This is my experience in the UK. If you are party to a contract and due to the failure of the other party to adhere to the terms of the contract you are out of pocket the other party needs to put you back in the position you would have been in had the breach not happened. Hence, you can charge for your time in writing letters and submissions to small claims court etc because that is time spent which wouldn’t have been spent if they had performed thier contract. Therefore I always state my hourly rate and how much time I’ve spent so far when dealing with intransigence from companies. I had a fault in my electricty meter and was over charged by £2000. I spent hours on the phone and they didn’t do anything to resolve the problem until I threatened small claims court at which point they refunded me and offered £250 compensation. compesation for my time. Maybe justice doesn’t work like this in the US, but I reckon he probably could have got more from this company.