Posted By:
warshawlawI strongly recommend the small claims system for any fights of $5,000 or less. You can handle the case yourself at the small claims level and hire an attorney to retry the case at the superior court level if you win and the defendant appeals. It isn't perfect, but Dan will recover a lot of the loss he'd otherwise have taken.
I was less than impressed with the people at the top of PSA. We offered to settle the case for an equivalent sum in grading services, which would have cost them next to nothing. They refused and did not even make a counteroffer. Orlando "Fuhrmanned" himself badly by refusing to acknowledge that human error was a possibility in this case. He also testified that he had no knowledge of any significant mistakes made by PSA during his time there, and said he did not recall the fake Ruth rookie that they slabbed and had to buy back (he did look like he turned about six shades of pale when I asked him about it, though 
). I did not buy it and I don't think the judge did, either. I felt that the testimony of PSA'S receiver (who could not recall anything about Dan's box other than an inaccurate partial description of it, and could not testify about how she handled it, yet was adamant that it did not have the Magie card in it) was so coached that it lacked credibility with the court.
Anyone who has had problems with PSA that they can document with materials that have PSA admitting fault or paying money for screwing up, please LMK. I want to develop a dossier on the company so that if I run up against them again and Orlando testifies again about how PSA does not make mistakes, I can hit them on cross with a pile of evidence of their errors.