Pants Plaintiff: Customer Always Right

by Lubna Takruri - June 13th, 2007 - Associated Press

In the case of the Judge suing a cleaners for $67 million because he claims they lost a pair of pants!

Defense attorney Chris Manning asked Pearson [the Juge suing] repeatedly whether, if he was a merchant, he would pay any customer who asked for compensation. Pearson kept responding with convoluted legal language, and each time Judge Judith Bartnoff instructed him to answer the question. Finally, he said, "Yes."

"So does that make sense, for you instead of going down the street to another dry cleaner, to sue a business for $67 million?" Manning asked.

Pearson said it did.

"Does that make any sense at all?" Manning asked, to laughter from the courtroom.

This man Pearson, a Lawyer and a Judge, has said verbally that he is no longer seeking either the $67 million he originally sued for, or even the $54 million which his filings currently seek, but he would be SATISFIED with $2 million in ACTUAL DAMAGES and $500 thousand in legal fees. Those legal fees by the way are what Pearson says he is charging himself for representing himself!

He is arguing that the offer of $1000 which the cleaners made early on in this lawsuit was inadequate and did not meet the "satisfaction guaranteed" standard he feels should apply.

Statement after statement made by Judge Pearson (not the judge in the case, but the person suing) are typical of the absurd demands that are the standard in these types of frivolous lawsuits. However nothing is absurd enough to get these cases thrown out. The judge in this case, Judge Judith Bartnoff, is giving him the ability to keep right on wasting the plaintiff's money by forcing the plantiff to pay attorneys to defend themselves. The case has long been an outrage and an insult. However it is typical of the abusive blackmail condoned (and even encouraged) by the tyrants in our courts.

We do not have a system based on the "rule of law". We have a system based on the "rule of judges".