The rules in small claims court are pretty lenient in my state. Many times the magistrate isn't even an attorney and doesn't have a firm grasp of the law.

And if Equifax doesn't show up, you'll get a default judgment against them. Which doesn't mean you'll collect it but it would force Equifax to appeal to the court of common pleas.

I think this is more about killing Equifax through death from a thousand cuts. If 1% of the people impacted by this filed a small claims lawsuit, that's 1.43 million lawsuits against Equifax. What company could survive that?