Originally Posted by
writetorich
Has any one sued in small claims court and what was the result?
My desire is to get a reasonable remedy , and dismiss the action without anyone appearing.
I assume that AA uses flat rate or very cheap lawyers for to defend such an action.
I'm not sure about NYC Small Claims, but in California I did a few appearances for my corporate clients (none the size of AA of course,) when they asked me. Corporations generally need to be represented by a responsible officer or attorney in any court matter. Also, when I did my Judge Pro Tem turns in the local Superior Court to hear Small Claims appeals, occasionally there would be attorneys representing corporate defendants. The time involved in a Small Court matter is minimal, so the legal costs are not like the usual Federal or state matter.
That said, I did have to sue TWA once in San Francisco Small Claims court. TW sent a local manager from the SFO operations. Nice guy and we worked out a settlement (40,000 miles as that is what I paid for the award: free FC plus FC UPG from any fare, for a honeymoon trip to Greece where the plane went out with 6 open FC seats we were "waitlisted" for.) They never contacted me before the hearing, but he came prepared to refund the miles. I'm sure if I had insisted upon the value of the difference between J and FC (the monetary value of my claim,) he probably couldn't have done that. No repurcussions at all.
Also, BA doesn't seem to mind that I beat them in a CEDR arbitration over EC compensation that everyone on the BA board said I was going to lose. Oh, yee of little faith.