Plaintiff-appellee Joaquim Conde sustained a permanent injury to his left hand on August 13, 1988, while serving as first mate aboard the commercial fishing vessel F/V ALENTEJO which was navigating in rough waters east of Nantucket on the Georges Bank. 1 .Two days after the accident, Edward Monteiro, an adjuster for the ALEN-TEJO’s insurer, obtained an oral statement from Conde in Portuguese. Since Conde could speak little English and was unable to read it, Monteiro purported to translate the written English statement back to Conde in Portuguese. Unbeknownst to Conde, the statement he signed indicated that the ALENTEJO had been travelling at slow speed when the accident оccurred and it makes no mention of other critical facts about which Conde had informed Monteiro in his interview. For instance, the written statement omits any reference to the captain’s refusal to slow the vessel and lower the fishing net to deck-level so that Conde and his fellow worker would not have to stand on the slippery deck, from which tiles were missing, while repairing the net.
In September 1990, Conde brought the present action for negligence and unseaworthiness against appellant Starlight I, Inc., owner of the ALENTEJO.
See
46 U.S.C.App. § 688 (Jones Act);
Miles v. Apex Marine Corp.,
After the jury awarded Condе $350,000 in damages, the district court granted a new trial due to improper closing argument by Conde’s counsel. The second trial resulted in a $968,500 award to Conde: $118,500 for past economic loss; $50,000 for pain and *213 suffering; and $800,000 for future economic loss. The district court denied Starlight’s second motion for new trial, subject to Cоnde’s agreement to remit all damages for future economic loss above $254,212.50. On appeal, Starlight challenges both the denial of its second motion for new trial and the amount of the remittitur. 2
I. Second Motion for New Trial
Starlight contends that four improper statements by Conde’s counsel in closing argument warrant yet a third trial. First, counsel observed, without evidentiary support, that Monteiro and defense attorney Thomas Clinton, Esquire, were “friends” and had “been working together for twenty years.” Starlight argues that the veiled reference to possible collusion between Monteiro and Clinton was wholly immaterial and deliberately inflammatory. We find no abuse of discretion.
See Ahern v. Scholz,
Monteiro testified on redirect examination that he asked Conde to sign the August 15, 1988, statement in three places for Conde’s own “protection,” to prevent its alteration after it left Monteiro’s possession. Later in his testimony, however, Monteiro admitted that he himself had given the stаtement directly to Thomas Clinton, Esquire, Starlight’s counsel. When asked whether he had known Clinton well prior to August 1988, Monteiro acknowledged that they were on a “first-name basis,” and had worked together previously.
We normally presume that a jury follows instructions to disregard improper argumentation.
See Greer v. Miller,
Second, Starlight relies on a closing remark to the effect that the captain’s consumption of several alcoholic beverages as late as the evening meal the day of the accident had impaired his judgment, and likely explained his negligent refusal to slow the vessel and lower the net as Conde had requested. Although another fishing vessel captain testified that no vessel captain should consume alcohol while navigating a vessel, Starlight insists that it was necеssary for Conde to adduce expert toxicological evidence as to how the particular level of alcohol consumption established by the evidence typically would impair human judgment.
The authorities cited by Starlight simply stand for the thesis that expert toxicological testimony
may
be used to establish the likely effects of alcohol.
See Armand v. Louisiana Power & Light Co.,
Third, Starlight contends that repeated references to Monteiro as an “adjust *214 er,” during direct and redirect examination and in closing remarks by Conde’s counsel, violated Federal Evidence Rule 411 (“Evidence that a person was or was not insured against liаbility is not admissible upon the issue whether the person acted negligently or otherwise wrongfully.”). We do not agree.
For one thing, Starlight did not object to Conde’s repeated references to Monteiro as an “adjuster” throughout either the first or second trial. Thus, the tardiness of its objection calls into serious quеstion whether the litigants, let alone the jury, inferred that Monteiro was an
“insurance
adjuster,”
cf., e.g., NLRB v. International Bhd. of Elec. Workers Local 340,
Finally, Starlight argues that Conde’s attorney once again argued facts not in evidence, and invited the jury to engage in rank speculation, by noting thаt the captain might have been steaming the ALENTEJO full speed ahead in an attempt to flee Canadian waters before Canadian patrol boats detected the vessel. On the contrary, according to Starlight’s own expert, based on a reverse extrapolation of its known course immediately after the accident, the ALENTEJO probably had been on the Canadian side of the Hague Line just prior to the accident. This circumstantial evidence combined powerfully with the captain’s own testimony that he previously served aboard a fishing vessel seized by a Canadian patrol boat and thаt he knew on August 13, 1988 that the same Canadian patrol boat was within one-half mile of the ALENTEJO.
II. The Remittitur
Starlight claims that the trial court miscalculated the remittitur at $254,212.50.
3
Starlight first projects a total future economic loss as low as $27,199, by using Conde’s 1987 income, rather than the higher 1988 income figure, for arriving at a base annual salary. As Conde was injured in mid-August, 1988, however, the jury reasonably could have looked to Conde’s higher 1988 income projection as a more accurate reflection of his future earning power than the 1987 income.
