08-01-2003, 05:37 PM
I don't know whether there is an American equivalent but in the UK we have a low level court service called the Small Claims Court
The procedure would be basically as follows:
1) You get a court form. They're on the internet now, I used to go and get them from the court building
2) You fill it in, by hand in triplicate. It's not long, a single piece of A4 paper. You pay the court fee which is about 10% of the amount you're claiming
3) The company you're dealing with is on the spot. Basically it is not economic for them to hire a lawyer to deal with a claim for a small amount of money.
4) They write to you and tell you how wrong you are to take them to court and ask that you drop the case because you have no chance of winning. They may even tell you that they're going to sue you for maliciously wasting their time. You ignore this :)
5) They will probably settle a few days before the court case. The way this works is that they write to you and offer you one sum and you write back and say that you'll settle for a sum halfway between that sum and the total amount you're claiming. Congrats, you win
6) Or they fight it. You just go to court and explain exactly what you did. Just tell the truth here and don't particularly try to make things look good. The two times I have got to this stage the other side has got rather hysterical at some stage in the proceedings and said things that really didn't help them. Dull but safe is pretty effective by contrast. The court will find some way of splitting the difference, usually giving you a large proportion of what you claimed
Now that's the English system. It works well for you if
a) you don't spend 6 months worrying about "your court case"
b ) you like the idea that the other side spends 6 months worrying about "the court case"
c) you want your money back
d) you're not the sort of maniac who will spend all his savings, lose his house, etc trying to "win". Take one shot at it and if you lose it cost you the court fee, bus fare to the court, some paperwork time and you got a very interesting day out in return
and
e) the US has a comparable system
I've had five of these, 3 got settled, 2 went to court rather acrimoniously and turned out to be a terrific day out. British businesses don't really believe they can be sued. I, having got all or most of my money 5 times out of 5, believe differently ;)
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, I don't know anything about the American legal system at this level, obsessive people who get sucked into this sort of thing ruin their lives, yadda yadda yadda
The procedure would be basically as follows:
1) You get a court form. They're on the internet now, I used to go and get them from the court building
2) You fill it in, by hand in triplicate. It's not long, a single piece of A4 paper. You pay the court fee which is about 10% of the amount you're claiming
3) The company you're dealing with is on the spot. Basically it is not economic for them to hire a lawyer to deal with a claim for a small amount of money.
4) They write to you and tell you how wrong you are to take them to court and ask that you drop the case because you have no chance of winning. They may even tell you that they're going to sue you for maliciously wasting their time. You ignore this :)
5) They will probably settle a few days before the court case. The way this works is that they write to you and offer you one sum and you write back and say that you'll settle for a sum halfway between that sum and the total amount you're claiming. Congrats, you win
6) Or they fight it. You just go to court and explain exactly what you did. Just tell the truth here and don't particularly try to make things look good. The two times I have got to this stage the other side has got rather hysterical at some stage in the proceedings and said things that really didn't help them. Dull but safe is pretty effective by contrast. The court will find some way of splitting the difference, usually giving you a large proportion of what you claimed
Now that's the English system. It works well for you if
a) you don't spend 6 months worrying about "your court case"
b ) you like the idea that the other side spends 6 months worrying about "the court case"
c) you want your money back
d) you're not the sort of maniac who will spend all his savings, lose his house, etc trying to "win". Take one shot at it and if you lose it cost you the court fee, bus fare to the court, some paperwork time and you got a very interesting day out in return
and
e) the US has a comparable system
I've had five of these, 3 got settled, 2 went to court rather acrimoniously and turned out to be a terrific day out. British businesses don't really believe they can be sued. I, having got all or most of my money 5 times out of 5, believe differently ;)
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, I don't know anything about the American legal system at this level, obsessive people who get sucked into this sort of thing ruin their lives, yadda yadda yadda