$54 Million for Lost Pants

Good Morning FFP!

Have you been following this story in the news? An administrative judge for the District of Columbia, is pressing a $54 million lawsuit Tuesday against a dry cleaning shop. I’m not sure what an “administrative” judge is and if you know please post the answer here. There is no prize … just the pleasure of sharing knowledge! So to continue, Judge Roy Pearson said that the family operated dry cleaning store violated consumer-protection laws when they lost his pants.

Judge Pearson told a local court that Custom Cleaners should pay the sum because a “satisfaction guaranteed” sign deceived consumers who, like him, were dissatisfied with their experience. “You will search the records of the District of Columbia courts in vain for a case of more egregious or willful misconduct,” Pearson told D.C. Judge Judith Bartnoff.

EXCUSE ME?! I can think of many more serious and egregious crimes than a dry cleaner losing a pair of men’s pants. I mean, if they had lost my Italian silk dress I could understand but cuffless men’s pants?! Talk about egregious!

Judge Bartnoff will announce her judgment tomorrow, Monday, June 25th.

The lawyer for the Korean immigrants who run the dry cleaner said Pearson was looking for a way to resolve his financial difficulties after a divorce.

Pearson filed suit after the cleaners lost his pants in 2005. Jin Chung, Soo Chung and Ki Chung said they located the pants a few days later, but Pearson said they were not his. Pearson counted 12 separate violations of a consumer-protection law over 1,200 days, multiplied by the three defendants. At $1,500 per day, that is $65 million. He also seeks $15,000 to rent a car to take his clothes to another cleaner for the next 10 years, among other charges. Pearson has rejected several settlement offers and has since reduced his original claim of $67 million to $54 million.

The Chungs, who immigrated from South Korea in 1992, have grown disillusioned with the United States and might return to their native country, Manning said.

The Washington Post questioned whether Pearson should remain in his job hearing cases involving the decisions of D.C. government agencies. “The case raises serious questions about his judgment and temperament,” the newspaper wrote in an editorial. He became visibly emotional when he reached the point in the story where he confronted Soo Chung from the dry cleaning store.

“These are not my pants,” he testified yesterday, telling her “I have in my adult life, with one exception, never worn pants with cuffs.”

But Chung insisted, Pearson testified.

“These are your pants.”

Pearson rushed from the courtroom, tears streaming down his face.

Pearson has a long history with the Chungs. In 2002, there was a disagreement over another pair of Pearson’s pants that Custom Cleaners allegedly lost. The Chungs compensated Pearson with $150 and then Pearson was banned from the store, defense attorney Christopher Manning claimed in court. Manning said that Pearson pleaded with the Chungs to let him back into the store, because he didn’t have a car, he said, and they were the only dry cleaners in the neighborhood.

Even fellow trial lawyers are offended.

“It’s outrageous and it’s shameful,” Bill Schulz, spokesman for the American Association for Justice, the largest trial lawyer group in the nation, told ABC News. The A.A.J. filed a complaint about Pearson recently with the District of Columbia bar association.