All court costs and sheriff serving fees. There are no legal fees, as lawyers are not permitted in the in small claims court (somewhat informal) in California. However, Mexican risked being hit with legal fees by appealing the ruling to the Superior Court - but there were no lawyers involved and the Superior Court Judge had very little patience with the Mexicana representative as he could not articulate the grounds for appeal.

Does anyone know what the IDB rules are for Hong Kong (i.e., not flying to the U.S, but other international destinations)?

I was recently in a situation with Dragon Air were it looked like I was going to be IDB'd on a flight to China, but I didn't know what the rules were, so I took an upgrade to business class in exchange for taking the next flight. I assume there must be something, since they were trying to get me to volunteer to change.

somewhat OT, but just wanna add another data point for bump (voluntary) ex-North America, but in this case for Oasis ex-YVR. my parents were scheduled to travel J with them today (on senior special fares, HKD 4500 one-way only) - were asked at check-in whether they would like to give up their J seats, with two options:

(option 1) take Y seat today + a free one-way Y ticket for use in the future (I assume it's YVR-HKG) + 75% refund (i.e. ~HKD 3375)

(option 2) take J seat tomorrow + a free one-way Y ticket for use in the future + CAD 750 credit for use towards another J ticket in the future (I forgot to ask whether it's for one or two, I assume it's one, so two of them = CAD 750 x 2) + one night hotel + 3 meals paid

sounds like they're actually quite generous in terms of bump compensation compared to the USD 400 the OP received...esp given the one-way J special fare I paid was only HKD 4500 per person...

For Oasis IDB, unless in a hurry to leave, who would take option 1?

Sounds like I should have held out. The agent was not very forthcoming about what my options would be, and the next flight was only an hour later, so I was pretty happy with the upgrade, especially since it was a cheap package ticket. Not sure if they would have IDB'd me or just tricked another passenger into voluntary transferring to the next flight like they tried to get me to do in the beginning.

well, this is quite a cheap special fare for seniors...otherwise I think the J fares are around HKD 10k one way...so a 75% refund (HKD 7.5k) + a future Y one-way (say HKD 2k) could be quite attractive to some already...but of course not in this case where it's 75% of a very cheap fare.

Oasis is a new airline and probably offered very generous compensation to avoid these events being publicised in the press. If it gets publicised, then they can only be seen in a good light as they offered generous compensation.