Hope springs eternal, but not your anticipated work life.

Bartos, an injured seaman, sued for future lost wages.  His expert offered calculations based on a retirement age of 55.8 (from a table of work-life expectancies) or 67 (the Social Security full-retirement age).  The Fifth Circuit reversed a damages award based on the older age and rendered an award based on the younger one, reasoning: “Barto’s economist did not provide any reason to believe that Barto would continue to work past his statistical work-life expectancy. The only relevant evidence Barto presented at trial was his testimony that he plans to work ‘[a]s long as I can retire. Whatever the retirement age is.’ This scant evidence was not enough to show that Barto ‘by virtue of his health or occupation or other factors, is likely to live and work a longer, or shorter, period than the average.'”  Barto v. Shore Construction LLC, No. 14-31326 (revised Sept. 29, 2015).