[hvb2]

Just saying, small claims court is a farce. You can win, and then the losing side just ignores the verdict.

Then you can go back and figure out how to get your money, depending on the business this might be really hard.

And this isn't a hypothetical. I have had this and never seen any of the money from the judgement....

[Animats]

If the business has a physical presence somewhere, it's not hard. In California, you can get an order to the Sheriff for a "till tap" or an "8 hour keeper". A till tap means a sheriff's deputy or two show up and take the money out of the cash register. A "keeper" means they stand next to the cashier all day and take in money as customers pay. There are fees for this, a few hundred dollars, and they're added to the judgement, so the creditor doesn't end up paying.

The keeper can accept cash and checks, but not credit or debit cards.[1] So, while the keeper is present, the business cannot accept card payments. This disrupts most businesses so badly that they desperately scramble to come up with cash to pay their debt.[2] It gets the message across to management very effectively.

I've done this once. I got paid in full.

[1] https://sfsheriff.com/services/civil-processes/levies/carry-...

[2] https://www.grundonlaw.com/the-power-of-till-taps-debt-colle...

[ilamont]

“Court judgments are not self-enforcing. Solvent or honest debtors will want to pay soon after judgment is entered. A judgment will show up on credit reports and will be a matter of public record. This will be a problem for any judgment debtor attempting to borrow money. Most banks will require any unsatisfied judgments to be paid before they will lend new money. …

If the judgment debtor has only personal property and no real estate, the situation is very different. Personal property depreciates with time, can be damaged and can be easily hidden. Real estate is not going anywhere. One of two things will eventually happen with a judgment lien on real estate. If the debtor is financially viable, he will eventually have to pay off the judgment lien in order to sell or refinance the property. One day, the telephone will ring and someone will want to know where to send the check.”

https://fullertonlaw.com/enforcement-of-judgment

[tardedmeme]

In some places you can show up with a police escort and just start taking their stuff until the estimated value is enough to settle your debt. i.e. you can foreclose on them.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/bank-america-foreclosed-...

(Consult a lawyer before trying anything like this)

[ralferoo]

You can't do this physically do this yourself in the UK (AFAIK at least), but I've heard of people taking businesses to the small claims court in the UK, getting a default judgment because the company didn't bother showing up, then when the company refused to pay the settlement, they got the court to freeze their bank accounts and appoint a debt collector to recover the money.

[kelnos]

How would that work for a company like Anthropic, where there's no physical store, no cashier, and no cash, even?

[tardedmeme]

Another enforcement mechanism that may be available is to go back to the court and get an order to transfer the money out of their bank account, then present it to their bank and they will do it.

Assume that all the avenues a company has to enforce debts against you, you also have those avenues to enforce debts against a company. It just usually doesn't happen that way around, in practice.

[Animats]

You go after their bank account, which is a slightly different procedure.

The main headache is finding their bank account. The best way to do this is to find someone they pay and seeing what source account was used.

[hvb2]

No. You can actually request those details from them. But that's a very lengthy process.

We got to the point that the other party just didn't show up, and the judge just set a new date multiple times...

The judge could've gone for a bench warrant, where a sheriff picks up the person the day before to make sure they're present... But that also didn't happen.

If there's no physical store, just cross your fingers they pay the judgement

[actionfromafar]

I now want to see the movie about this happening to Google:)

[Animats]

It happened to Bank of America.[1]

[1] https://abcnews.com/Business/bank-america-florida-foreclosed...

[fc417fc802]

That will really depend on the business. You can absolutely escalate to seizing their assets (including legal fees for the whole process) assuming you can locate them. If they take the stonewalling to the extreme and have a physical location in many (most? all?) US jurisdictions you can show up with the sheriff and a box truck and start physically taking their things as compensation. There's bodycam footage of this if you're curious.

[jdasdf]

You request the judge to apply a lien on their assets. You take that to their bank and request that it be applied, and the money paid out.

If that doesn't work, you can always go to the police/bailiff with the court order and schedule a date/time for them to go with you to their offices to seize and auction off their stuff.

[lolerica]

does Murica not have bailiffs?

small claims court might not work against a dodgy builder, but it will certainly work against a company, with physical offices

if they don't pay up, you can literally walk into their offices and start taking their stuff, with the police supporting you

I'd start with the contents of Amodei's office

[ep103]

There are ways to dodge it.

A friend of mine did this for a shady company that turned out to be a 1 person company, that then dodged the fine basically by not paying and disappering. I don't know the details, but apparently something happened legally where the guy popped back up on the radar a decade later, a parking fine or something? And as a result the cops showed up to his house and started taking his stuff, causing him to actually pay the fine. I don't remember the details, but the point is it can apparently get somewhat crazy on a small size level, apparently.

[massysett]

I sat in small claims court one day to watch.

A plaintiff won a judgment. He asked the judge: “what do I do now?” The judge replied: “well, if you’re reading the paper one day and see ‘defendant wins the Powerball,’ then you know exactly what to do.”

[tardedmeme]

This sounds like the "can't squeeze blood from a stone" principle. If they don't have anything, you can't get it from them. But if they do have something and just won't give it to you, there are other ways to escalate.

Noncompliance with a court order is one of the worst situations to be in, because a court can order almost anything to coerce compliance, including getting your bank to just send the money to the plaintiff, freezing your bank accounts, sending a sheriff to take your assets, or putting you in jail for an unlimited time until you comply - this last one often happens when cryptocurrency is involved so the court can't actually seize it. They'll just jail you until you give it up. I think the longest contempt of court time was 20ish years.

[mothballed]

I've heard of people putting a lien on stuff like the employee's desks and chairs and then they surprise pikachu when the sheriff shows up and the assholes that didn't pay it have nowhere to sit. No idea if it's true, but it was convincing.

[kentm]

There was a Daily Show skit about this: https://vimeo.com/44985418

[FireBeyond]

I remember someone attempting to sue my minor stepdaughter in small claims (which isn't a thing in WA, if you want to sue a minor you have to go to "real" court, but that's another matter).

Everyone all files in for the session and the Judge patiently explains... "we do not do enforcement here, to be very clear. A judgment in small claims means the court agrees you are owed what is owed in the judgment, no more. You can contain the Sheriff's Department, etc., for arranging enforcement of the judgment..."

Sure as shit, first case on the docket is some landlord/tenant dispute. Gets figured out and one of the parties is awarded $1,200... Very next comment out of his mouth, "Where do I go to pick up that check?" Judge, with a sigh, "As I explained twelve minutes ago, small claims court does not do enforcement". "I thought I went up front and picked up my check and then you got the money from him." "No. I am ... unclear ... why you think that would be the case."

I found myself wryly amused by this. Like the court is just cutting checks for every awarded verdict and "oh, we'll figure out how to make the loser pay somehow, but here, you don't need to worry about that, here's your check".