Jackass judge sues dry cleaner for $65 million over lost pants

[Just_Asking_Questions]

@not_what_you_d_expect

I had no idea that Law and Order episode was not fiction. Also, 13 years. Holy Cow.

I saw this was bumped, and I’m like “what brought this back? They already made the “ripped from the headlines” L&O episode, and L&O has been off the air for ten years.”

[Dewey_Finn]

@enipla

So they send the judge to a corner for a little bit. How this idiot can ever be trusted to make a competent decision is beyond me.

He’s not. He was an administrative law judge and his appointment was not renewed, right after this whole thing started. It’s still a wonder that it took this long for him to be sanctioned.

[mhendo]

@Dewey_Finn

And this is the appeals court opinion.

Oh My Fucking God. Having his “thinking” and his strategy outlined step by step makes it even worse.

Pearson’s demands for compensation escalated dramatically as the case went
on. His claims for emotional damages increased to $3,000,000 by trial. He
asserted that he was entitled to $90,000 to obtain a rental car so he could travel to a
different dry cleaner in the city. He claimed that he had expended 1,200 hours of
work on the matter, worth $500,000 in attorney’s fees. He sought prospective
relief requiring the Chungs to pay him $10,000 within twenty-four business hours
if he notified them that they were not providing him with acceptable service.3 His
damages theories often included multiplying his claims by three (for each
defendant), by two (for his separate statutory and common law claims), by three
(for treble damages under the CPPA), by three (for each sign), by seven (for each
CPPA subsection allegedly violated), and/or by every single day that a particular
sign had been on display within the statute of limitations (under his theory that
each day represented a separate violation of the statute and was independently
compensable). By the time the Joint Pre-Trial Statement was filed, Pearson
claimed that he was owed more than $67,000,000 in compensatory and punitive
damages.

pp. 3-4.

And:

Pearson claimed that the “Satisfaction Guaranteed”
sign represented “an unconditional and unlimited guarantee of satisfaction, as a
matter of law” (emphasis in original) so that any customer who claimed
dissatisfaction, regardless of whether the claim was made in good faith, could
demand any compensation whatsoever. Custom Cleaners would then have to meet
that demand, no matter what it was, in order to resolve the customer’s
dissatisfaction. Pearson testified at trial that this would include situations in which
the Chungs — or any other provider — knew that the customer was lying and/or
when the customer demanded an exorbitant amount of money, such as a trillion
dollars.

p. 4.

And:

At another point, after the trial had concluded in the Chungs’ favor, the
defendants withdrew a motion that could have allowed them to recover attorney’s
fees and costs, along with the imposition of Rule 11 sanctions, because the
publicity generated by the case had allowed them to crowd-source the money
necessary to pay their legal fees. They did so, hoping that Pearson would “put this
matter behind them.” Instead, Pearson argued that he should be awarded expenses
and attorney’s fees for opposing the motion.

p. 8.

I have no words.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@enipla

So they send the judge to a corner for a little bit. How this idiot can ever be trusted to make a competent decision is beyond me.

He was suspended from the practice of law, not from the bench. As noted above, he was removed from his ALJ position a long time ago.

[Monty]

This really falls, nay, plummets into the “too little, too late” bin. Didn’t one of the defendants return to Korea because this jackass by pursuing this asinine suit basically ruin her life in America?

[Little_Nemo]

@Just_Asking_Questions

I saw this was bumped, and I’m like “what brought this back? They already made the “ripped from the headlines” L&O episode, and L&O has been off the air for ten years.”

I was worried that Trump was naming him to the Supreme Court.

[running_coach]

@Little_Nemo

I was worried that Trump was naming him to the Supreme Court.

At least we’d know what’s not under his robes.

[The_Librarian]

@Sailboat

$65 million is ridiculous. The judge is probably a jerk of the first order. DC is a weird place.

And yet…

I’ve been stonewalled by little family-owned immigrant businesspeople before. In situations where they were clearly, totally in the wrong. Pretending to misunderstand me, hiding behind a facade of poor English, shaking their heads no, gesturing enigmatically.

The worst case was at a gas station. A big sign invited the public to drive up to the pump and buy gasoline; I was stopped at the pump, filling my tank, when a mechanic in the service bay nearby revved the engine of a car he’d just finished working on and peeled out of the service bay right into the side of my car, smashing it against the gas pump and flattening the front tire on that side.

I was not caught between the car and the pump. While I was still counting my fingers and toes, the owner of the station came running out from behind the register waving his arms and shouting “I will NO PAY! NO PAY!”

I was flabbergasted. My tire had left a streak on the ground showing how it had been moved; my parking brake was set, engine off, and I was outside the vehicle. Ten thousand customers had parked in that exact spot over the years. But “Your fault!” he shouted, pointing at me.

