The other nice thing about small claims is that the judgment is just as "real" and enforceable as those from the big boy courts. About 10 or so years ago, we got into a dispute with a carrier where we co-lo'd some equipment. Went to small claims court, got a judgment of a few thousand dollars, didn't get paid.... So we went down on a Friday afternoon to the co-lo (this was in Toledo, so there was some interim step we had to do to make the judgment enforceable across state lines, but I don't recall what the step was), let ourselves and the sheriff in with our access code, and started unhooking some Cisco gear that belonged to the carrier. We had a check in about 2 hours. :-)
And the nice thing about small claims court, if you meet the maximum limit of course, is that large companies often are lazy about dealing with the claims. If you are smaller than them, judges will often grant you a judgment when the big company doesn't show. At that point, with a court judgment in hand, it is easier to get the carrier's attention.
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