LIFE TABLES

4 definitions found across Law Mind sources

LIFE TABLESAuthored
The Law Mind • 905 words
Definition
Life tables are statistical compilations showing the probability that a person of a given age will survive to any subsequent age, derived from population mortality data. In legal contexts, they serve as the evidentiary foundation for calculating the present monetary value of future interests tied to human lifespan — including damages for wrongful death or permanent injury, the value of annuities, dower and curtesy rights, and life estates. The core function of a life table in litigation or estate valuation is conversion: it translates an uncertain biological future (how long will this person live?) into a workable actuarial estimate that courts and parties can use to quantify present value. A life table does not predict any individual's death — it expresses population-level probabilities that courts treat as reasonable proxies for individual expectancy.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Plural of life table — a statistical table showing, for each age, the probability of dying before the next age and the expected remaining years of life. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's 1913 does not include a dedicated entry for life table or life tables as a combined term. The common and legal meanings are substantially aligned here, but the legal context adds a layer the ordinary definition omits: in law, life tables are not merely demographic tools but formal evidence. Their admissibility, the choice of which table applies, and how life expectancy interacts with work-life expectancy (a shorter period) are all contested legal questions. The statistical meaning is the same; the legal stakes surrounding that meaning are distinct.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encounter life tables across several distinct legal domains, and the applicable table — and its legal weight — varies by context. Tort damages. In personal injury and wrongful death cases, life tables establish the baseline for projecting lost earnings or lost support over a victim's remaining life. Courts distinguish life expectancy from work-life expectancy; a plaintiff may live thirty more years but be expected to work only fifteen. Historical cases in the Law Mind corpus often rely on state-specific tables or older federal mortality tables, and the figures in older opinions can be dramatically lower than modern equivalents, reflecting 19th- and early-20th-century mortality rates. Researchers should not assume that "life expectancy" figures cited in historical cases translate to modern equivalents. Annuities, dower, and life estates. Valuation of dower rights, life estates, and annuities in probate and property contexts depends on life tables to compute present value. The legal question of whose life is the measuring life, and which table governs, is jurisdiction- and era-specific. Pre-20th-century sources often relied on the Northampton or Carlisle tables, which are actuarially obsolete but appear throughout historical legal materials. Tax and estate planning. Life tables underpin actuarial valuations required under federal estate and gift tax rules, where the IRS publishes official tables (currently derived from Table 2000CM under the Treasury regulations). These are mandatory for federal tax purposes and distinct from the tables used in tort litigation. A trap for researchers: historical sources frequently cite life tables without identifying which table was used. The Northampton table (long considered the standard in English law) systematically underestimated life expectancy compared to later tables. A 19th-century damages calculation using the Northampton table will produce a different present value than the same calculation using a modern actuarial table, even if the stated life expectancy appears similar.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's entry is concise but accurate in identifying the core legal applications: present value of annuities, dower rights, and damages from injuries affecting earning capacity or causing death. Bouvier correctly notes that the tables serve multiple legal purposes across property, tort, and family law contexts — a point modern researchers sometimes underappreciate when they encounter the term only in damages litigation. Bouvier's reference to the Century Dictionary definition reflects the standard late-19th-century understanding of life tables as primarily actuarial instruments borrowed into law. What Bouvier does not address — and what historical dictionaries generally miss — is the question of which table controls and how courts treat competing actuarial evidence. By the time of Bouvier's later editions, American courts were beginning to grapple with the difference between various competing tables, but that litigation history is not captured in dictionary form. The secondary citations in Bouvier (American and English Railway Cases, American Law Register) point to tort law as the primary arena where life table disputes arose in the late 19th century, consistent with the explosion of personal injury litigation following railroad expansion.
Jurisdictional Note