The police came and wrote a report. They made sure the guy gave me his insurance info.

It was a few days before Christmas.

The insurance company jacked me around and wouldn’t return my calls until “We are closed for the holidays” came from their recorded message. They stayed closed the week between Christmas and New Years. I spent the entire time – which I too had off from work – without a car or a rental. Wasting huge chunks of vacation unable to travel or see family at the holidays.

When the insurance company began taking phone calls again, it turned out they were the wrong kind of insurance company – they insured his physical property against theft or flood or something. We went back to the station and asked again for the company that insured his business against accidental loss. Again he and his employees (possibly family) gave me the runaround.

I finally had to get some relatives to accompany me for another visit and attempt to look physically intimidating. He coughed up the real insurance number pretty quickly – he knew where it was and what it was all along, no doubt.

Eventually I got my car fixed…of course the accident was his /his mechanic’s fault. But I never saw any recompense for the lost travel capability over the holidays and vacation time, nothing for my troubles, nothing for my frustration. He paid the same amount as if he’d just paid up honestly from the start, but he got to keep two week’s worth of interest and of course had a decent chance of cheating me out of some or all of it. So it was well worth it for him to play dumb and then stubborn because there were no negative consequences for him if he tried – I was a dirt-poor kid without a lawyer or real-world experience.

If I could have – if I’d been experienced and capable and wealthy – if I’d been a judge, for example – I would have sued the pants off him. I would have shaken the temple down around us both, like Sampson!

Because of that, and because I don’t know the details of the pantless judge’s actual case, I’m reluctant to assume it’s entirely his fault. Some people – even small businesspeple and immigrants – are conniving, bullying assholes when it comes to their money. Every once in while I’d like to see such people get sued for $65 million, sure.

Of course the devil is in the details. I have no idea how culpable the business was in the actual case under dicussion. I just think it’s not a given that they’re completely innocent victims.

Sailboat

Posting this “story” about a completely different incident, with the only thing in common that the store owner was an immigrant… not racist at all!

[Great_Antibob]

@Monty

Didn’t one of the defendants return to Korea because this jackass by pursuing this asinine suit basically ruin her life in America?

They were thinking about it, due to the mounting legal fees, but they were able to crowdfund those. I’m sure the lawsuit was stressful but at least they didn’t suffer financially from it.

[Monty]

Thanks for that information, Great Antibobo.

[BlankSlate]

Ever see a Doper name a zillion times and never think twice about it…Ike Witt. :smack:

[Ike_Witt]

[Senegoid]

May I suppose that you were quicker to figure out Patty O’Furniture?

[Monty]

@Monty

Thanks for that information, Great Antibobo.

Sorry about the typo, Great Antibob.

[Great_Antibob]

@Monty

Sorry about the typo, Great Antibob.

Thanks. I’m Pro-Bobo, so I was a bit worried you had the wrong idea about me.

[septimus]

Scrolling rapidly to look for the bump I chanced on this (I added emphasis):

@Little_Nemo

Judge Pearson released a statement on the case: “It’s the silliest darn thing. I was looking for my yearbook in the hall closet and there they were - my missing pants. It seems I stuck them in there and completely forgot to drop them off at the dry cleaners. So they’ve been in my house all along. Boy is my face red. Sorry for any inconvenience I might have caused. But I have to say I’m a little piffed at Mr Chung. I called him up straight away and explained the mix-up, figuring we’d both get a chuckle out of it, and he seemed pretty steamed at me - almost angry in fact. Sure, I made a boo-boo, but people have to learn to let things go.”

I’d assume this was from The Onion, but I guess not.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@septimus

I’d assume this was from The Onion, but I guess not.

I’d assume you got whooshed.

[septimus]

@The_Other_Waldo_Pepper

I’d assume you got whooshed.

:smack: Who can tell these days, in this post-reality reality of ours?

[UltraVires]

I can’t believe it has taken this long either, but I worry more about the attorney’s mental issues than anything else. How a person, let alone any lawyer, can think that a lost pair of pants is worth anything more than the market value of the pants is beyond me.

It takes some serious sovereign citizenship type of stuff to think that a sign that says “Satisfaction Guaranteed” means that the customer’s absolute satisfaction, even if it means a hillion jillion bajillion dollars, means exactly that is someone with a terrible knowledge of the law.

But if you read the story, he was offered $12k at one point. A handsome reward for his abusive litigation strategy, yet still failed to accept it.

The legal system needs more for power for cases like this to be dismissed.

[Mallard]

What’s this judge’s name, Clarence Thomas?