Hi, my name is Zach Parry, an attorney with H & P. I’m going to tell you a little bit about one of the most ridiculous lawsuits I’ve ever heard of. This lawsuit was initiated by a plaintiff in Washington, D.C. This plaintiff, a federal judge, Judge Ray Pearson, was apparently victimized by a local, Korean-owned dry-cleaning business because he went to pick up a pair of pants, and they gave him the wrong pants.
That’s the entirety of his lawsuit and his losses.
He’s alleging $65,000,000 in damages.
Of course that was just his initial demand, or claim for damages. He has since re-evaluated and reduced his claim to a much more reasonable $54,000,000. That $54 million consisted of $500,000 in attorney’s fees, even though he represented himself—but apparently didn’t give himself any financial breaks on representation. He’s also claiming $2,000,000 in distress and discomfort—mental distress—resulting from the victimization of the business and then another $51.5 million that he wanted to use to set up a fund for other people similarly situated in Washington D.C. who could—so that they could afford to bring claims after they’ve been victimized by similar businesses.
In fact, when he was at the hearing, he tearfully described his experience and he said—and I’m not exaggerating here—he said this was the most egregious case of any case in the United States. And he apparently said it with a straight face with tears coming out of his eyes. The defendants also were tearful because they lost their business. In fact two days later when they returned the pants to him—two days after they originally misplaced them—they returned the pants to him, but he denied the pants were his—in spite of the fact that the receipt that he had matched the number on the pants. Apparently he didn’t know his pants as well as he thought he did.
At the end of the day he lost the trial. And he lost his appeal. But the worst part is that this Korean family lost their business because they had to pay an attorney defense fees. Now I have to tell you—just a couple weeks ago I, was picking up my dry cleaning and they gave me the wrong shirt, and I returned the shirt to them. It was—the length was 36/37 in the arm—which is about 5 inches longer than my arms are. But I managed to hold back the tears when I returned it to them. I told them that it must belong to someone else and was able to get on with my life without having to file a lawsuit.