Federal courts and most states accept standard actuarial tables (including IRS-published tables for tax matters) as presumptively reliable, but the weight given to life expectancy evidence in tort cases remains a jury question in most jurisdictions. Some states have codified specific approved tables for damages calculations; others leave table selection to expert testimony and judicial discretion.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Tax Tables and Computation (The Law Mind Tax Encyclopedia) — relevant for actuarial table requirements in federal estate, gift, and income tax contexts involving annuities and life estates. Exclusions — Life Insurance Proceeds (The Law Mind Tax Encyclopedia) — tangentially relevant where life expectancy calculations intersect with insurance valuation.
Related Terms
Life expectancy — Annuity — Present value — Dower — Life estate — Wrongful death — Loss of earning capacity — Actuarial evidence — Mortality tables — Work-life expectancy — Damages (personal injury) — Estate valuation
LIFE TABLESmain
Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928
Statistical tables ex- hibiting the probable proportion of persons who will live to reach different ages. Cent. Dict. Such tables are used for many purposes, such as the computation of the present value of annuities, dower rights, etc., and for the computation of damages resulting from injuries which destroy the earning capacity of a person, or those resulting from the death of a person to those who are dependent upon him. The principal mortality tables in ordi- nary use are: (1) The Carlisle Table, which takes its name from the city of Carlisle and the cal- culations for which were made by Joshua Milne in 1815. (2) The Northampton Table, based on statistics of that town, in Eng- land. This shows a higher rate of mortal- ity than any other, and it has been said that it more nearly shows the mortality of the negro race in the United States than any other life table; G. & McC. Tables 187, n. 1. (3) The Farr Tables, prepared by Dr. Wm. Farr, of the English registrar general's office, from the census returns of England and Wales. A synopsis of the re- sults of these tables may be found in 2 Ins. Сус. 516-36. (4) Combined Experience, or actuaries' seventeen office experience tables of mortality, prepared by a committee from 62,537 risks, and published in 1843 by Jen- kins Jones. This has been characterized as very accurate; Willey, Life Ins., 4th ed. 35, 73. As the calculations of this table are made upon actual life insurance risks its accuracy would have relation rather to that subject than to dower and annuities, and purposes involving merely the average ex- pectation of sound life. (5) The Ameri- can Experience tables of mortality by Sheppard Homans, an insurance actuary. This is a legal standard in several states for valuations of life insurance policies, having been adopted in New York in 1868. (6) The Thirty Offices Experience table of mortality published in 1878: "Not yet ac- cepted as a standard table"; G. & McC. Tables 190. Courts can take judicial notice of the Carlisle Tables, and can use them in esti- mating the probable length of life, whether they were introduced in evidence or not; 151 U. S. 436. Standard life and annuity tables showing probable duration of life and present value of a life annuity are com- petent evidence; 91 Ga. 87; or as bearing on the question of compensation for per- manent injury, or in case of death to show the deceased's expectation of life at the time of accident: 82 Minn. 125; 66 N. Y. 50; 62 Ia. 487. The Carlisle tables have been admitted; 76 id. 810; 74 Ga. 737; and also Johnson's Encyclopedia, to show these tables; 78 Ia. 509. The fact that the de- ceased was in poor health only affects the weight to be given them; 29 S. W. Rep. (Tex.) 955; they ought not absolutely to control the jury; 118 U. 8. 545, citing ap provingly judicial utterances strongly de- precating the use of them by a jury, from 19 L. J. Q. B. 237. In a recent case it was said that they are admissible in actions for personal injuries, but the court should in- struct the jury that their value in a par- ticular case depends very much on the plaintiff's state of health, habits, and social condition; 172 Pa. 205. See Giauque & McClure, Present Value Tables, which also contains Bowditch's Table and Chisholm's Commutation Tables; Jones, Value of Annuities and Reversion- ary Payments; Lawton & Griffiths, Life Tables. LIGAN, LAGAN. Goods cast into the sea tied to a buoy, so that they may be found again by the owners. When goods are cast into the sea in storms or shipwrecks, and remain there, without coming to land, they are distinguished by the barbarous names of jetsam, flotsam, and ligan. 5 Co. 108; Hargr. St. Tr. 48; 1 Bla. Com. 292. See 38 Fed. Rep. 509.
LIFE TABLESmain
Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928
As to the measure of damages in this action, generally, see 60 A. & E. Ry. Cas. 178, 219; 1 C. C. A. 33; 28 Am. L. Reg. 385, 513, 577; for the death of a child; 29 Cent. L. J. 253; value of human limbs; 27 Can. L. J. 417.
life tablesnoun
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.
plural of life table

Explore the full Law Mind legal research platform.

SubscribeEncyclopediaSign In