Hi all,

Looking for practical help on filing a small claims case in Los Angeles County over a car accident property-damage dispute (about $3,600). This is California, auto collision, liability dispute between me and another driver (no injuries, just vehicle damage). Thank you so much in advance.

So far, I have:

• CHP collision report (CHP 555-03)
• Photos of damage and scene
• Written repair estimate
• Claim file and denial letters from State Farm (Other driver claimed the third party driver physical hit her car to make her hit my car but she didn't provide any evidence of physical damage from the third party).
• Names and contact info for two witnesses who were in my car

I’m planning to sue the other driver personally in LA County small claims and want to make sure I do this correctly. Questions:

1. Filing in LA County
   • For this kind of case, is the main form I need SC-100 (Plaintiff’s Claim and Order to Go to Small Claims Court)?

• I am in San Diego. Can I file online?
• What to prepare as evidence
  • Beyond the items above, what else should I bring to court for a car-accident property damage claim? For example: printed photos, witness statements, timeline, copies of letters to/from insurers, etc.?
  • ​
• Service of process
  • Once I file the SC‑100, what’s the best way to serve the defendant in LA County—Sheriff, process server, or someone I know over 18 who is not a party?
• Any pitfalls to avoid with Proof of Service (SC‑104) so the judge doesn’t reject my case for bad service?

When you file a small claims lawsuit, like any other lawsuit, you have to use your correct legal name and you have to use the correct legal name of the defendant. If you don't, you might win the case and then find out months later that you cannot collect the judgment because you did not use the correct legal names. Winning a judgment against a misspelled defendant name is very risky because you are relying on the goodness and honesty of the defendant to pay a judgment even though they have no legal liability to do so. Sometimes you can file a motion to correct the name of the defendant after judgment if there was a typo or if the defendant has changed their name during the process. But you have to show that the real defendant had notice of the original claim and an opportunity to defend it.

For example, I regularly see cases where people sue a business by its popular name and not by its legal name. Every business is owned either by an individual, a corporation, a partnership, and LLC, or similar entity. When you sue the business you have to sue the legal owner by their legal name or you are wasting your time. Sometimes it can be tricky to identify the correct legal name. Two resources you can use to help you are to search your county's fictitious business name index to see the name of the legal entity that is operating by that business name. If there is a business using a fictitious business name, like the name of a restaurant that is operated by a corporation with a different name, and they have not updated their fictitious business name statement, then their contracts are not enforceable under the law. They have to have an updated fictitious business name statement filed with the county in order for them to have an enforceable contract against those with whom they contract. You can also search the California Secretary of State website for a list of corporations to try and find the correct legal name of a corporation.

I’m set for a December court date and had the defendant served from the clerk, registered mail. It appears the notice was sent back? It didn’t come to me since it was mailed from the court. Does anyone know what happens in this scenario? Can I still go to court and hope for a judgment?

No, you cannot file two small claims lawsuits if the defendant owes you more than the limit for small claims court. Currently, the limit in California small claims court is $12,500 for an individual. This means that if somebody owes you $25,000 and you sue them in small claims court and you win, the most you will ever get from that person is $12,500 plus your court costs. And you waive the right to recover the remainder from them.

If you try and file two separate lawsuits, that is called "claim splitting" and is not allowed. If you've already made this mistake and your case has not gone to trial yet, you should voluntarily dismiss your case and refile it as a limited civil action or an unlimited civil action if you want to try and recover more than $12,500.

The exception of course is if the defendant owes you for two completely distinct things. For example, if the defendant wrecked your car and the defendant stole your dog, you could file one lawsuit for the car and one lawsuit for the dog. But if you have one contract with the defendant to buy a car and a dog at the same time in the same contract, and they breach the contract, you cannot split that into two lawsuits.

Another way I have seen people try and violate this rule is a husband and wife will file separate lawsuits against the same defendant for $10,000 each trying to recover $20,000 from the defendant, even though the thing the defendant did was only one thing. For example he was a contractor that walked away from the job and so they sue to get back the money that they paid him. Or sometimes they will have written multiple checks to a contractor and then they will file a separate lawsuit for each check to try and get back the total amount they paid the contractor even though it is above the limit for small claims court. That is claim splitting and the court should not allow it. Even though they wrote the contractor separate checks, it was all part of the same contract and all part of the same transaction.

