WHat do you call 500 lawyers on a sinking ship?

[Attacking Minded]

A Washington, D.C., dry cleaners says its their business a long-time customer is taking to the cleaners. A $10 dry cleaning bill for a pair of lost trousers has ballooned into a $67 million civil lawsuit.

Watch Senior Law & Justice Unit correspondent Jim Avila's report Wednesday on 'Good Morning America.'

Plaintiff Roy Pearson -- himself a local judge in Washington D.C -- says in court papers that he's been through the ringer over a lost pair of prized pants he wanted to wear on his first day on the bench. He says in court papers that he has endured "mental suffering, inconvenience and discomfort.''

He says he was unable to wear that favorite suit of his first day of work.

He's suing for ten 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.
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3119381&page=1

A judge. Please, someone defend this. If for no other reason than to prove that a lawyer can justify anything.


PS - A good start.

[BigGuy]

Under this lawyer it says

Catastrophic Injuries
- Auto Collisions
- Motorcycle Collisions
- Bicycle Collisions
- Pedestrian Injuries
- Boating Accidents
- Uninsured Motorist Claims
- Dog Bites / Animal Attacks
- Slip/Trip and Fall Injuries
- Wrongful Death
- Dangerous Products
- Product Liability
- Medical Malpractice
- Dental Malpractice
- Pharmaceutical Negligence
- Government Claims
- Dry cleaner malpractice

[nicephoras]

He's obviously not getting $67M. We all know this. The jury will probably give him $20, so he's doing this for principle.
But here's what I never understand about everyone who bashes lawyers; if the drycleaners really did, in fact, do a bad job, why shouldn't they have to pay for doing so? If I run a business and hire someone to do a task and they ******** it up, wouldn't I sue them?

[Claymore]

I'm suffering mental distress just reading about this asshole. Where's my $67 million?

[BigGuy]

What about you take your car into a mechanic with an electrical problem. They change the battery they give you a new battery and it is not the battery. Then they change the alternator and it is not the alternater. Then they change the wires leading to it and that's the problem.

Do you get a credit from the mechanic for
all the unnecessary work and parts put into your car?

[nicephoras]

What about you take your car into a mechanic with an electrical problem. They change the battery they give you a new battery and it is not the battery. Then they change the alternator and it is not the alternater. Then they change the wires leading to it and that's the problem.

Do you get a credit from the mechanic for
all the unnecessary work and parts put into your car?

What? Is that supposed to mean something?

[Chris M.]

What? Is that supposed to mean something?

It means that BigGuy has a mechanic that gets very happy, happy when he sees the BigGuy's car pull into the garage.

:D

[soccernutter]

But here's what I never understand about everyone who bashes lawyers; if the drycleaners really did, in fact, do a bad job, why shouldn't they have to pay for doing so? If I run a business and hire someone to do a task and they ******** it up, wouldn't I sue them?

Great, a lawyers mind...now lets apply this principle to every place that provides a service, and at some point that service gets ********ed up. You gonna sue the pizza delivery guy if he drops the pizza (or the store if they didn't deliver)? You gonna sue waiter or restaurant because they forgot to bring you your soup (or did you order salad)? You gonna sue the flower shop because they delivered only one dozen roses and not the two you ordered?

All of that is stupid and a waste of everybody's time. It also assumes that there was malicious (sp) intent, just like this judge is assuming. For ******** sake, it was a pair of pants.

[Belgian guy]

He's obviously not getting $67M. We all know this. The jury will probably give him $20, so he's doing this for principle.
But here's what I never understand about everyone who bashes lawyers; if the drycleaners really did, in fact, do a bad job, why shouldn't they have to pay for doing so? If I run a business and hire someone to do a task and they ******** it up, wouldn't I sue them?

It depends on how much their screw-up cost me. If suing them is likely to cost me a lot more money than I have a chance of gaining from it, I won't. I'll leave the "suing out of principle" to people who have the time and money to afford it.

