Ten real, publicly documented cases — every amount linked to the court opinion or primary report. Read them for what they teach about how value is built (and destroyed), not as predictions: the public record skews toward big, contested cases, because ordinary settlements are confidential.
Sources verified August 24, 2026 · verification policy · changelog| Case | Injury | Amount | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eastman v. State Farm (Louisiana, verdict 2019; Sup. Ct. 2024) | Soft-tissue neck/back — rear-end chain collision, years of conservative care | $71,000 general damages (+$19,732 medicals) | Verdict |
| Chung v. Shaw (New York, App. Div. 2019) | Cervical fusion (C5-C6) after rear-end collision | $250,000 pain & suffering (appellate additur from jury's $50k) | Verdict |
| Cabrera v. NYC Transit Authority (New York, App. Div. 2019) | Hip socket, forearm, shoulder, rib fractures; surgery; permanent impairment (bus vs. motorcycle) | ≈$4.7M sustained on appeal (before 30% fault apportionment) | Verdict |
| Liciaga v. NYC Transit Authority (New York, App. Div. 2024) | Severed spinal cord — permanent paraplegia (falling railroad tie struck cyclist, age 23) | Jury ~$69.7M → pain & suffering reduced to $16M on appeal | Verdict |
| Werner Enterprises v. Blake (Texas, verdict 2018 → reversed 2025) | Child killed, sibling quadriplegic, family TBIs (crossover crash into 18-wheeler) | $89.7M verdict → $0 — reversed outright by the Texas Supreme Court | Verdict (reversed) |
| Johnson v. Monsanto (California, verdict 2018) | Non-Hodgkin lymphoma attributed to occupational Roundup exposure | $289.2M verdict (incl. $250M punitive) → reduced to $20.5M on appeal | Verdict (reduced) |
| George Floyd family v. City of Minneapolis (2021) | Wrongful death — fatal police restraint | $27,000,000 settlement (city council approved) | Settlement |
| Sutherland Springs victims v. United States (2023) | Mass shooting — 26 deaths, 22 wounded; Air Force reporting failure | $144.5M settlement for 75+ plaintiffs (discounted from a $230M judgment) | Settlement |
| Amtrak 188 derailment fund (Pennsylvania, 2016) | Derailment — 8 deaths, 200+ injured | $265M court-approved aggregate settlement | Settlement |
| Paper brothers v. City of Los Angeles (2025) | Elderly brothers struck by LAPD cruiser at 80 mph in a 40 zone — multiple surgeries | $18,000,000 settlement (city council approved) | Settlement |
The honest soft-tissue benchmark: with disputed causation, the jury stayed near the bottom of the band — and the Supreme Court reinstated that lower number over the trial judge's increase. [La. Supreme Court opinion (Justia)]
Courts benchmark fusion surgery into the mid six figures — the appellate court raised a jury award it deemed inadequate for an objective surgical injury. [NY App. Div. opinion (Justia)]
Multiple fractures + surgery + permanence + a public-entity defendant = seven figures — and comparative fault still cuts the final number. [NY App. Div. opinion (Justia)]
Catastrophic paralysis in a young plaintiff produces the biggest numbers — and appellate review routinely reduces them. The verdict is the start of the story, not the check. [NY App. Div. opinion (Justia)]
The most important example on this page: a nine-figure headline verdict became a take-nothing judgment seven years later. Appeal risk is why plaintiffs accept settlements below verdict potential. [Tex. Supreme Court opinion (Justia)]
Punitive damages create the headlines — and post-trial review removes most of them. $289M became $20.5M while liability was affirmed. [Cal. Court of Appeal opinion (Justia)]
Wrongful death + civil-rights exposure + a government defendant that must answer publicly — the conditions that produce record settlements. [NPR report]
Even after winning a $230M judgment, plaintiffs settled for less to end appeal risk — the same trade-off from Werner, seen from the winning side. [DOJ press release]
Mass-casualty funds are shaped by statutory caps — Congress's Amtrak damages cap set the fund's ceiling, then it was allocated among claimants by severity. [NPR report]
Clear extreme liability + severe injuries + a self-insured municipal defendant: when fault isn't arguable, the negotiation is only about damages. [CBS Los Angeles report]
Verdicts aren't checks. On this one page, $89.7M became zero, $289M became $20.5M, and $69.7M lost tens of millions on appeal — which is exactly why rational plaintiffs settle below verdict potential, and why headline numbers mislead. Every figure here is gross. Attorney fees, costs, and liens come out before anyone's bank account — run any number through the take-home calculator to see the real difference. And your case won't look like these. Routine claims resolve confidentially; the way to estimate yours is your own documented damages through the multiplier math, not someone else's headline. And if you're wondering what separates the seven-figure cases from everything else, we've broken down the four ingredients every million-dollar case has.
The publicly verifiable record skews large: a $71,000 soft-tissue verdict (Eastman), $250,000 for a cervical fusion (Chung), ~$4.7M for multiple surgical fractures (Cabrera), and eight figures for paralysis or death. Ordinary five-figure settlements are almost never public — they're confidential and unfiled — which is why every 'typical settlement examples' list without sources should be treated as invented.
Because routine settlements are confidential. What becomes public is what gets tried, appealed, or paid by a government body — which skews big and contested. For a claim like yours, the multiplier math is more reliable than anecdotes: your documented damages × the band your injury supports.
Often not. On this page alone: $89.7M became $0 on appeal (Werner), $289M became $20.5M (Johnson), and a $69.7M judgment was cut by tens of millions (Liciaga). Settlements exist precisely because both sides pay to remove that uncertainty — and all amounts here are gross, before attorney fees and liens.
Run your documented damages through the multiplier method with your state's fault rule applied — our calculator prints the arithmetic — then check what you'd actually keep with the take-home calculator. Examples inform; the math estimates.