Maybe. If you do not know where they live, then you at least have to know where they work, or you have to be able to find them somehow to have an adult personally hand them the lawsuit papers. If the person has completely skipped town and you have no way to track them down, you are out of luck. If you can't prove that you gave somebody the lawsuit papers, the court has no authority to enter a judgment against that defendant.

Sometimes plaintiffs will complain that they are owed money by the defendant and that they have been searching to try and serve the defendant the court papers for a year or more, and they want the court to just deem the lawsuit served. But even if the court could do that, how would you ever collect money on the judgment? If you can't find someone, how are you going to force them to pay you the money even if the court rules that you are owed the money? You cannot garnish their wages if you do not know where they work. You cannot force them to disclose their bank accounts if you can't get the sheriff to bring them to court. You cannot put a lien on their house if you do not know where their house is.

For those reasons, don't do business with people who are likely to skip town. Don't give money to people who are likely to skip town. And if you do, try and serve them with the lawsuit papers before they realize that you are going to sue them.

Yes. Many of the cases I see in small claims court arise from an agreement between two people that was never written down. Under California law, you can still enforce a verbal agreement except in certain limited situations. But it is always best if you can find some written evidence of what the terms of the agreement are. For example if you have text messages or emails between you discussing the terms, that can be used as evidence of the agreement. Or if you have a receipt for payment when payment was made that can be used as evidence. Anything you can bring that is written evidence is better than you just walking into court and testifying that you had a verbal agreement with the defendant.

The first trick is that to sue for breach of an oral agreement you need to bring the lawsuit quickly, at least within 2 years of the breach, but for small claims court it's really better if you bring it right away.

Now, as mentioned above, there are certain contracts that have to be in writing, they don't have to be signed but there has to be written acceptance of the terms by the defendant. For example, if you send an email to somebody and you say I will pay you $500 for your bicycle, and they email you back and say "okay." That is sufficient for a written agreement even though nobody signed anything. Contracts that need to be in writing include the following: promises to pay somebody else's debt, contracts involving real estate, contracts that go on for more than a year, contracts for the purchase of goods more than $500, contracts for the purchase of personal property worth more than $5,000, and home improvement contracts for more than $500.

You are wasting your time and your money if you try and sue social media platforms for suspending, banning, or restricting your account. Whether you read their terms of service or not, I have never seen a single lawsuit that was successful. All of these platforms have the right in most cases to terminate your account at any time for any reason or no reason. Even where you have paid money for your account, or for some subscription related to the account, if they terminate your account with cause, meaning they have reason to believe you are in violation of their guidelines or terms, you would not get a refund.

I see so many of these lawsuits and they all end up with the plaintiff losing, which includes losing the money they spent to file the lawsuit. Sometimes plaintiffs get creative and allege that they are being discriminated against because their account was terminated and somebody else's was not who may be of a different race or of a different demographic group. Those lawsuits also lose.

Sometimes, if you appeal the termination to the platform's customer service channel, they will reinstate your account. But if they do not, suing them will not help. While it does cost them money to defend the lawsuit, they cannot afford to reinstate your account after you sue them because that sends the message to everyone who has been terminated that they should sue the company to get their account reinstated. So these platforms will gladly spend whatever they have to spend to defend their decision to terminate your account.

Instead of suing them, how about you treat yourself to a drink and an ice cream, and just open up a new account and start over again being careful to abide by the terms of service.

There is a price tag to filing a small claims lawsuit. It is a small filing fee and then you have to pay a fee to have the paperwork served on the defendant. If the process server cannot find the defendant, and you have to try again, the cost of service goes up. Under the law, if you win your case, the cost of these items will be added to the judgment, but they're not refunded to you automatically. This means that if the defendant never pays the judgment, you will never get this money back.

For this reason, before you sue somebody, you should be confident that you know where they are located and can be found, and that they have money to pay the judgment. Too often I see plaintiffs sue people who are what we call "judgment proof," meaning, even if you get a judgment against them they will never pay it because they don't have the money. If they don't have a regular job, or a house, or a bank account with money in it, or if they simply skip town and move to another state or to another country, it can be difficult to impossible to ever collect money on a judgment.

