Calculating “Full Value of Life” Damages in Georgia Wrongful Death

There is no formula. The number has two parts, an economic value built from evidence and an intangible value a jury sets, and only the first can be worked out with arithmetic. The statutes supply four tools for the economic part: no deduction for the person’s own expenses, a choice of mortality tables, a discount rate, and a separate rule for how lawyers may argue the intangible part. Everything else depends on proof.

Step 1: Build the economic value

Georgia decisions describe this part as “the economic value of the deceased’s normal life expectancy”, language the Court of Appeals quoted in Brock v. Wedincamp, 253 Ga. App. 275 (2002). The inputs can include:

• earnings and benefits over the remaining working life;
• household services the person would have performed, a category § 9-10-184 lists as “domestic and other necessary services performed without compensation”;
• facts specific to the person’s work history. Brock treats “voluntary abstinence” from work as one of many factors a jury may weigh in the economic value.

The range of proof is wide but not unlimited. Brock lists evidence the courts have rejected, including a relative’s criminal record. It also held that the trial court abused its discretion by allowing evidence of why a young mother missed work, because on that record the prejudice from her status as a pregnant unmarried woman “clearly outweighs any probative value”.

Step 2: Do not subtract the person’s own living costs

O.C.G.A. § 51-4-1(1) defines the measure as the value “without deducting for any of the necessary or personal expenses of the decedent had he lived”. For example, imagine a person whose future earnings have a calculated present value of $1,000,000 and who would have spent $400,000 on food, housing, and clothing. Georgia’s measure keeps the $1,000,000 for that component. A measure that deducted those expenses would start nearer $600,000. Those numbers are invented to show the arithmetic only.

Step 3: Choose the length of the projection

Under O.C.G.A. § 24-14-45(a), the Commissioners 1958 Standard Ordinary Mortality Table and the Annuity Mortality Table for 1949, Ultimate, are admissible. Subsection (c) states that they “shall not be the exclusive method”, so a party can offer other evidence of life expectancy. Because those two tables are old, expect each side to argue about which evidence fits this person’s age and health.

Step 4: Reduce future amounts to present value

The statute is specific about the discount rate. O.C.G.A. § 51-12-13(a) says the factfinder “may reduce the same to the present value based on a discount rate of 5 percent or any other discount rate as the trier of fact may deem appropriate”. So 5 percent is named in the Code, it is permissive, and the jury can use another rate. Subsection (b) bars evidence of the cost of a specific private investment product such as an annuity.

The choice has a large effect. A $50,000 amount due 30 years from now has a present value of about $11,570 at 5 percent ($50,000 ÷ 1.05^30), and about $20,600 at 3 percent ($50,000 ÷ 1.03^30). An economist’s projection has to be read with the rate in mind.

Step 5: Present the intangible value

The second part is what Brock calls “the intangible element incapable of exact proof”. It is looked at from the person’s side: “The jury must consider the loss to the decedent of her opportunity to raise her son, not the loss to her son of his mother.” Evidence comes from those who knew the person. The doctrine itself is covered in how Georgia defines the full value of a life.

Step 6: Know the argument rule for the intangible part

Senate Bill 68 changed what a jury can hear. The revised § 9-10-184 treats “the nonpecuniary elements of the full value of life” as noneconomic damages. Counsel may argue a dollar value only after the close of evidence and at the party’s first opportunity to argue damages, and the argument must be “rationally related to the evidence” without references to objects or values with no rational connection to the facts. Under Section 9(b), this part of the act applies to cases pending on its effective date, April 21, 2025, unless that application would be unconstitutional. The 2025 anchoring rule covers the 2026 decision that ordered a new trial over comparisons to an expert’s fee and to minimum wage.

SB 68 also created § 51-12-15, which allows a party to demand a bifurcated trial in bodily injury and wrongful death cases, subject to its exceptions. That is a trial-order issue that can affect how the value evidence reaches the jury.

What the number is not

It is not the family’s loss, and the calculation does not depend on whether the person supported anyone. It also does not include funeral and medical expenses, which the personal representative pursues under § 51-4-5(b), or the estate’s claim for pre-death suffering. A separate limit applies in malpractice: the Supreme Court held in Clark v. Leigh (2026) that the noneconomic cap in § 51-13-1 could not be applied to the judgment before it, as wrongful death from medical malpractice describes.

Sources

• Official Code of Georgia Annotated, November 2022 public release: §§ 24-14-45, 51-4-1, 51-4-2, 51-4-5, 51-12-13
• Senate Bill 68, as passed (2025): Sections 1, 8, 9
• Brock v. Wedincamp, 253 Ga. App. 275
• Clark v. Leigh, 324 Ga. 733 (2026)

This page was last reviewed in November 2026 for general information. Laws and court decisions can change after that date. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship.