CAUTION: Be very careful what numbers you start with!
If it goes to court and a jury has to decide your award, your numbers will be picked apart by the defense. If you start with middle-of-the-road numbers, then they will only get lower. Pick the highest, most beneficial numbers and let the other guy try to prove that you would not have made LCOL and would not have gotten hired by an airline...unless you have a DUI he won't be able to do that, and the jury's sympathies will probably fall to you.
- Your numbers to need to be carefully itemized, with each of them verifiable by reference to military, airline, or other pay scales (except for pain and suffering). Any number which you estimate without good data will be used to make you look like a lier. You don't want just a ballpark figure that some guy on the internet gave you...
- Factor in every documentable income source. Off the top of my head....
- Base pay to 20 years for an O-5
- Flight Pay / AICIP to 20 years
- BAH/BAS (high cost of living areas if that's where you live now)
- Combat Pay and Tax Break for a reasonable number of CENTCOM deployments for your airframe.
- Medical benefits: based on a high-end commercially available consumer health-plan (these are used by small business owners and freelancers who don't have a company plan).
- Exchange/Commissary: Itemize what you think you spend in a year, and estimate the savings. For the exchange the savings is probably only local taxes.
- Other military bennies: Gym, Daycare, Family Stuff, Education bennies etc.
- Retirement pay and bennies to age 90.
For the airlines, average FDX/UPS/SWA from your military retirement age out to age 65. Talk to some folks and find out what a realistic aggressive annual block credit would be. Also include retirement plans. If you have any documentation that you expressed interest in these airlines that would be great. Did you every apply, or have a buddy walk in your resume? If so, your buddy could testify that he probably would have been able to get you a job there.
Some folks have said that you won't get awards for military pay out to twenty years. I'm not so sure about that...you joined to fly, loved flying more than anything, and now have to abandon your career. Nobody would think it's fair that you have to stay in the USAF doing a job you absolutely hate just so the defendant doesn't have to pay you. That's HIS problem, not yours.
The larger your number, the better...we talking about many millions here. The reality is that you might have to settle for his insurance cap unless the guy has a huge umbrella or is worth millions. But once you do that, nothing will prevent you from staying in the AF anyway if that's what makes economic sense for you.