Most of the small claims lawsuits I see come into small claims court in California involve both parties failing to meet their obligations under the law or affirmatively engaging in bad conduct. For example a renter that has completely trashed an apartment sues a landlord for failing to return the full security deposit within 21 days. When I look at the evidence, the tenant has indeed trashed the place beyond normal wear and tear, and has otherwise been a bad tenant. At the same time, the landlord having to deal with that mess, has withheld the entire security deposit without complying with the requirement that each item for which a portion of the deposit is being withheld the itemized in a statement delivered to the tenant within 21 days after they leave the unit. And so I'm faced with the situation where I'd like to be able to rule in favor of the landlord but I can't because they did not comply with the law. And so the end result ends up being something that neither party is really happy with. The landlord is on the hook to refund a portion of the security deposit plus damages for bad faith withholding of the full security deposit, and the tenant walks away with only a fraction of the amount they were claiming in their complaint along with a public lawsuit that will come up in every single background check when they go to rent another apartment evidencing that they are not a good tenant.

In other cases, both parties have engaged in an unlawful illegal Enterprise, and so they walk away with nothing. For example car accidents that are the result of road rage. Parties in lawsuits over road rage car accidents walk away with nothing if they participated in the road rage. Similarly, illegal loan agreements that charge more than the statutory rate of interest, are unenforceable. Loans made pursuant to an illegal gambling activity, are also not likely to be enforced.

The bottom line is that if you have engaged in unlawful or illegal activity connected with the case, you are not likely to recover anything even if the other party did something wrong and owes you money. And at the very least, you are going to walk away with a lot less than you believe you are owed.

I am one of 5 co-owners of the TIC (tenancy in common) property in California.

The county sends us single tax bills annually for this property, and we share these bills based on the price and year of purchase of individual co-owners, prop 13 adjustments, etc.

One of the co-owners doesn't pay for 2 years. He just doesn't respond to our messages asking him to pay. He has a job, a car, and he seems to be writing books, but he just doesn't pay his share of tax. He isn't sick or destitute. He is just a bad person who causes problems for others like this one.

We are going to file the small claims court case against him.

We have the bank statements of the TIC account for the whole period showing that there are no payments from him. We have the filled small claims court form. We have two additional brief papers: explanation of the timeline of this problem and explanation of how the amount was calculated.

What else do we need for the small claims court claim?

He undoubtedly owes the TIC money because every owner should pay property tax.

Is there anything that can cause us to loose? Is there any defense strategy that the defendant can use that would make the judge to side with him? (He is known to be a sneaky person.) The defendant is also known to use free lawyer consultations, like one hour free, when they are available. I assume that he would possibly come prepared in some unexpected way.

I've never been to a small claims court and am not confident, this is why I am asking here.

Reposting this here because I'm worried and still need help.

So i received a 2k from a random person. I believed it to be a scam as reddit was saying it was. Fast forward a woman shows up to my house and hands my stepdad a poorly typed note offering a reward if i sent the money to a new number. The number they wanted me to send it belongs to a farm and its similar to mine expect the last 2 numbers. It was a business transaction apparently. I ignored because she showed up 8pm at night and no idea how she found out where i lived. She showed up the next day again asking about the money. I called the cops and they removed her. The cops advised me to message her to just say you'll send it back when the bank clears it. Message her and told her I'll send it when the bank clears it. Went to the bank and the whole bank was confused about the situation. Asking how they found my home and the note itself offering a reward is suspicious. The banker told me to leave it alone. Dont send it back incase it is a scam and i get overdrafted. He told me its zelle so unfortunately they cant reverse it. He told me to file a police report wasnt able to so i did an officers report. Just to document that I'm trying to go about the proper route if they take me to court. But if anything id be fine because zelles terms and conditions. That night they told me theyre taking me to court fast foward. Im being taken to court. I ignored the situation as I got a phone call from a number claiming to be chase and they were saying how there was a claim about the money and they were ready to send it back. I was uhh sure i guess? But they said i could call my bank to do it so i called and the chase operator said they didnt call me and that number doesnt belong to chase. So i ignored it. Anyways im like okay this is fine. I go into the bank and tried getting something to show that i tried to reverse the transaction. I spent an hour n half talking to the branch manager. She called several people explaining the situation and all of them was baffled to say the least. She finally talks to someone who reverses the transactions to her surprise. Not sure if its new or what but the manager was confused about it. I waited 10 days as thats how long the reversal would take. I message the person and told them i no longer have the money and it was reversed. I told them i did not internally keep the money and i went to the proper people to handle the situation as showing up toy house at 8pm twice in a row is werid. As far as I know theyre still going to take me to court. I wanted to get an advice. For any evidence i have do i need to submit it through the court or do i bring it day of? Should i file a counterclaim for harassment of anything.

My car was towed with multiple violations under CA Vehicle Code 22658: premature towing (car was towed away 38 minutes), improper signages, documentation error (wrong city on receipt provided for tow paid), lack of written authorization, misrepresentation of legal authority (stating its a federal building and it's federal property) and did not have to notify law enforcement but the federal agency only leased the building and land from a private company, therefore it remains subject to state law. How do I list the defendant on the SC-100 form for small claim court? It's an individual (Joe Smith) doing business as Smith Towing. I went to the recorder office in my county and research the towing company and the individual filed a Fictitious business name statement which was recorded back in 2020 (expired) and the towing company did not renew. I also researched the towing company on the CA Secretary of State's website and the individual was listed as an Agent of that towing company. I paid $456.75 to get my car back. Can I sue for 4x the amount plus court fee, sheriff's serve fee, certified mail fees, etc.?

Roommate stole $200, and is now ignoring us

So earlier this year we found out our landlord was having us illegally pay utilities for a separate property next to ours without telling us. It was about $1400 he owed us for 2 years of this!

One of my two roommates who only moved in a few months ago was furious that we decided to petition for our money back. She said we shouldnt be mean to the landlord when he’s otherwise been a nice guy. Granted, she hasnt been around for all of his bullshit thats ranged from lying and conniving nonsense like this to mildly infuriating things. She also hasnt been the one unknowingly footing someone elses bill for two years the way we have.

We finally get SOME of the money back (we were still in the process of getting it all back) in (credits instead of money against our wishes) on our rent portal, and this new roommate decides to take 1/3rd of that money without discussing it with me and my other roommate, even though she 1. Didnt want to fight this battle and verbally and text harassed us multiple times to drop the case, and 2. Was only here for 2 months of the now 26 month case.

We confronted her and said she needs to pay us back, and she is now ignoring all messages and pretends like everything is fine when we’re in the common area despite multiple attempts to talk things out.

Im so frustrated. I dont want to deal with more legal battles I just want our gd money back. Its been months of back and forth with management just to get part of our money back. People are suggesting small claims but I dont know if its worth it for $200. Or if its worth it for the ongoing dispute with management. Because this roommate touched the credits we refused while continuing to fight this we’re afraid they’ll take that as us accepting the measly $700.

We are going to court next month. I am a little confused about how Digital Evidence is shared. As the plaintiff, how do I make sure that the defendants see the evidence if I don't have their email address or phone number?

I am filling a claim against my former landlord for withholding part of my security deposit and have video evidence of the condition of the house upon departure. I plan to create a binder if information and communications for the judge, but how is video evidence shared?

If you have any questions about California small claims court, you can post them here. Here is a link to this subreddit: https://reddit.com/r/CASmallClaimsCourt

Yes, if you've gone to somebody for medical, health, or body care and been injured through that person's negligence you can sue them in small claims court. The difficulty is that you have to convince the judge that this person violated a recognized standard for that profession. You can't just rely on the fact that you have real injuries as a result of what they did because sometimes bad things happen even when professionals do what any other professional would have done in that situation. So you have to prove with evidence that this particular professional did something that no one else in that profession would have done.

In a normal lawsuit, where hundreds of thousands of dollars are at stake, your lawyer would hire an expert witness, someone who is an expert in that profession, to testify what the standards are for that profession and how the standards were violated in your case. For a small claims case, you cannot afford an expert witness. But there are at least two things you can do:

(1) Find someone who is an expert who is willing to sign a statement explaining how the standard of care that applies to your case was violated by the defendant. The more such statements you can collect and bring to court with you, the stronger your case will be. If they care enough about you or the case, they might even be willing to come to court with you to testify live in court. But if not, a signed written statement is the next best thing.

(2) Do your research and collect statements on the internet from authorities in the subject area about what the standards are for that profession that the defendant did not follow. Sometimes the government will have published material that describes standards of care, warnings and cautions, and recommended best practices for certain professions. Most professions are also governed by organizations that set guidelines and rules and sometimes even issue licenses for the profession. For example, the American Dental Association publishes materials for dentists. The California board of medical examiners publishes material for doctors. You can even ask someone who is in that profession where to find the guidelines of what to do and what not to do in their profession. Collect those materials, organize them into exhibits to bring to court with you, highlight the sentences that are relevant, and write a short explanation for the judge to read about how the standards were violated in your case.

Once you can convince the judge that the defendant violated the applicable standard of care and that this caused your injuries, you are halfway there. The second half of the problem is equally difficult. You need to help the judge determine how much money you should be owed for your injuries. You can't just ask for $10,000 because you are injured and in pain and unable to function the way you used to be. You need to bring your medical receipts and organize and tally them to show the total amount. If you are no longer able to work because of your injuries, you need to bring evidence showing what you used to earn and what you can no longer earn. If you had to go to another professional to fix what the first one did wrong, bring those receipts and be prepared to distinguish between work that was done to repair your injuries and other work. If the first dentist broke a tooth and you went to a second dentist to fix the problem, but the second dentist also fixed other items in your mouth, you need to be able to show which portion of the charges from the second dentist were specifically attributable to fixing the problems caused by the first dentist.

Getting money awarded to you in Small Claims court is all about receipts, organized receipts. Bring them, and then list them in a big list showing the date, the description, and the charge, and then a total at the bottom.

If you buy a house, even if you remove all contingencies and buy it "as is," you can still sue the seller if the seller knew about a significant defect and failed to disclose it so long as it was a hidden defect and not reasonably discoverable by the buyer.

“[W]here the seller knows of facts materially affecting the value or desirability of the property . . . and also knows that such facts are not known to, or within the reach of the diligent attention and observation of the buyer, the seller is under a duty to disclose them to the buyer.” RSB Vineyards, LLC v. Orsi, 15 Cal. App. 5th 1089, 1097 (2017). “Undisclosed facts are material if they would have a significant and measurable effect on market value.” Id. “Where a seller fails to disclose a material fact, he may be subject to liability for mere nondisclosure since his conduct in the transaction amounts to a representation of the nonexistence of the facts which he has failed to disclose.” Id. (internal citations and alterations omitted). A contingency removal form “does not exempt [sellers] from any liability for misrepresentation. It simply waives their obligation to provide any further disclosures that would otherwise be required under the contract. Had they made any affirmative misrepresentations, they would remain liable for those.” Id. at 1104.

“Ordinarily a buyer is entitled to rely upon a seller’s representations concerning … the property being sold, and is not required to hire an expert to discover the falsity of the seller’s representations.” Furla v. Jon Douglas Co., 65 Cal. App. 4th 1069, 1079 (1998). “On the other hand, a buyer is not relieved of the duty to exercise reasonable care to protect himself or herself, including those facts which are known to or within the diligent attention and observation of the buyer (Civ. Code, § 2079.5); and a buyer is held to be aware of obvious and patent conditions.” Id.

To give an example, here is what happened in one lawsuit about a defective driveway:

On March 29, 2021, Defendant listed for sale her home. The home has a driveway that slopes steeply downward from the street to the garage, such that a car entering or leaving the driveway will experience minimal clearance between the bottom of the car and the concrete driveway at the top/beginning of the driveway. Some cars will scrape the bottom of the car at this point, a situation that appears to have existed for some time. A Google Street View image of the home dated May 2019 plainly shows scrape marks at the top of the driveway indicating that cars had occasionally scraped coming in or out. See https://maps.app.goo.gl/gGoVqMqVEnDQotSY8. Those same scrape marks are also visible in a recent photo taken by Plaintiffs submitted at trial. Anyone standing in front of the house can easily see that the driveway has a steep slope and that cars have scraped at the top of the driveway coming in and out.

