Forensic Economics You Can Trust

Who is Dr. Mellish?

Dr. Mellish is an expert witness specializing in the valuation of loss due to business damages, wrongful termination, personal injury and death. He has been qualified as an expert witness in the majority of the Circuit Courts in Florida and many Federal Courts in various states including FL, GA, AL, NY, TX, CA, US Virgin Islands, and others.

This Office is known for providing expert witness consulting at the highest professional standards. We assist attorneys by identifying areas of damages and calculating the present value of future losses, including lost wages and benefits, the value of household services, the amounts needed to fund future medical care, hedonic damages (loss of enjoyment of life), and—when warranted—punitive damages. In worker's compensation matters, our our reports are often included in fee petition packages, and we use a computer-assisted format to present results efficiently. We have also developed a computer-assisted format for calculating the present value of future medical care items in life care plans for catastrophic injury cases. These computer-assisted formats help keep billing to a minimum by reducing the amount of professional required. Please refer to our Services page for a detailed list of services provided.

What does it take to evaluate economic damages?

Attorneys often contact us for a quick, preliminary estimate of economic damages in injury or wrongful death matters. With a brief description of the injury and circumstances, we can typically identify the likely damage components including:

• Loss of income or financial support
• Loss of the value of household and related services
• Expected future medical expenses

In many cases, we can provide an estimate during a 5- to 15-minute phone call, and there is no charge for these brief consultations. A written report, however, requires supporting documentation and verification of the underlying data; that work is typically the most time-consuming and is billable. Business-damages matters differ from personal injury cases in terms of what can be estimated quickly. Even so, in a 5- to 15-minute consultation we can usually outline the categories of information and records needed to evaluate potential business damages. Business damages and valuations represent a large portion of our cases. Dr. Mellish has testified in many areas of commercial damages and in a wide variety of business sectors.

Has the US Economy fully recovered from COVID-19?

The U.S. economy has largely recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic on a macroeconomic level, with GDP, employment, and household incomes having surpassed pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2023. However, while the economy has "healed" from the initial shock, the economic environment remains fundamentally changed, with ongoing challenges regarding high price levels and structural labor market shifts. Source: Center on Budget Policy Priorities

• Lingering Effects and Challenges
• Inflation: Although inflation has moderated from its peak in 2022, the surge in prices has left consumers dealing with higher costs for goods and services.
• Housing Costs: Rents and house prices rose rapidly and have stayed high, contributing significantly to cost-of-living challenges.
• Sectoral Disparities: The recovery has been uneven, with some sectors like hospitality and travel experiencing slower, more difficult recoveries compared to technology and goods production.
• Workforce Changes: While prime-age participation has reached record highs, the overall labor force participation rate still faces pressure from early retirements and long-term pandemic impacts.
• Source: US Economic Recovery

How does this effect future economic losses?

All of these lingering effects may weaken GDP growth. Stronger growth—especially if it fuels inflation and a tight labor market—makes rate hikes (or a longer hold) more likely; weaker growth, particularly alongside cooling inflation, makes rate cuts more likely. When the interest or discount rate is low, the present value of future economic losses increases. However, present value calculations also depend on wage growth and the expected growth in future medical costs (i.e., inflation.) Historically, medical inflation has exceeded T-Bill rates by approximately 1% to 3% in most years since 1964. Additionally, government and Federal Reserve policies can and do materially affect interest rates, inflation, and wage growth during economic crisis such as the Pandemic or periods of conflicts abroad. Currently, inflation is approximately equal to interest rates with the inflation at 3.3% over last year according to the Economic News Release by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. As of Apr 2026, the 3-month T-bill rate was 3.7% - U.S. Dept. of the Treasury which essentially offsets the inflation rate. A potential 0.25% Fed rate cut later this year—combined with conflict-driven inflation—could push real rates lower and increase present values.

Lingering Effects of COVID-19 on Unemployment:

Although unemployment has resumed the pre-pandemic level, the labor partipation rate remains below the pre-pandemic levels. Although the market appears tight and Unemployment Rate (UR) has dropped, the "missing workers" phenomenon means that the labor force participation rate still hasn't fully rebounded to 2019 levels. According to Federal Reserve Economic Data, the labor force participation rate and the employment-population ratio are still 1.5% and 1.9% respectively below their values prior to the Covid-19 pandemic resulting in slow GDP growth. Some of this "slowness" has been offset by gains in automation and productivity as firms learned to do more with fewer people LPL Research. In the short term, however, they haven't been powerful enough to fully offset the 1.5% - 1.9% drop in labor participation and the employment-population ratio. According to ADP Research, The pandemic acted as a catalyst for a permanent contraction in the labor pool that has not fully recovered even by 2026. Factors like long-term health conditions including (Long COVID), early retirements, and shifting household priorities (valuing nonmarket home activities) have kept some workers on the sidelines.