See Eastern Mountain Platform Tennis, Inc. v. Sherwin-Williams Co.,
Starlight next argues that the 3% per annum adjustment for inflation in “non-agricultural” workers’ wages from 1988 to 1995 (i.e., 20.25% in aggregate) was excessive be *215 сause a commercial fisherman would not be classified as a “non-agricultural worker” and recent federal restrictions upon commercial fishing on Georges Bank have depressed fishermen’s wages. Starlight offers no evidentiary support for its contention that a commercial fisherman would nоt qualify as a “non-agricultural” worker (i.eone who does not cultivate land) for purposes of the 1995 Economic Report of the President, which the parties otherwise stipulated as a source of the applicable “non-agricultural” inflation rate. Nor did Starlight adduce any evidence as tо how its suggested offset to the stipulated inflation rate should be calculated. We therefore conclude that it has failed to demonstrate any “conscienceshocking” adjustment in calculating an inflation rate. See supra note 3.
Finally, Starlight argues that the trial court used the $118,500 jury award for past economic loss to calculate the relevant “base year” salary (ie., Conde’s lost income for 1995) with which to extrapolate his future (i.e.y post-1995) economic loss, rather than predicating the base, figure-calculation directly on the trial evidence. 5 Although neither we nor the parties have been able to reconstruct the exact mathematical calculations utilized by the district court, 6 the trial evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to Conde, would yield an approximate discounted future economic loss of $196,236. 7
The unknowable and unquantifiable factors involved in calculating a future stream of lost income
(e.g.,
future inflation rates; actual work life), militate against “a search for ‘delusive exactness,’ ” since “[i]t is perfectly obvious that the most detailed inquiry can at best produce an approximate result.”
Jones & Laughlin,
III. Conclusion
Given these somewhat less “elusive” circumstances, we conclude that the 30% discrepancy between the $254,212.50 and the $196,236 economic-loss figures is sufficiently quantifiable and substantial that it ought not stand.
Sanchez v. Puerto Rico Oil Co.,
The district court ruling denying defendant-appellant’s motion for nеw trial is affirmed. The remittitur for future economic loss is further reduced to $196,236. Upon remand, the district court should fix an appropriate time within which plaintiff-appellee must either accept the revised remittitur or submit to a new trial on damages for future economic loss. The parties shall bear their own costs.
SO ORDERED.
Notes
. Almost six years later, Conde obtained a non-maritime factory job at a reduced salary.
. Since we deny Starlight’s appeal, we need not reach Conde’s contingent cross-appeal from the district court order granting Starlight's first motion for new trial. We assume that Conde would opt for a reduced total remittitur of $364,736, rather than reinstatement of the first jury award (i.e., $350,000).
. Once a district court has decided to exercise its discretion to grant a remittitur, appellant "must show ... that the reduced figure remains so extravagant as to shock the appellate conscience.”
Sanchez v. Puerto Rico Oil Co.,
. Although Conde earnеd $35,930 in gross income during 1987, he incurred extraordinary unreimbursed work expenses ($ 19,404) which effectively reduced his annual income to only $16,526.
See Jones & Laughlin,
. The court explained its methodology as follows:
In detеrmining the figure to which to remit the award for loss of future earning capacity, I shall endeavor to arrive at the maximum figure which the juiy could have awarded using as a guide the amount the jury awarded the plaintiff for lost wages from the date of the accident to the date of the verdict, i.e., $118,500. For this purpose, I shall assume the jury, in arriving at the $118,500 figure, deducted an amount for what was earned and what could have been earned after the plaintiff reached an end medical result. I shall also take into account the fact that the wages of non-agricultural workers from 1988 to 1995 rose approximately 3% a yеar or 20.25% over the entire period. After making these adjustments, what results is a figure of expected earnings for 1995 in the amount of $29,020. I shall then apply a reduction of 20% for taxes and a 1% discount rate to arrive at the amount the plaintiff would have earned over the 26 year period of his work expectancy reduced to present value. Using this methodology, the result is $254,212.[50]. (Footnotes omitted.)
. As future loss calculations are multiplex, effective appellate review may be greatly inhibited by any lack of particularity in the trial court’s methodology. Given these latent ambiguities, we could remand to the district court for clarification,
see Jones & Laughlin,
.Viewing the evidence most favorably to Conde, the alternative remittitur amounts would work out as follows:
Annual gross income from 1/88 to 8/88 $ 14,106
Extrapolated income from 8/88 to 12/88 + 8,816
Unreimbursed work expenses - 590
Total projected gross income for 1988 22,332
Inflation rate between 1988-95 (20.25) + 4,522
Adjusted projected annual gross income (1995) 26,854
Actual gross income for factory job (1995) - 15,080
Total loss of annual gross income (1995) 11,774
Taxes on lost income (@ 1988 rate of 16.97%) - 1,998
Net annual lost income (1995) 9,776
Remaining work life in 1995 (26 years) x _26
Total lost future income stream 254,176
Discounted to present value (@ 1%) 196,236
Discounted to present value (@ 2%) 151,890
Discounted to present value (@ 3%) 117,860
Although the $254,212.50 remittitur calculated by the district court purportedly factored in a 1% discount rate, see infra note 8, it actually approximates our pre-discount amount of $254,176.
. Using a "market interest” rate
(e.g.,
6%) to reduce a future-earnings award to present value recognizes that, at least in an inflation-free economy, the plaintiff's immediate accession to a lump-sum award would enable him to earn interest by reinvestment, an opportunity not available to him had the same amount been earned incrementally over time.
See Jones & Laughlin,