Fortune Magazine recently ran a story about Mitchell Berns, a securities litigator from White Plains, N.Y., and his quest to fight back after experiencing a Delta delay that was “weather related.” He checked the National Weather Service report and determined that the delay was actually not weather related–especially apparent since he was able to purchase and fly JetBlue instead of waiting for the red-eye that Delta was suggesting.

When he got home, he filed a small claims suit against Delta for $938 (the cost of the JetBlue flight he flew along with his wife). After no one from Delta showed up to defend the airline at the small claims court, a couple of weeks later, he received a call from a Delta representative who offered him SkyMiles. Berns said he declined the miles, calling them “Confederacy currency.” He eventually got a check for $838. The hassle to file the claim took about four hours of his (normally rather expensive attorney billing) time. “But I’d do it again,” he says. “That’s how good it felt.”