Security Deposit Squabbles

Once, when my son was seven and went to summer camp, I asked the camp counselor how he was doing. She said that he was doing fine, except that he had threatened to sue her for breach of contract when she changed her mind about whether he could dig up a (very large) rock he found. That wasn’t the first—or last—time I struggled to explain to my son that suing people is not the simple speedy solution to problems that he imagined. Small claims magistrates tell me that successful plaintiffs sometimes expect to recover the amount awarded from the defendant at the end of the trial. Certainly, many a plaintiff has been dismayed to learn that the trial is often merely the first of several steps necessary to collect money damages.