[wallacegrommit]

if the drycleaners really did, in fact, do a bad job, why shouldn't they have to pay for doing so?
According to the article, they offered to pay him $12,000, but he turned it down.

[Claymore]

According to the article, they offered to pay him $12,000, but he turned it down.

...which is about $11,950 more than Lionel Hutz was entitled to.

[Chris M.]

This thread is a nice summary of all that is wrong with lawyer bashing.

Step One: Find the most ridiculous complaint you can find, and then hold it out as a beacon of all that is wrong with the american legal system.

Step Two: Be sure not to follow the story to see it get dismissed as frivolous.

Step Three: Denigrate all lawyers to whip up a frenzy against a profession that big business doesn't necessarily like (although they LOVE their transactional lawyers).

Step Four: Tell stupid lawyer jokes that wouldn't be accepted if you sub in virtually any other profession, group, gender, ethnicity etc.

Step Five: Shake your head when a bunch of law firm employees get gunned down by a deranged client who finds some solace in his derangement in the group think anti-lawyer crap out there.

In answer to the questions posted above, I would expect the Pizza place to get me another pizza. I would expect the waiter to take the soup off my bill and apologize for the mishap. With the dry clearner, I would expect them to make things right.

I don't want to spend too much time on this judge as it seems ridiculous on its face. Still, he is making a point and for those of us screwed over by dry cleaners for years, it is understandable that he would try to get them to do the right thing.

Courts are equipped to deal with stupid lawsuits, and I am sure this one will. I'm sure you won't hear about that.

As to the dead lawyer jokes, I don't want to inspire a whole new thread with Matt coming in here asking how we are supposed to make fun of lawyers.

I've got a sense of humor like the next guy. I also don't mind jokes directed at what I do for a living. Ex. Q: What does 2 +2 equal? A: What do you want it to equal?

But, the dehumanizing jokes feed needless stereotypes. I'm proud of what I do. Most lawyers go to work everyday and help their client's run their businesses or help their clients resolve disputes. They provide valuable services that protect people's interests and property.

When you work in that profession and then see a federal judge's family murdered because of what she does for a living, or see several firm employees gunned down by a guy who thinks his lawyers stole his patent, then the jokes just aren't so funny anymore.

There. End of rant.

[Claymore]

...End of rant.
If it had been some random lawyer, I'd agree. However, the nutjob in question is a judge. You'd think that , being a judge, he'd at least have an appreciation for not putting this kind of shit in front of the court.

[Chris M.]

Great, a lawyers mind...now lets apply this principle to every place that provides a service, and at some point that service gets ********ed up. You gonna sue the pizza delivery guy if he drops the pizza (or the store if they didn't deliver)? You gonna sue waiter or restaurant because they forgot to bring you your soup (or did you order salad)? You gonna sue the flower shop because they delivered only one dozen roses and not the two you ordered?

All of that is stupid and a waste of everybody's time. It also assumes that there was malicious (sp) intent, just like this judge is assuming. For ******** sake, it was a pair of pants.

And, when a lawyer fails to insure that a title exception was cleared on the house that you just bought, I assume you have no intention of filing a malpractice suit.

Everything is a matter of degrees, and you -- like the story posted -- take your hypotheticals to the extreme.

The point was that people who run a business should be accountable for what they do. Sometimes those things are small. Sometimes they are large.

I don't endorse this particular plaintiff's actions, but I can at least empathize with his frustrations. I'm dealing with an incompent tv repair person right now. It's a squabble over a couple hundred bucks, but why shouldn't I expect them to make things right.

[Chris M.]

If it had been some random lawyer, I'd agree. However, the nutjob in question is a judge. You'd think that , being a judge, he'd at least have an appreciation for not putting this kind of shit in front of the court.

Sure. It seems ridiculous so I'm not even going to address him or his case. Frankly, it's not worthy of being "news." Until ABC does a thorough job investigating and reporting on the more important stories of our time, I'm not going to endorse a major news organization reporting on frivolous crap.

I don't know -- and have no intention of finding out -- anything about this guy, but I will simply say that judges aren't exempt from being loons or idiots.

