Creative Use of Small Claims Court

Small Claims courts are designed to handle cases, which can be expressed in a dollar amount and are the true "people's court," where litigants represent themselves.

For example, a Southern California Small Claims Court recently dealt with two bloggers in a libel case.  One of them claimed the other engaged in a campaign of cyber-bullying by posting false statements and the respondent asserted defamation and malicious prosecution.

The parties were offered mediation but no settlement was reached.

In court, the burden of proof is on the plaintiff to provide evidence the postings on the blog are false. The defendant, however, is not required to prove the postings are true. The court ruled in favor of the plaintiff awarding $5,000 in damages. The defendant said he would not pay the judgment. The plaintiff said it was never about the money; it was about clearing her name.

While I have not been able to verify this, I have been told the parties later ended up on a nationally television court show.

Could mediation have helped the parties resolve this issue?  It would have been difficult.  Mediation is not about "proving" one party or the other is correct. And mediation works best when both parties are motivated to resolve their matter.