A lot of people forget small claims courts are an option, lawyers arnt allowed, and judges are pretty sensible. Its a good option for sub $10k USD claims.
Large corps are unlikely to even show up, meaning you win by default.
Probably varies by jurisdiction, but I know in my jurisdiction, court fees and related costs (such as the cost of serving the summons on the defendant) are automatically added to the judgment if you win.
Not true - any time you take a big corp to small claims court, they're going to send a lawyer to represent them. You are suing an entity, not a person, and the entity will pick who represents them.
"Unless a judge grants permission, Attorneys and paralegals are excluded from appearing or participating with the plaintiff or defendant in a small claims suit."
So who would show up to represent the defendant in the case where a multi-national corporation got sued? Do we expect that the CEO show up to every lawsuit? A randomly chosen employee?
Officially it can be any employee other than "an attorney-at-law or legal paraprofessional". I imagine most companies would send whoever has the best chance of explaining the issue away: some sort of expert or PR rep.
> A corporation may not be represented by an attorney-at-law or legal paraprofessional except as set forth in RCW 12.40.025.
12.40.025 covers the transfer of cases from the district court to small claims, so for claims starting at the small claims level, the restriction appears pretty tight.
For person to person suits, yes. For a suit against a corporation who has an attorney on staff? You're getting an attorney. Granted, it may be one who's not familiar with small claims court, but it'll be an attorney. BigCo isn't sending the CEO or the receptionist - they have a legal staff in house, they're gonna use them.
Every state I have seen they have to send a Non-Lawyer Employee to Small Claims
The Small Claims court is specifically designed to not be handled by lawyers, even for business and "large corporations" does it does not matter if they have a laywer on staff unless the judge waives the rule the Corporation must authorize a non-lawyer to act as it represnative for the purposes of Small Claims.
That could be any employee approved by the Board of Directors, so no they would not send the CEO, but they likely would send a person who is viewed as an expert or have detailed information to defend the corporation against the claim in a Small Claims environment which is far far far far less formal than a Normal Court room.
In some states, companies have to send a regular employee to small claims court.
For example, in California, "a corporation may appear and participate in a small claims action only through a regular employee, or a duly appointed or elected officer or director, who is employed, appointed, or elected for purposes other than solely representing the corporation in small claims court."
My naive reading of this leads me to believe that they can send a lawyer who is primarily employed for... A million and one other purposes. (M&A, non-small-claims-court litigation, contract law, etc.)
What they can't do is send a lawyer employee whose sole job is small-claims-court litigation.
The section the poster above you referenced also includes this:
> (m) Nothing in this section shall operate or be construed to authorize an attorney to participate in a small claims action except as expressly provided in Section 116.530.
Here is the relevant part of section 116.530 [1]:
> (a) Except as permitted by this section, no attorney may take part in the conduct or defense of a small claims action.
> (b) Subdivision (a) does not apply if the attorney is appearing to maintain or defend an action in any of the following capacities:
> (1) By or against himself or herself.
> (2) By or against a partnership in which he or she is a general partner and in which all the partners are attorneys.
> (3) By or against a professional corporation of which he or she is an officer or director and of which all other officers and directors are attorneys.
So...it looks like for a corporation that is not a professional corporation, they cannot send an attorney even if that attorney is a regular employee.
That does raise an interesting question. What happens if a corporation is not a professional corporation, but every officer, director, and employee is an attorney? They would not fall under the 116.530(b) exception, and so would seem to all be excluded uner 116.540(m).
but at the same time there really isnt any point for them to send a lawyer that is going to cost massively more than what the claim could be even theoretically.
Those are basically unenforceable. You file a lawsuit, big co asks to squash to arbitration, judge says wtf no, this is potentially a class act.. continue.
Not exactly, since individuals could still file small claims suits to get their money back if they don't mind the prospect of giving up the product at issue. I have successfully done this myself under similar circumstances.
Large corps are unlikely to even show up, meaning you win by default.