Insurers' argument that wrongful death act does not allow recovery for lost household services is rejected again.

It would seem to be a Neanderthal position, but Michigan insurers, intoxicated by their success before the Engler Supreme Court, have been arguing that a family cannot collect damages to compensate them for a decedent's services.   In other words, if a mom was a stay-at-home mom and didn't work outside the house, the insurers would place no value, whatsoever, on the domestic services she provided her family.  The party responsible for her "wrongful death" would owe no compensation to the family for her "economic" value.  The Court of Appeals has twice rejected that theory in the past two months.  In Thorn v. Mercy Memorial Hospital, and again in May v. Mercy Memorial Nursing Center, el al., separate panels of the Court of Appeals unanimously rejected this argument and identified domestic services as a compensable element of economic damage.  With Justice Cliff Taylor happily--if involuntarily--retired from the Supreme Court, the potential for reversing these decisions is very small.