Stan V. Smith is an American economist credited with coining the term and creating the arguments behind the hedonic damages theory, which entered mainstream legal economics in the 1985 court case Sherrod v.
His economic theories on victim restitution in child pornography in one of his cases that reached the Supreme Court resulted in the Amy Vicky Andy Act signed by President Trump in 2018.
In 1979 he and Burt Webber and Warren Stearns located and subsequently salvaged the most famous sunken Spanish Treasure galleon of all time, La Concepción, which sank in 1641 In the Atlantic ocean 100 miles north of the Dominican Republic.
At Ibbotson Associates in 1983, Smith originated and created the Stock Bonds Bills and Inflation Series now published by Morningstar, Inc. Later, with Michael Brookshire in 1990, Smith co-authored the first textbook in the field of Forensic Economics, Economic/Hedonic Damages, and created and taught the first course in the nation in Forensic Economics at DePaul University while teaching as an adjunct professor there from 1990 to 1994.
"[6] In 1990, Smith published an article in the Journal of Forensic Economics titled 'Hedonic Damages and Personal Injury: A Conceptual Approach' along with co-authors Edward P. Berla and Michael L.