IAAL (but not his lawyer or your lawyer).<p>The standard measure of damages in contract is expectancy, that is the breaching party has to put the non-breaching party in as good a position as he would have been had he not breached.<p>Had the seller not breached the buyer would have had tickets with a fair market value of $6000 (at the time of breach) and been out the $900 he paid for the tickets. After the breach the buyer got back the $900, but is still $5100 worse off than if the seller had fulfilled his part of the bargain. Those are the expectancy damages he suffered.<p>Given that going to this specific game is a unique experience that can&#x27;t be duplicated a court could order specific performance (i.e. that the tickets be handed over) as tacon suggests below. But: 1) I don&#x27;t think small claims courts can order specific performance, 2) you probably couldn&#x27;t get before a small claims court judge in time, and 3) if the seller didn&#x27;t actually have the ticket then he couldn&#x27;t be ordered to turn it over. So monetary damages are more likely.