In small claims, suing for monetary damages and action?

[ariastar]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? California

I am suing a rather large corporation that anyone who's used the internet has heard of. I am suing because they have a community-type service where people are allowed to make posts and discuss common topics of interest. This corporation's ToS specifically forbids slander, and the corporation claims the right to remove posts in violation of the ToS. There has been some rather severe slander that has caused clients to cancel orders with me, citing as the reason what they found on this corporation's service. I have requested several times, in e-mail and in writing, to please remove the libelous posts. My last communication stated that I would escalate it to small claims court if the posts were not removed. Last night's loss of an order was the final straw.

Conveniently the corporation is located about four miles form where I live, their agent for process is closer than that, and we are all in the same court jurisdiction. So suing is not only possible, but actually rather convenient.

Now my questions are as follows:

I am suing for the maximum individual/sole proprietor amount of $7,500 as I can show two orders totaling $4,000 that were canceled after the clients found the posts, and the additional is for pretty-wide-reaching damage to my business and personal reputation. However, I'd also like to sue to have this corporation remove all libelous posts. Is this something I can do? And please don't say I can ask for anything. We all know I can ask for twice the maximum, but it's out of bounds with what can happen.

If I CAN ask for this action in addition to the monetary amount, how would I go about doing this? I've been reading every small claims court form from California Courts trying to find one that mentions an order for action, or whatever it would be called.

I am not asking these questions without first having tried to find the answers on my own.

FWIW, I'm 27 and in Silicon Valley. Losing those two orders has been an extreme financial burden to me. It's no secret that many of the jobs have been outsourced. I trained my own IT replacement. So getting this to stop is even more important right now.

Thank you in advance for any help given.

 

[Zigner]

1) In small claims court, you can't sue to require them to perform an action

2) You won't win your case for "damages"

 

[seniorjudge]

I hope you can explain your case better to a judge than you have done in this post, because I cannot see where you have a case.

Generally, "lost orders" is a pretty iffy concept and exceptionally difficult to prove.

You also realize that the big guns will be after you and that you will not stand a chance.

Post back with results.

 

[ariastar]

"Lost orders" as in people ordering, paying the deposits, then telling me via e-mail they are canceling their orders because of what they read and demanding the deposits back, going as far as to do a charge-back, leaving me with fabrics I can't use for anything else. In one case, I had already done about 50 hours' worth of bead work and none of the fabrics and supplies were refundable, especially after being cut.

I have the e-mails verifying the reason the orders were canceled. These aren't counting the others that didn't get as far as a deposit being sent before they decided not to order, again citing those posts. But I'm not counting those as monetary damages. Just the orders that were actually canceled, leaving me in the lurch with fabrics and supplies that now come out of MY pocket as well as the time spent working for nothing. Were those posts to have been removed, I could have completed the orders, finished being paid, and all would be good.