In a recent Small Claims Court in Watsonville, California (pop 55,000) the judge allowed many procedural errors including allowing a consultant to testify for a corporate  Defendant  (while using an unsigned and irrelevant Letter of Authority), pausing to allowing the Defendant's consultant to retrieve and present and unverifiable document to contest the venue, wrongly accepting a form signed by consultant as representing the corporate Defendant and accepting a proof of service that stated the sender to be in California while mailing the answer from Texas.

What should the judge have done? The judge should have regarded the Defendant as a 'no show' and awarded the case to the Plaintiff.

But she did not. Instead she, 'Dismissed without Prejudice."

It is a dark day for Americans when we lose the legal system because at that point there is nothing left.