Personal Living Expenses Definition: Expenses reasonably necessary to maintain health and well-being, to enjoy life's activities, and the capacity to earn money. In Carrano v. Yale-New Haven Hospital, the Supreme Court of Connecticut, through the pensmanship of Justice Christine Vertefeuille, the court had to wrestle with the concept of personal living expenses in the context of a wrongful death action.The Court:"Personal living expenses include those personal expenses which, under the standard of living followed by a given decedent, it would have been reasonably necessary for him to incur in order to keep himself in such a condition of health and well-being that he could maintain his capacity to enjoy life's activities, including the capacity to earn money."Personal living expenses do not include, however, recreational expenses, nor that proportion of living expenses properly allocable to the furnishing of food and shelter to members of the decedent's family other than himself." REFERENCES:Carrano v. Yale-New Haven Hospital, 904 A. 2d 149 (2006) Categories & Topics: Bankruptcy Law Dictionary Insurance Law Dictionary Tax Law Dictionary Tort and Personal Injury Law Dictionary Find you are constantly looking up definitions? Try our search provider (works in most modern browsers) If you find an error or omission in Duhaime's Legal Dictionary, or if you have legal term suggestion, we'd love to hear from you!