In California, if a defendant loses in small claims court, there is an automatic appeal right to have the case heard de novo by a judge of the Superior Court. "De novo" means the case is heard fresh and the small claims proceeding has no bearing on it whatever - in essence, you get to go through the same sort of expedited hearing procedure (no formal pleadings, no discovery, no formal rules of evidence, etc.) but in front of a real judge. The hearing is held, typically lasts no more than an hour, and (usually) an immediate decision is rendered and that is where it ends. Thus, even after this sort of appeal, a lay plaintiff can still have a potentially effective remedy for getting a quick decision.

As I read this piece, however, I was most struck not so much by how the small claims remedy is particularly effective (in reality, this is a highly variable forum at best) but rather by what a joke the typical class action settlement can be. While that vehicle has occasionally proven effective in high profile cases, for the run-of-the-mill class action case you can often get a plaintiff's firm that is pretty much gaming the system to get a fee windfall for itself even as it puts a relatively low priority on the remedy it gets for the class of victims supposedly being represented. That is why remedies rarely take the form of significant cash payouts to members of the represented class and why the first instinct you have whenever you get one of those class notices is to simply throw it away rather than bothering to read all the fine print that might lead to your getting a $10 recovery or some such thing.

It is interesting to see how enhanced connectivity in our modern era is threatening to disrupt the cozy sorts of settlements so achieved through this vehicle. Probably the biggest losers will be the plaintiffs' class-action lawyers themselves, who might wind up having their back-room settlements more easily rejected and be left actually having to work hard to get a real recovery for the victims in lieu of taking a quick and inadequate deal that benefits primarily the lawyers.