Have you actually gone through this process? Like sure, obtaining a writ is technically part of the same case, but it's pretty much starting all over again. And you'll still be paying filing fees, dealing with court clerks, and waiting weeks or months.
Finding a corporation's bank is a whole separate issue, where you have to go back to court for a post-judgement discovery to force them to tell you. And even if they do - or you already knew - you have to get the writ served to the bank, and just hope they didn't move funds beforehand - or else you're back to start.
As GP said, it IS a huge PITA to get judgments paid, and it's particularly menacing in Small Claims. Unless the other side act on some virtue (which, they were already bad-faithed enough to have a lawsuit against them AND lose), your judgment is just an IOU, and actually forcing collection is often way more money — or time in money — than most state's Small Claims limits.
It's a broken system.
No, but my point is that it does work. It's a lot better to be delayed by months and have to pay more but still get your money, rather than by delayed by years and not get it at all.
This is a franchised retailer with over 300 locations, and this is a value of $200,000+ plus so this is way bigger than small claims.
Like I'd definitely agree with you if we were talking about a $5K claim against a single location in small claims. But this seems to be a $200,000+ claim against a corporation in regular court, as far as I can tell.
I mean yeah, but only my final paragraph is about small claims. The accountability and enforcement mechanisms to collect your money from a ruling don't change between a $200K and a $2K lawsuit, it's the same PITA either way - just a few more zeroes on paper.