[John Galt]

How many personal injury attorneys does it take to change a light bulb?

Three--one to turn the bulb, one to shake him off the ladder, and the third to sue the ladder company.



The damages he is claiming are relatively frivolous because they are not reasonably foreseeable. The filing of the lawsuit is notable only because of the ridiculous amount of damages.

One of the things that law school does is train you to think like a lawyer and one of those thoughts that gets ingrained is that every day we all enter into innumerable contracts. Those do include things like "I'll pay you X if you will deliver a pizza to me." All of the examples cited by soccernutter are in fact breaches of contract for which a person would have a legal right to damages. The issue thus is not the frivolity of the legal principle, but rather whether there's a non-litigious way to resolve the claim (give me a free pizza).

Ultimately our legal system is what provides the certainty of enforceability of contracts. In the grand philosophical world, how could you ever expect someone to deliver on a promise to you if there was no legal system backing up their obligation to complete their promise? Anyone who has ever thought of going to small claims court knows this.

So, I can defend the lawsuit. I concede that the claimed damages are frivolous and are probably invented to avoid a small claims court.

[yossarian]

If it had been some random lawyer, I'd agree. However, the nutjob in question is a judge. You'd think that , being a judge, he'd at least have an appreciation for not putting this kind of shit in front of the court.

He's an ALJ.....which is significantly different from a "real" judge and he had just been appointed when he started this nonsense.......so he really doesn't have any "appreciation" for not putting this in front of the court.

But even if he was a real judge....as Chris said....judges can be assholes too.

I'm not barred in D.C. so I'm curious as to whether D.C. has any "offer of judgment" rules. In a nutshell (and this is an over-simplification).....such rules provide that if a party makes a written offer of settlement; and that offer is refused; and the offeree doesn't win a judgment of at least 25 percent (different states use different %) more than the last offer........then the offeree has to pay the offeror's legal fees.

So if such a law existed in D.C., the asshole ALJ would have to win 25 percent more at judgment than the $12K last offered by the drycleaners.....if he didn't....he pays their legal bills. I would have a decent amount of confidence that a jury wouldn't give him more than $15K.

Btw, I don't mind lawyer jokes.....especially if they're funny ones. The "lawyers at the bottom of the ocean" joke, however, has all the creativity of your average knock-knock joke.

[John Galt]

Just wanted to add that I didn't read the article before commenting the first time (guilty of my own pet peeve :eek: ). Yossarian's comment about the 12k settlement offer made me go back and review it. The damages claim is completely frivolous.

What astounds me is why the judge hasn't taken control of the case. This was a similar question asked about the Duke Lacrosse case, where the judge made no rulings at all on the defense motions and the state Bar had to step in.

I'm curious about the management of the docket that's going on here.

[yossarian]

Just wanted to add that I didn't read the article before commenting the first time (guilty of my own pet peeve :eek: ). Yossarian's comment about the 12k settlement offer made me go back and review it. The damages claim is completely frivolous.

What astounds me is why the judge hasn't taken control of the case. This was a similar question asked about the Duke Lacrosse case, where the judge made no rulings at all on the defense motions and the state Bar had to step in.

I'm curious about the management of the docket that's going on here.

Well....from the article, the original judge did (IIRC) preclude this guy from making this case a class action, despite his attempts to do so. I'm scatching my head as to what the judge could do at this point prior to any judgment......since clearly (and unfortunately) the dry cleaners wouldn't be able to win summary judgment as to liability. I suppose they maybe could've attempted to get summary judgment as to damages.....but isn't that kind of hard in situations like this where damages are non-liquidated?

After judgment, the judge would have a number of options for intervening or lowering any damages (if any) ultimately awarded.

I don't know......my allergies are really bad right now and I've been in a bit of a fog.....am I missing something that should be obvious?

[BigGuy]

It means that BigGuy has a mechanic that gets very happy, happy when he sees the BigGuy's car pull into the garage.

:D

Correct