As a matter of public record, attached is the URL for the small claims action and the current-status; The continued date is October 14th. That's pretty far out.;

http://tinyurl.com/6zmczq

re: mentioning to the judge that united refused to honor a hearing with a pro tem judge; Great advice!!!!

The only thing that I had wished was that I knew this before exchanging all evidence in the lawsuit. I gave United copies of all of the relevant statutes, and such, highlighted, along with my notes on why each item is factually relevant.

United had basically some similar documents (picking those things to support their argument), except they were from mostly "before the rules-being-updated" by the DOT. They had mixed their papers up quite a bit, one page with the new rules, stapled to a page with the old rules, etc.

Their evidence showed that they are ACUTELY aware of the DOT rules, and I believe their argument will be to try to force the DOT rules ($800.00 per passenger, max), instead of the 600(Euro)'s that the EU entitles people to; they had the same parts of their carriage-for-contract highlighted as I did - so I know that they're going to try to force the issue.

SOMETHING THAT I DID NOT KNOW --- *** IF UNITED FORCES AN INVOLUNTARILY BUMP FROM A FLIGHT, THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO SEND THE MONEY TO YOU WITHIN 24 HOURS, ON THEIR OWN RECOGNISCENCE ***

Since the date that I had filed, I have been spending quite a bit of time reading up on Hon. Thomas A. Dickerson's book "Travel Law", reading the summaries on probably hundreds of cases, perhaps reading the details of a dozen or two.

Something interesting I learned --- When airlines sue, they generally try their cases in the U.S., citing Long-Arm law's governing jurisdictional relevance. For instance, here in California Civil Procedure §410.10 states. " A court of this state may exercise jurisdiction on any basis not inconsistent with the Constitution of this state or of the United States." --- while often when an Airline is being sued for something, they cite jurisdictional irrelevance, which is one of the things that United Airlines was going to bring up.

Section 250.11 of the DOT rules

The following is required by airlines to display AT EACH DESK:

THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT IN BOLDFACE TYPE AT LEAST ONE-FOURTH OF AN INCH HIGH:

Airline flights may be overbooked ... persons denied boarding involuntarily are entitled to compensation. ...

(has anyone ever seen this sign at the airport at check-in counters and otherwise?)

Who knows where this is all leading. ;-)