Do Plaintiffs Prevail?

Despite the buzz around some high-profile employment-discrimination cases, class actions make up less than 1 percent of the federal caseload, according to a study by faculty at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University. Individuals bring the bulk of discrimination cases, even though collective actions are more likely to succeed in court. But 20 percent don't hire a lawyer, which helps explain why individuals' cases are three times more likely to be dismissed than class actions. Overall, half of employment-discrimination cases settle, and plaintiffs win at trial only 2 percent of the time.

The data was taken from three sources: Equal Employment Opportunity Commission records, interviews with 100 litigants, and 1,672 randomly selected federal cases filed between 1988 and 2003.

The study concludes that, for the most part, litigation "seldom provides systemic results" that change the workplace, and the court system "largely favors defendant-employers, who face only modest costs in any individual case." The researchers tabulated median awards of $30,000 in settlement and $110,000 at trial.

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