So Dan’s attorney appealed, and we didn’t get paid our diminished value claim yet. The appeal went from the District Justice to the trial court. In other states the District Justice would be referred to a small claims court, District Magistrate or a people’s court. They are courts that deal with claims involving relatively small amounts of money. In PA these courts hear claims up to $12,000.000, for a variety of claims, including auto diminished value. However, the attorney missed a few steps, so I filed a notice to strike the appeal (in PA a notice like this is called a Praecipe). At this point, there are no “fill-in-the-blank” forms to use like the District Justice has and no one at the courthouse to help you. There are papers that must be filed, and deadlines that must be met. As a perfect illustration of how technical this is, Dan’s attorney missed a few critical steps, and as a result we have a chance to stop his appeal in its tracks and enforce the judgment we got from the District Justice on the auto claim for diminution of value. However no decision has been made yet. In my next post I’ll move on to another diminished value case. But and important point is that on appeal, we're not dealing with auto diminished value law, but the rules of civil procedure, which have nothing to do with diminished value.