How to run Damages Allocation in DocketMath for California

Step-by-step

This guide shows you how to run Damages Allocation in DocketMath for California (US-CA) using jurisdiction-aware rules based on Cal. Civ. Code § 1431.2 and the California Supreme Court’s framework described in Li v. Yellow Cab Co., 13 Cal. 3d 804 (1975). This is meant to help you translate the facts you already have into calculator inputs—not to provide legal advice.

To get started, open the calculator: /tools/damages-allocation.

1) Confirm the California damage-structure you’re allocating (economic vs non-economic)

California’s Cal. Civ. Code § 1431.2 uses an economic/non-economic split that affects how the calculator should treat the categories:

• Economic damages: objectively verifiable monetary losses (joint and several treatment per the statute’s classification). The statute includes items such as medical expenses, loss of earnings, burial costs, loss of use of property, repair/replacement costs, and other specified monetary losses.
• Non-economic damages: subjective, non-monetary losses (several-only treatment per the statute’s classification). The statute includes pain, suffering, emotional distress, loss of companionship/society, and related harms.

Practical checklist:

• You can identify which amounts in your case are economic vs non-economic
• You have a fault allocation figure (percentage allocation among parties, with totals that align to your fact pattern)
• You’re using the California approach inside DocketMath for this allocation run

2) Enter comparative fault percentages (they must total 100%)

Damages Allocation in this workflow depends on the trier of fact’s allocation of responsibility among parties, where the percentages sum to 100%.

In DocketMath, you’ll input:

• Each party (e.g., Defendant A, Defendant B)
• Their percentage_of_fault
• The economic and/or non-economic damages amounts tied to that allocation run

Quick rule: if your fault percentages don’t add up to 100%, re-check them before running—otherwise the calculator’s outputs may not match your intended scenario.

3) Separate and enter your damage totals by category

Before you type anything, pull your damages totals into two ledgers:

• Economic damages (objectively verifiable monetary losses), including the categories listed in Cal. Civ. Code § 1431.2(b)(1)—for example:

  • medical expenses
  • loss of earnings
  • burial costs
  • loss of use of property
  • costs of repair or replacement
  • costs of obtaining substitute domestic services
  • loss of employment and loss of business/employment opportunities

• Non-economic damages (subjective, non-monetary harms), including the categories listed in Cal. Civ. Code § 1431.2(b)(2)—for example:

  • pain and suffering
  • inconvenience and mental suffering
  • emotional distress
  • loss of society/companionship
  • loss of consortium
  • injury to reputation
  • humiliation

How this changes your output: once your totals are correctly split, DocketMath applies the California economic vs non-economic treatment so the per-party allocation for economic amounts behaves differently from the per-party allocation for non-economic amounts.

4) Run the calculation using California-specific logic

After entering:

• parties + fault percentages (summing to 100%)
• economic total(s)
• non-economic total(s)

…run the allocation.

DocketMath should return:

• a per-party view of how damages allocate alongside fault, and
• outputs that reflect the economic vs non-economic treatment described in Cal. Civ. Code § 1431.2 as interpreted under the Supreme Court framework discussed in Li v. Yellow Cab Co., 13 Cal. 3d 804 (1975).

5) Sanity-check the results before exporting

Use these quick checks to catch input problems early:

• Fault math check: confirm your parties still sum to 100% after review.
• Category check: confirm economic results and non-economic results differ in a way consistent with the California economic/non-economic split.
• Directionality check: if one party has a higher percentage of fault, the portion of fault-linked economic allocation should generally be larger for that party than for a lower-fault party (and non-economic outputs should follow the non-economic treatment behavior).

Gentle reminder: DocketMath can compute allocations, but you’re responsible for making sure your entered amounts correspond to the economic/non-economic categories your scenario uses under Cal. Civ. Code § 1431.2.

6) Save or export the run for your workflow

When you’re ready to use the results:

• label the run clearly (for example: “CA Damages Allocation – Economic/Non-economic – Fault % scenario”)
• keep your inputs visible alongside the outputs so you can audit changes

If you later update only fault percentages or only one category total (economic or non-economic), re-run the calculator and compare outputs.

Common pitfalls

These are the most common reasons California (US-CA) Damages Allocation runs look “off” in DocketMath:

• Fault percentages don’t sum to 100%

  • Even small mismatches can ripple through per-party allocations.
  • Fix: verify each party’s percentage_of_fault and re-run.

• Economic and non-economic amounts are mixed

  • Cal. Civ. Code § 1431.2 depends on that economic/non-economic classification.
  • Fix: move medical/objectively verifiable monetary losses into economic, and pain/emotional harms into non-economic.

• Only one combined “total damages” amount is entered (no category split)

  • If you don’t separate categories, you lose the economic/non-economic distinction needed for California treatment.
  • Fix: enter economic and non-economic totals separately.

• Non-economic items accidentally treated as economic

  • If pain/emotional distress-type amounts land in the economic bucket, the output will typically not align with the expected California split behavior.
  • Fix: confirm each damages line item is mapped to the correct category.

Try it

Use this quick test run to verify your setup before entering full case numbers:

1. Open /tools/damages-allocation
2. Enter two parties with fault percentages that sum to 100% (for example, 60% and 40%)
3. Enter a small economic damages total
4. Enter a small non-economic damages total
5. Run the calculation
6. Change one input only (for example, increase the economic total by a fixed amount) and run again

What you should observe:

• economic-category outputs shift in a way consistent with Cal. Civ. Code § 1431.2(b)(1)’s economic classification and economic allocation treatment
• non-economic-category outputs respond differently, consistent with Cal. Civ. Code § 1431.2(b)(2)’s non-economic classification

Related reading

• How to calculate Damages Allocation in Philippines — Full how-to guide with jurisdiction-specific rules
• Worked example: Damages Allocation in Philippines — Worked example with real statute citations
• Inputs you need for Damages Allocation in Philippines — Input checklist with sourcing guidance