Valuation of a Person&#39;s Life
<p>When awarding damages in a wrongful death suit, what criteria are used to determine the "value" of the person's life?  Does the plaintiff and/or defendant have any input into this process?</p>

<p>Human life is worth between $1 million and $10 million. Apparently.</p>
<p>I did a quick Google search and found a couple of interesting sources to answer this question.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://scholarship.law.campbell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1078&amp;context=clr" rel="nofollow noreferrer">An academic study by Campbell Law</a></li>
<li><a href="http://courses2.cit.cornell.edu/sociallaw/student_projects/victimcompensation.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">A report from Cornell Law School</a></li>
</ul>
<p>In that second source, I found these interesting charts which seem to support the answer given.</p>
<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/zvnU5.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/zvnU5.jpg" alt="enter image description here" /></a>
<a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/0eM71.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/0eM71.jpg" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Also, this Wikipedia article says the following</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<h3>Life Value in the US</h3>
<p>The following estimates have been applied to the value of life. The estimates are either for one year of additional life or for the statistical value of a single life.</p>
<ul>
<li>$50,000 per year of quality life (international standard most private and government-run health insurance plans worldwide use to determine whether to cover a new medical procedure)</li>
<li>$129,000 per year of quality life (based on analysis of kidney dialysis procedures by Stefanos Zenios and colleagues at Stanford Graduate School of Business)</li>
<li>$9.1 million (Environmental Protection Agency, 2010)</li>
<li>$7.9 million (Food and Drug Administration, 2010)</li>
<li>$9.4 million (Transportation Department, 2015)</li>
<li>$9.1 million (Prof. W. Kip Viscusi, Vanderbilt University, 2013)</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>

united-states civil-law damages