Many people who are wronged believe they now have access to a legal system that will reward them with hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, your lawyer cannot promise that your case will be worth a million dollars because, frankly, most are not worth a million dollars.
The fact is, most cases settle well before trial, for much less money than would appear by reading media reports. Here are some things to consider when assessing how much your case is likely to be worth:
The overwhelming majority of cases settle without ever going to trial or even having a suit filed. Results in these cases are likely to be much lower than those cases settled after the investment of the time and money of litigation.
Even when large awards are granted by juries, many of these awards are reduced immediately by a judge or settled for a much lower amount in an effort to avoid an appeal. These award reductions often go unreported or are reported with less fanfare than the original large verdict. Many employment cases are subject to damage caps, based upon the size of the company, which require the judge to reduce awards that exceed the cap amount.
Many employment law matters permit an employee to recover compensatory damages only. This means that you may be able to recover the value of your lost wages and some future salary and maybe your attorney's fees. The huge award reported in the paper typically deal with massive punitive damages in non-employment cases. And, despite political hype to the contrary, even these huge tort awards are extremely rare occurrences!
Cases that do have a large value the proverbial million dollar case typically require extensive investments of time, money, resources and energy to get those recoveries. Very few cases settle for huge amounts of money without getting at least very close to trial after many months or years of preparation have taken place.