Reilly v. United States

863 F.2d 149 (1988)

Facts

See Facts Below in Reilly v. United States 665 F. Supp. 976 (1987). D moved for a new trial, and the motion was denied by the district court in an opinion concerned exclusively with the court's engagement of a technical advisor. D argues in part that the calculation of Heather's prospective lost earnings was defective because it assumed Heather would have been active in the workforce for 48 years. In effect, appellant tells us that the trial court erred in rejecting certain Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) work/life tables relied upon by the defense expert. These tables showed that a person of Heather's age, sex, and assumed education level would, on average, work for only 28 years. Rather singlemindedly, the government expostulates that because it offered evidence (the tables) to support a reduction on this order of magnitude, and no evidence of inaccuracy was presented, the district court was powerless to reject the figures and abjure the diminution.