Small claims
A route built for people without lawyers. What it asks of you, what it can award, and when it beats having somebody pursue it for you.
The short version
A simplified court, on purpose
Small claims is a civil court with the procedure stripped back so that an ordinary person can use it without representation. Filing is cheap, hearings are short, and in many states the business cannot bring a lawyer either.
The limits, the fees and the deadlines are all set locally, by state and sometimes by county, so the only reliable source for yours is your own county court’s site. We are not going to print a number here that is wrong where you live.
What it actually asks
Four things worth knowing first
You do the work
Filing, serving the business, assembling evidence, and showing up. It is designed to be usable without a lawyer, which is a different thing from being quick.
There is a ceiling
Every state caps what small claims can award, and the caps differ widely. A dispute above the cap either gets reduced to fit or belongs somewhere else.
Winning and collecting are separate
A judgment is an order to pay, not a payment. If a business does not pay voluntarily, collecting is a further process, and it is the step people are most often surprised by.
It is public and it is final-ish
Hearings are public record, and the routes to revisit a decision are narrow. That is a reasonable trade for speed; it is worth knowing it is the trade.
Which route
When small claims is the better answer
When the amount is modest, the facts are simple, the evidence is already in your hands, and you have the time and the appetite to run it, small claims is often the right call, and it costs you a filing fee rather than a share of anything.
It is a worse fit when the business is unresponsive rather than disputing, when the work of chasing is the actual obstacle, or when you would simply never get round to it. Those are the situations we exist for, and they are about persistence rather than argument.
They are also not mutually exclusive. Taking one route does not close the other, and if small claims is genuinely your best option we will say so.
Satisfy is not a law firm, cannot represent you in court, and this page is not legal advice. What it does is set out a public process, and point you at your own state’s ceiling and the court that sets it, so you can work it yourself. If it turns out you want an attorney, we say so and take nothing for the introduction.
By state
What your state caps a small claims award at
- Alaska
- Alabama
- Arkansas
- Arizona
- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- District of Columbia
- Delaware
- Florida
- Georgia
- Hawaii
- Iowa
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Massachusetts
- Maryland
- Maine
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Missouri
- Mississippi
- Montana
- North Carolina
- North Dakota
- Nebraska
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- Nevada
- New York
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Virginia
- Vermont
- Washington
- Wisconsin
- West Virginia
- Wyoming
The other route
Or tell us what happened
We take the chasing off you: working out who decides, putting the case in writing, and following up until the business answers. If it is not a fit, we will tell you that instead of taking it on.