This is exactly what small claims is designed for.
You write the claim, give the evidence, and if they don't show up, you win by default and can hand the judgement to the insurance company to get paid.
You write the claim, give the evidence, and if they don't show up, you win by default and can hand the judgement to the insurance company to get paid.
Which is fine unless they know the system and how to play it - eg by telling the magistrate the second time around that they've made partial payment & have more coming, just need some time, etc.
Are you speaking from past experience? This is something I hear repeated on Hacker News all the time but I’ve never seen evidence that it’s particularly common.
Because it isn't, for small claims court. Does it happen? Absolutely. But it's rare.
It's much more common outside small claims, where the stakes are higher.
Filing those claims is time consuming and expensive, and if they fight or ignore, it ends up costing more than your claim is worth, even not including time.
And this wasn't even with movers.
Honestly, why are you guys so committed to this idea that contractors are these criminal masterminds who will thwart your every attempt to sue for damages? Small Claims is an incredibly routine and straightforward process, and pretending that it isn’t only serves to dissuade people from making use of it.
Oh, did they shove it into those pneumatic tubes to send it somewhere else? That sounds like fun but not very lucrative
NYC has a pretty nontraditional setup where the city sheriffs are basically set up to be the enforcement arm of the courts and only work civil issues. Certainly makes stuff like this easier.
You state this as some simple issue, Often they will not pay.
You might get the cost of the move restored, but that doesn't cover the cost of repairs, replacements, and restoration.
As is demonstrated in this blog post, the insurer paid out directly on a claim of damages, no civil court required. But above & beyond that, to recoup costs paid for the move based on a dispute about the service rendered, my understanding is that you'd end up with a judgement against the moving company and the same struggles chasing them down as you already had.