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Comment by netsharc | Hacker News Reader

> overwhelming the publicly funded small claims court

I'm guessing there's no court fees that the losing party has to pay? It would seem fair to tell the troublemaker to pay for the judge's and other court employees hours...

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Court costs are HEAVILY subsidized by the government that has jurisdiction over them. I would guess nobody is paying more than around $400 to sue Meta in Small Claims, and if the case drags on for months or years with continuances and (if the court allows it) discovery, then it is going to burn a ton of time from the various court staff, building upkeep, web site maintenance and all the other things that keep the courts running.

I've had Small Claims cases that have run to thousands of hours of court time over multiple years.

If you read the article, the second paragraph tells about someone whose costs were $700 (significantly more than $400), and even explains why they were so high: the need to travel to California to appear in person.

At least my state requires the losing party to pay court costs. Let me guess that big companies simply don't pay.

Even though it's much more expensive to lose a lawsuit over an issue than it is to resolve it through customer service, most people choose not to sue. Facebook can fulfill all of their current legal requirements by simply not showing up to any court hearings, losing by default, and paying whatever someone won. If that is cheaper than providing real customer service, they will do it. And real lawyers cost $100s/hour so if the amount FB has to pay is less than that they're losing money by showing up!

This applies to all companies, but the average Facebook user doesn't even pay for an account and are of even less value than a typical customer support line user (notably, the article says a benefit of "Facebook verified" which costs $15/month is actual support).

Not showing up is an arbitrage opportunity which means everyone can sue Facebook and get a win for free, which would not be sustainable.

Pity the people who are not U.S. citizens. Meta is the worst.

Is the arbitrage opportunity worth it? It doesn't seem like it is considering the limiting factor being the court system, and you can't really arbitrage off cheaply off miniscule enough violations to profit more than a few one off cases. Damages must also be present, so maybe a service to service offering where one party disparages you online and then you take Meta to court for not suspending that party would work, but thats fraud, and if found out you risk quite a bit for sums that seem to not really exceed more than $15,000 across the US (from the article).

Big companies not paying court fees is not a thing in any state.

Also big companies not paying court fees in the state they have a ton of assets in is not going to be a thing either.

No way FaceBook is going to let somebody foreclose on their data center over court costs.

I think I remember that California is a tilling state? That'd be epic to have the Sheriff auctioning Meta assets from their own doorstep.

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