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Thursday, May 03, 2007

Courts - Chickens come home to roost in the case of the $67 million pair of pants

Like the case of the lawsuit for damages from a steaming hot cup of coffee, you've probaby already heard about the lawsuit being brought against the drycleaners who lost a pair of pants - the plaintiff is asking $67,000,000.

If not, here is the story via ABC News. According to the report, the Plaintiff, Roy Pearson:

says in court papers that he has endured "mental suffering, inconvenience and discomfort." He says he was unable to wear that favorite suit on his first day of work. He's suing for 10 years of weekend car rentals so he can transport his dry cleaning to another store.

The lawsuit is based in large part on Pearson's seemingly pained admission that he was taken in by the oldest and most insidious marketing tool in the dry cleaning industry arsenal: "Satisfaction Guaranteed."

Pearson did not return numerous calls from ABC News for comment.

It's the kind of lawsuit that makes liability reform advocates' temples throb. "People in America are now scared of each other," legal expert Philip Howard told ABC News' Law & Justice Unit. "That's why teachers won't put an arm around a crying child, and doctors order unnecessary tests, and ministers won't meet with parishioners. It's a distrust of justice and it's changing our culture."

The civil trial, set for June, has the scope of a John Grisham courtroom thriller and the societal importance of a traffic ticket.

Pearson plans to call 63 witnesses.

Defending themselves against the suit -- for two years running -- are Korean immigrants Jin and Soo Chung and their son, who own Custom Cleaners and two other dry cleaning shops in the Fort Lincoln section of Washington, D.C. * * *

Fort Lincoln neighbors are enjoying what they consider the comedy of it all. "The whole city is aware of this lawsuit," said Bob King, who represents Fort Lincoln on the Advisory Neighborhood Commissions. "Everybody's laughing about it."

Everybody except the Chungs, who have spent thousands of dollars defending themselves against Pearson's lawsuit. "It's not humorous, not funny and nobody would have thought that something like this would have happened," Soo Chung told ABC News through an interpreter.

Her husband agreed. "It's affecting us first of all financially, because of all the lawyers' fees," Jin Chung said. "For two years, we've been paying lawyer fees. & We've gotten bad credit as well, and secondly, it's been difficult mentally and physically because of the level of stress."

Later, Soo Chung broke down in tears. "I would have never thought it would have dragged on this long," she told ABC News. "I don't want to live here anymore. It's been so difficult. I just want to go home, go back to Korea."

"I've been in the dry cleaning business for 14 years, but this has never ever happened before. If anything happened to our customers' clothing, we would always compensate them accordingly and fairly," Jin Chung said through a translator.

And what about the chickens coming home to roost? The plaintiff is a judge in Washington DC. The Washington Post had a column on this suit last Thursday by Metro Columnist Marc Fisher.

Today the Post has an editorial, labeled "Kick in the Pants." Some quotes:

IS THERE anything more absurd than someone pursuing a $65 million lawsuit over a lost pair of pants? Well, how about this same person being in a position to adjudicate the cases of other people? Or that there's a chance of his getting a new 10-year term as judge?

A panel of four D.C. officials is considering the reappointment of administrative law judge Roy L. Pearson Jr. in light of devastating publicity about a court case he brought. * * *

That Mr. Pearson was able to persist in such a case raises questions about D.C. consumer protection laws. * * *

Equally serious is whether Mr. Pearson should continue in his $100,512 job adjudicating alleged civil infractions of D.C. rules. The case raises serious questions about his judgment and temperament.

Moreover, this is not the first case involving Mr. Pearson that has raised such questions. The Virginia Court of Appeals, in a 2005 review of Mr. Pearson's divorce proceedings, upheld findings that he created "unnecessary litigation" in a relatively simple case and was responsible for "excessive driving up" of legal costs.

As the four-member judicial tenure commission considers another term for Mr. Pearson, it should think back to why the Office of Administrative Hearings was created in the first place: to increase public confidence in the system of administrative justice.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on May 3, 2007 03:24 PM
Posted to Courts in general