A judge pins a $67 million value on a pair of trousers--his own. -- When attorney Roy Pearson filed suit demanding $67 million from the Chung family, whose Washington dry cleaners had mishandled his pair of trousers, he must have felt he was sitting pretty. Full Story »
Posted by Kaizar Campwala
This is an opinion piece, but still newsworthy in that it has more actual facts in it than any other piece I've seen on this issue. And is a definite cautionary tale for all of us about our judicial system.
An opinion piece which illustrates just how asinine has become Americas system of justice. A $67 million dollar lawsuit over a pair of pants should never have made it into the comics page, much less into a court of law. The scary part is this guy is a judge.
The thing missing from this story is any consideration of how we got to this state. The same rules that allowed Mr Pearson to magnify his damages were put in place because individuals otherwise had no leverage at all against abusive corporations. In other words, the system is broken in this way in an attempt to balance the fact that it is broken in other ways.
This is a very good telling of the story of the infamous pair of pants, belonging to a judge, that went missing at the dry cleaners. It also serves as a tangible example of why the US should join the rest of the developed world in providing for "loser pays" rules in frivolous litigation.
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