tl;dr - is it worth it to take someone to small claims court over $1750 just because you feel that they should have to deal with the repercussions of breaking the law?
Full story:
A few months ago, the owner of the house my husband and I rented fired her property manager, hired a new one, and gave us 60 day notice so she could have the house remodeled. The new property manager has been a complete pain in the ass (he let himself into our back yard on two occasions without giving us the required 24 hour notice), and now he has neither returned our security deposit nor given us an itemized list of deductions. CA allows 21 days for the landlord to do this, and his time has expired. My husband sent him a demand letter telling him to send the security deposit in full, and just received a call from the guy today, who basically screamed at my husband about all the things he has to deduct (my husband had lived in the house for 15 years, so I'm pretty sure anything he wants to deduct wouldn't be permissible). As I understand the law, he's outside of his 21 days, so he doesn't have the right to deduct anything any more, and has to give us the full security deposit. But he hung up on my husband, so it's unclear whether he's planning on giving us anything at all.
The amount of money in question is $1750. If the guy had been polite and cordial throughout this whole process and just never sent us the money, we wouldn't even pursue it, it's not worth $1750. But my husband is a little hell-bent on making this guy pay for breaking the law and just generally being an asshole. We are allowed to take him to small claims court for up to 3 times the security deposit, plus additional damages if we choose to do so, as long as it's no more than $10,000. My husband wants to sue him for the full $10,000 because of the fact that he had already broken the law before by entering the property twice without notice. I'm a little sketchy on whether we'd really be able to sue for $10,000 or if the max would be 3x$1750=$5250, and I don't know what we'd be likely to get in any case.
My husband already filed a formal complaint against this guy with the CA department of real estate, but who knows if anything will come of that. We really don't want to let this guy off the hook, but part of being happy in life is accepting that sometimes you just have to let go of anger and resentment and move on, even if it means the wrongdoer doesn't see any repercussions from his actions. So we could do nothing and kiss the $1750 we were expecting to get goodbye, or we could take him to small claims court for some amount between $5250 and $10,000. Losing $1750 isn't worth the effort of court, but the prospect of being granted $5250+ and having this guy pay for his actions is pretty tempting.
What do you all think?