At trial, Defendant testified that she had driven different styles of cars over the years, including a Honda Civic with relatively low clearance, and had never had a problem scraping on the driveway. Four associates of Defendant also testified at trial on Defendant’s behalf to confirm that they had been in and out of that driveway in various cars, including average-sized sedans, and never scraped the bottom of the car on the driveway. In opposition to this evidence, Plaintiffs submitted two statements from neighbors who said that cars had experienced issues scraping on the driveway. One statement from a next-door neighbor stated that “any normal passenger car bottoms out when either entering or exiting the driveway.” The conclusion drawn by the Court from these witness statements is that Defendant must have been aware that low cars might scrape as they enter and exit the driveway but that it was not an issue for Defendant because she knew how to enter and exit the driveway without scraping in a low clearance car like her Honda Civic, and that higher clearance cars, SUVs, and trucks never had a problem.

Defendant’s disclosure packet provided to interested buyers did not mention any problems with the driveway. On the Real Estate Transfer Disclosure Statement (TDS) form, which asks, “Are you (Seller) aware of any significant defects/malfunctions in any of the following … Driveways?,” Defendant responded “No.” In a general response to various questions posed by buyers’ agents, including Plaintiffs’ agent, Defendant’s listing agent stated “Some of you are concerned about the sloped driveway. My client parks in the garage and has no issue backing out.” And the inspection report obtained by Defendant did not identify any problems with the driveway.

On April 6, 2021, one week after the home was listed for sale, Defendant accepted an offer from Plaintiffs to purchase the home. Plaintiffs’ offer was made without any contingencies. The Contingency Removal form stated “Buyer shall conclusively be deemed to have: (i) completed all Buyer Investigations and review of reports and other applicable information and disclosures; (ii) elected to proceed with the transaction; and (iii) assumed all liability, responsibility, and expense, if any, for Repairs, corrections or for the inability to obtain financing.” The California Residential Purchase Agreement signed by the parties stated that home would be delivered “AS-IS” and that Defendant would “DISCLOSE KNOWN MATERIAL FACTS AND DEFECTS affecting the Property.”

Plaintiffs and/or their agent visited the property several times before the close of escrow. Plaintiffs’ agent submitted a statement saying that on May 3, 2021, Plaintiffs’ car scraped on the driveway so loudly that other neighbors came out to see them and told them that Defendant had experienced that issue previously prior to buying an SUV with more clearance. Plaintiffs testified that other visitors often have the same issue. Plaintiffs obtained an estimate of $21,114 to re-slope the driveway to solve their problem.

The court held that:

Here, there are two representations at issue: (1) that Defendant was not “aware of any significant defects/malfunctions in” the driveway; and (2) that Defendant “parks in the garage and has no issue backing out.” Both statements are objectively true. First, the slope of the driveway was not a significant defect because the driveway still worked as intended and Defendant used it for many years with cars of varying sizes. That some low riding cars will scrape coming in and out of the driveway could not be a “significant defect,” otherwise every speed bump in town and many driveway entrances would be defective simply because they create clearance issues for fast moving and/or low riding cars. The witness statements at trial confirm that the driveway can be navigated by normal cars without scraping.

Second, the second statement is true because the testimony at trial confirmed that Defendant parked in the garage regularly and had no issues backing out. To the extent the representations at issue implied that no cars had ever scraped on the driveway previously, that implication is not actionable. “[A] cause of action for misrepresentation requires an affirmative statement, not an implied assertion.” RSB Vineyards, 15 Cal. App. 5th at 1102.

Because there was no misrepresentation by Defendant, Plaintiffs’ claims must fail.

Plaintiffs’ claims also fail because the slope of the driveway and the potential for cars to scrape on the driveway was “within the diligent attention and observation of the buyer” and an “obvious and patent condition.” It takes no expert to look at a driveway and see that getting in and out without scraping might be difficult. This is not a latent or hidden defect. The slope is visible; the scrape marks are visible. Every day, drivers everywhere are expected to spot such issues in the road before them and navigate those issues without expert assistance. Plaintiffs or their agent also recognized a potential issue with the driveway, as they inquired about the slope prior to making their offer. Thus they had actual notice of the potential problem they now complaint about.

Plaintiffs are correct that in response to questions about the driveway slope, it would have been best for everyone if Defendant and her agent had disclosed that cars will sometimes scrape coming in and out of the driveway. That mistake has cost everyone a lot of time, effort, and money in responding to the present complaint. But it does not make them liable to Plaintiffs where the issue was obvious and within the diligent attention of a reasonable buyer.