Vaibhav Bhandari vs. M and K Travels

• Letter to M and K Services for compensation.
• Trial Summary: 29th May 2003
  • Amount $1585
  • Judge Stephen Seigel (Santa Cruz Small Claims Court) ruled against me because the itenarary said one should call 48-72 hours before for international tickets.
  • Is the itinerary a contract?
  • If i would have said that i called up the airlines what difference would that have made. As the airlines always had me on waitlist. Also what if i called and hanged because the answering machine said No need to reconfirm.
  • His second point was the service acted reasonably.
  • When i called Mr. Paul the day i arrived in US he said he fired some of his employess for negligance about that. Now was their work reasonable?
  • Mr. Paul bullied me saying what was it that i wanted and that he would not give me penny when the time for arbitration came.
  • The commissioner never took a heed of Mr.Paul's half hour delay and his outright lying that his summon said 1.30! When all small claims cases start at 1.00pm.
  • The judge didn't seem to be taking a heed of unsatisfactory report of M and K services in Better Business Bureau (BBB), he said that wont influence my judgement.
  • My friend Ravi and Sahana (a legal student) accompanied me and felt that the judge seemed to trip suddenly from a favor position to unsympathetic one. I dunno a student vs family run corporation -- what to say!
  • The judge seemed not to like my use of $500 for gross negligence which he termed meant as compensation to person injury or harm. Well i dunno if losing 7 days of studies and work is a harm or not! He got in a technical lawyer jargon on that and was finally satified with using only negligence rather than gross negligence (big difference !!)
• Result: Negative, and Mr. Paul is going to refund my original ticket money after it will be processed (i guess 4 months were not sufficient!).
• My points: I was totally honest and believed in the system. I made all the charges bare essential and truthful. Somehow life tends to be unfair. I'm not complaining but that what i feel. I remained honest even when i needed money that most, anyways!