Settlement Insight Research
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The data-research unit of Settlement Insight: original analyses of 53M+ legal records from 30 government databases. Every chart and every number is sourced and citable — studies are published with open datasets and DOIs, and you can download the underlying CSVs for free.
Original Studies
How federal civil cases end: 23% settle, only 1.5% ever reach trial.
$4.79B recovered for 5.4M workers; 86% of it is stolen overtime.
$1.95B in announced resolutions since 1990; the median is $110K, not the headlines.
87.5% of California Prop 65 settlement money is attorney's fees; the state fund gets 9 cents.
$2.03B of assessed OSHA penalties written down — but 61.5% of fines are never touched at all.
A patient's death settles at $235K; brain damage at $575K. Death ranks 4th of 10 severity levels.
25-year analysis of National Practitioner Data Bank payment reports.
$60B in federal settlement payments 2008-2025, by agency.
Three credit bureaus drive 77% of all complaints; volume grew 32× since 2015.
First-of-its-kind 14-database synthesis across $209B in settlements & penalties.
Percentile benchmarks for all 50 states + DC from 9 public sources; the national median is $72,500.
$505.9M in attorney fees paid by the U.S. Treasury Judgment Fund; the median award is $21,609.
By Topic
50-state comparison of medical malpractice non-economic caps.
Which medical specialties face the highest payouts.
5.5M New York workers' compensation claims analyzed.
$8.9B Johnson & Johnson litigation analysis.
$10.9B Bayer/Monsanto glyphosate litigation analysis.
By Geography
Interactive heat map of malpractice payouts across all 50 states.
All 50 states ranked: averages, medians and the cap effect from 529K NPDB payments.
MICRA cap analysis with state-level payment data.
Highest payout state — no caps, $595M record verdict.
Hard-cap state ($250K/$750K) — what claimants actually receive.
Post-Estate-of-McCall (2014) cap-free landscape.
Cook County concentration and post-Lebron (2010) cap-free era.
43K+ NYC settlement records: police misconduct + car accidents.
$1.15B in misconduct payouts: 4,974 settlement records.
Methodology
More Free Settlement Calculators
Federal Lawsuit Outcomes
10.76M court cases: how many settle, how many reach trial
Wage Theft Enforcement
$4.79B recovered from 367K employers — who steals wages
EEOC Discrimination Settlements
What 2,386 announced resolutions actually paid — median $110K
Prop 65 Attorney's Fees
87.5% of 7,602 settlements went to fees — 9.8× the state's share
OSHA Penalty Reductions
$2.03B written down — and when a fine is cut, it's cut in half
The Death Discount
Fatal malpractice settles for less than survivable harm — 2.45× less
Settlement Amounts by State
State-by-state payout benchmarks from real records
Malpractice Payouts by State
529K NPDB payments: every state ranked, plus the cap effect
Attorney Fee Awards
Court-approved fee percentages analyzed
Damage Caps by State
Which states cap non-economic damages, and how much