I\'m trying to figure out why one of my css classes seems to override the other (and not the other way around)
Here I have two css classes
.smallbo
The order in which the classes appear in the html element does not matter, what counts is the order in which the blocks appear in the style sheet.
In your case .smallbox-paysummary is defined after .smallbox hence the 10px precedence.
.smallbox-paysummary
.smallbox