinions regarding witness credibility and bolstering. Such bolstering testimony regarding the truth of the underlying factual allegations in the case is not the proper province of an expert witness.

    The Court held that Raghavan is precluded, pursuant to Rules 702 and 403, from offering testimony at trial regarding Plaintiff’s credibility, including an opinion that Plaintiff was the subject of a sexual assault by Defendant or that Defendant exercised coercive control over Plaintiff. She is also precluded from opining on the causation of Plaintiff’s conditions. Raghavan can testify, however, as to coercive control generally, as background; her diagnoses of Plaintiff’s mental health conditions and the bases for her diagnoses; and that Plaintiff’s condition is “consistent with” that of individuals who have been sexually assaulted.

    Held

    • The Court granted the Defendant’s motion to preclude the testimony of Michael Selverne.
    • The Court denied the Defendant’s motion to preclude the testimony of Mark Plotkin.
    • The Court granted in part and denied in part the Defendant’s motion to preclude the testimony of Dr. Chitra Raghavan.

    Key Takeaway:

    Where lost future earnings are at issue, an expert’s testimony should be excluded as speculative if it is based on unrealistic assumptions regarding the Plaintiff’s future employment prospects.

    Selverne’s opinion is not only of little assistance to a jury, but also rests on inherently speculative assumptions. 

    Case Details:

    Case Caption: Dixon V. Reid
    Docket Number: 1:23cv9878
    Court Name: United States District Court, New York Southern
    Order Date: August 21, 2025