Original Research · The Orlow Firm
What New York Courts Call Fair Compensation
We analyzed 321 New York appellate decisions on injury damages. Scroll to see what the courts approved — and how often they cut the jury's number.
1974–2026 · 321 analyzed decisions
Appellate decisions analyzed
We read 321 published New York appellate opinions deciding personal-injury damages, spanning 1974–2026, and tallied what the courts approved.
Median court-approved award
Across every analyzed decision, the median amount a New York court approved as fair compensation was about $600K. Appellate cases skew large and contested — this is not a typical settlement.
Largest court-approved award in the data
In Perez v. Live Nation (2021), a jury returned $75.3M — but the court approved $40.6M, cutting the verdict nearly in half. That gap is the story of this dataset.
What New York courts approved as fair compensation
Most injury cases settle privately and confidentially. But when a verdict is appealed, New York's appellate courts publish a decision — and, under CPLR § 5501(c), independently judge whether the damages award was reasonable. We pulled 321 of those published decisions from CourtListener, separated the jury number from the court-approved number, and computed the medians and ranges below. The result is a rare, sourced view of what New York courts themselves treat as fair compensation.
Companion report: This page covers what courts approved after appeal. Our NYC Injury Settlements report covers what the City of New York paid to settle ~60,800 claims. Read together, they show both ends of the injury-compensation picture.
321
Appellate decisions analyzed, 1974–2026
$600K
Median court-approved award
$40,600,000
Largest court-approved award (Perez v. Live Nation)
Juries vs. courts
Courts routinely cut what juries award
Median by case type — jury vs. court-approved
New York is one of the few states whose appellate courts independently review the size of damages awards. Under CPLR § 5501(c), an award that “deviates materially from what would be reasonable compensation” can be reduced. In this dataset the court-approved median sits below the jury median in most categories — the appellate haircut in action.
By case type
Court-approved median & range
Construction (Labor Law §240/241)
28 decisions$349K
Court-approved median · range $100K–$1.50M (P25–P75), up to $8.29M
Scaffold/elevation accidents under strict-liability Labor Law §240.
Motor Vehicle
94 decisions$650K
Court-approved median · range $150K–$1.90M (P25–P75), up to $40.6M
Car, truck, and transit-vehicle collisions — the largest single group.
Slip & Fall / Premises
50 decisions$275K
Court-approved median · range $130K–$724K (P25–P75), up to $30.0M
Falls and other injuries on someone else's property.
Medical Malpractice
91 decisions$840K
Court-approved median · range $450K–$3.00M (P25–P75), up to $21.0M
Hospital and physician negligence — the widest range of awards.
General / Other PI
58 decisions$450K
Court-approved median · range $275K–$1.33M (P25–P75), up to $4.00M
Mixed personal-injury matters not in the categories above.
Over time
The court-approved median over time
All case types, by era (not inflation-adjusted)
Median court-approved awards moved from $579K (Pre-2000) to $600K (2020-2026). Because these figures are nominal and span five decades, the rise partly reflects inflation, not just larger awards.
The cited cases
Cited New York cases
11 of 11 cases
| Opinion | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Perez v. Live Nation Worldwide, Inc. | 2021 | Motor Vehicle | $75.3M | $40.6M | View |
| Rivera v. City of New York | 2007 | Motor Vehicle | — | $30.0M | View |
| Redish v. Adler | 2021 | Slip & Fall / Premises | $23.0M | $30.0M | View |
| Cabrera v. New York City Health & Hospitals Corp. | 2000 | Medical Malpractice | — | $21.0M | View |
| Nevarez v. New York City Health & Hospitals Co. | 1998 | Medical Malpractice | — | $10.2M | View |
| Miraglia v. H & L Holding Corp. | 2007 | Construction (Labor Law §240/241) | — | $8.29M | View |
| Liciaga v. New York City Tr. Auth. | 2024 | Motor Vehicle | $60.0M | — | View |
| Pimenta v. 1504 Cia, LLC | 2021 | Construction (Labor Law §240/241) | $15.0M | — | View |
| Paek v. City of New York | 2006 | Slip & Fall / Premises | $9.00M | — | View |
| Lopez v. New York City Health & Hospitals Corp. | 2000 | Medical Malpractice | $8.00M | — | View |
| Urbina v. 26 Court Street Associates, LLC | 2007 | Construction (Labor Law §240/241) | $5.00M | — | View |
Individual case amounts are published data drawn directly from the linked court opinions. A dash means that figure was not stated in the opinion (e.g. the verdict was affirmed without a separate jury number, or the case was reported only at the jury stage).
What stood out
Findings
$840K
Medical malpractice spans the widest range
Across 91 malpractice decisions, the court-approved median was $840K, with awards reaching $21.0M — from minor errors to catastrophic, permanent harm.
$40.6M
Motor vehicle is where courts cut the most
Motor vehicle cases (94 decisions) frequently involved remittiturs — court-ordered reductions. The largest court-approved figure, $40.6M, came from a verdict the court roughly halved.
$1.50M
Construction awards run high
Labor Law §240/241 construction cases carry strict liability, which drives larger awards. The 75th percentile court-approved figure was $1.50M, topping out at $8.29M.
$600K
Recent-era median holds in the mid-six figures
In the 2020-2026 period (91 decisions), the court-approved median was $600K — though a single $60.0M award sat at the top of the range.
How we did it
Methodology & sources
Figures are computed from 321 clean records drawn from published New York appellate opinions on CourtListener — covering the New York Court of Appeals, Appellate Division, and Appellate Term, 1974–2026. For each opinion we recorded the jury award and, where the court adjusted it (remittitur or additur under CPLR § 5501(c)), the court-approved figure. Medians and percentiles were computed directly from those records.
Five caveats you should read before citing these numbers
- Appellate-skewed corpus. Only appealed cases produce published opinions. Defendants appeal large verdicts and plaintiffs appeal inadequate ones, so this data over-represents contested, larger awards.
- Not all New York verdicts. Trial-level (Supreme Court) verdicts that neither side appeals are never published here. This is the appellate record only.
- A multi-year corpus, not a single-year average. The data spans 1974–2026. These are five decades of decisions combined — not one year's typical award.
- Not inflation-adjusted. All amounts are nominal. A $500K award in 2000 is not equivalent to $500K today; no CPI adjustment was applied.
- Private settlements are invisible. The majority of injury cases settle confidentially out of court and produce no published opinion, so they cannot appear here.
Source: CourtListener published New York appellate opinions. Per-case opinion links appear in the cited-cases table above. Analysis by The Orlow Firm, 2026-06-20.
Wondering what a New York injury case is worth?
These figures describe appealed court decisions, not the value of any individual case. Every case turns on its own facts. If you were hurt and want to understand your options, The Orlow Firm offers a free, no-obligation consultation. Serving Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, and Long Island since 1981.
Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. This page is informational research and does not constitute legal advice.
