So I spent about 20 minutes explaining my frustration with the city and hospital to the judge, and he's going to investigate all of the paperwork I've provided and render a verdict in a few weeks.
I dunno how it's going to go. I didn't get a great feeling from him, but I certainly didn't get a bad one. It really helped that the lawyer for the city tried to suggest that there were supposed to be hearings on the case that the city had never told me about (then realized that they were internal only), and I think he was unimpressed by the complete lack of written response I had ever gotten from the city.
So ... I dunno. There's no appeal in small claims court, so if he rules against me then I'm done with it. If he rules for me then the city can appeal. But I think that either way it will shake out fairly soon. I'm looking forward to putting this behind me.