Dec 18 2008
Really, It’s All His Ex-Wife’s Fault
The $54 million pants suit unravels again
WASHINGTON (CNN) — A court Thursday rejected an appeal filed by a former administrative law judge who sued a dry cleaners for $54 million over a missing pair of pants.
The District of Columbia Court of Appeals “ruled resoundingly in favor of the Chung family and denied Mr. Roy Pearson’s appeal of the case completely,” said Christopher Manning, an attorney for the Chung family, who own Custom Cleaners.
“The D.C. Court of Appeals held that the trial court correctly ruled that Mr. Pearson’s claims had no merit whatsoever,” he added.
Pearson initially sought $67 million from the Chungs, calculating the amount by estimating years of legal violations, adding nearly $2 million in common law claims for fraud.
The saga began in May 2005, when Pearson took several pairs of pants to Custom Cleaners for alteration as he prepared to start his new job as an administrative law judge. He alleged that among them was a pair of pants from a blue and maroon suit. When he came to collect his clothing, he said, the Chungs tried to give him a pair of charcoal gray pants that were not his.
During a two-day trial, Pearson, who represented himself, said that when he took the pants to the cleaners, his financial situation was precarious: He had just been ordered to pay $12,000 in attorney’s fees to his ex-wife, and his credit cards were at their limit.
See? It is! Those gold-digging, frivolous, flighty women! Mr. Pearson had a very serious and legitimate reason for this lawsuit—
He claimed millions of dollars in attorney fees and millions more in punitive damages for what he called fraudulent advertising under the law. He also claimed that a sign in the store’s window promising “satisfaction guaranteed” was an unconditional warranty that required the defendants to honor any claim by any customer without limitation.
My dry cleaners have been gettin’ over for years. Next time I drop off a dress, I’m gonna demand that free massage that I assure you the lack of is one of the reasons I am not perfectly satisfied with my life at present. Seriously, all this writing has left me with chronic ach-y shoulders. If you’re going to advertise yourself as providing “services” with “satisfaction guaranteed,” seriously–!
Now, this part’s not very funny:
“The 3½ years this case has been pending and appealed have been very difficult for the Chungs,” he said. “They lost two of their dry cleaning stores and their realization of the American dream.”
He said the family wants to “quietly return to their one remaining small dry-cleaning store … to rebuild their lives.”
That really sucks.
Back to the farce–
Pearson may request that the appeal be heard again by the entire panel of D.C. Court of Appeals judges, Manning said. He also could petition to the U.S. Supreme Court for an appeal.
Pearson was taken off the bench in May 2007 while the lawsuit was pending and was not reappointed as an administrative law judge when his term expired.
He filed a federal lawsuit in May 2008 to get his government job back, accusing city government and others of an “unlawful demotion and subsequent termination.” That suit remains pending.
Fired, divorced–gee, what a shocker! Hopefully he doesn’t have any pets–we may soon be witnessing the first civil case against a domesticated animal for “mental stress.” Or maybe the first civil case filed by a domesticated animal for “mental stress.” Stay tuned!
