Out of prison and broke, Kofoed defaulted. He did not show up to court. So attorneys are going after the insurance company for Douglas County, Kofoed’s former employer: St. Paul Travelers. U.S. District Judge Joseph Bataillon ruled recently that Travelers is liable and owes Livers and Sampson as much as $5 million, which includes attorney fees and costs. The company has said it will appeal.

If Livers gets his full $3.3 million share — which doesn’t count attorney fees — from the federal court judgment, plus the earlier settlements, he would wind up with a total of $4.95 million. That works out to $22,098 per day for his 224 days in jail.

The seven attorneys I spoke with for this story — three were not directly involved — all said you could not compare the two cases, period. When it comes to figuring out damages, the Chicago law firm Loevy & Loevy has experience landing big verdicts for the exonerated: $25 million for one man who spent 16 years behind bars; $21 million for another man’s 11 years; $16 million for someone else who was locked up for five years. Still another client settled his case for $20 million — for 20 years of wrongful incarceration.

In that case, said firm attorney Russell Ainsworth, the law enforcement agencies being sued were willing to pay that much to avoid a trial.