Judge sues cleaners $65 million for losing a pair of pants

[glutenberg]

Originally posted by: Vic
After an early education from a couple of traffic tickets, I discovered that most court proceedings are open to the public, and that just going down and watching the action can be extremely educational. And the most educational of all things I discovered from watching real live court proceedings (beyond the fact that court can be deathly boring ) is that while there are few amazing stars in the legal profession, most lawyers and judges are low rent dirtballs. I mean, with most of them it goes beyond wondering how they passed the bar to wondering how they think no one would know that they slept in that suit last night.

There's a Hispanic judge that my firm deals with that fines the lawyers if they pronounce his name incorrectly. To clarify, he only fines them if they try to pronounce his name the way that it would be pronounced in Spanish (Spanish last name). He'd prefer to have it sound Americanized. Wierd guy.

 

[rudder]

Originally posted by: steppinthrax
In a way I feel for the judge because customer service in today's retail industry has got to sh1t. If you get screwed with a local store you pretty much don't have any recourse but to complain to the manager who really dosen't care. You have the option to go corporate calling the headquarters but that more/less dose little as well. There are grey areas especially in the service industry where someone is holding somthing for repair and that item is your livelyhood. They don't take considerating for this and it cost you money. Your kind of screwed because it's worthless to go to court over but this judge really took it to the extream. This should be a lesson to retail stores everywhere.

If this were a jet that a company needed to earn revenue... sure I can buy your argument. But it was an easily replaceable pair of pants.

If I were the owners of the shop... I would invest some of the offered settlement on some D.C. thugs to handle the problem.

 

[Aimster]

This is probably the result of the cleaners giving the man an attitude or acting like they didn't care,

A verbal high-school fit happened and the lawyer decided to make their life a living hell.

This is his way of knocking them out without physically touching.

 

[LEDominator]

Interesting

Divorce Proceeedings for said judge

"Both husband and wife are attorneys. Wife was employed with Rolls Royce of North America, Inc. and with American University. Husband worked for the District of Columbia for over twenty years before losing his job." - wonder why he lost his job...

"Wife contends that she intended for the separation to remain permanent from October 15, 1999, forward, unless husband met her conditions for reconciliation. These conditions included husband changing his behavior toward the couple?s family, changing his controlling behavior, and becoming financially responsible. She contends that because husband failed to meet these conditions during the separation period, no reconciliation was possible." - If you read through the whole thing this guy sounds like a sleazebag. It sounds like he had another woman on the side (he had a separate condo the wife discovered) but that is just my inference. Still, he is a drain on society.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Aimster
This is probably the result of the cleaners giving the man an attitude or acting like they didn't care,

According to the complaint the originally offered to pay $150 when the event occurs, that(IMHO) seems a fair initial resolution (and would seem to go against the above)

 

[Dari]

This guy is an embarrassment to African-Americans. He's corrupt.

 

[steppinthrax]

Originally posted by: BoberFett

Originally posted by: steppinthrax
In a way I feel for the judge because customer service in today's retail industry has got to sh1t. If you get screwed with a local store you pretty much don't have any recourse but to complain to the manager who really dosen't care. You have the option to go corporate calling the headquarters but that more/less dose little as well. There are grey areas especially in the service industry where someone is holding somthing for repair and that item is your livelyhood. They don't take considerating for this and it cost you money. Your kind of screwed because it's worthless to go to court over but this judge really took it to the extream. This should be a lesson to retail stores everywhere.

What kind of lesson does this teach? That as a business owner you're going to going to get sued and put out of business no matter what you do, so your best plan is to screw over as many customers as quickly as possible and then hide the money and shut down your business before anybody has a chance to sue?

Great lesson.

No, there needs to be standards in place. More/less laws and agences that regulate certian businesses. An example would be the FCC for radio and television. Most states have Medical insurance compliance organizations that you can file a report and complain to when an insurance company won't pay for an operation or charge. These type of agencies make companies realize that they can't fvck around with you. I've utilized the services of all agences stated above and worked much better then going to court. But if there is not agencey regulated that business your pretty much screwed unless you want to take it to the extream like this judge.

 

[BoberFett]

First, learn how to spell. The word is extreme.

Second, this business acted in good faith. They paid $150 to replace the pants. How were they "****** around with him"?

 

[dahunan]

Originally posted by: steppinthrax

Originally posted by: BoberFett

Originally posted by: steppinthrax
In a way I feel for the judge because customer service in today's retail industry has got to sh1t. If you get screwed with a local store you pretty much don't have any recourse but to complain to the manager who really dosen't care. You have the option to go corporate calling the headquarters but that more/less dose little as well. There are grey areas especially in the service industry where someone is holding somthing for repair and that item is your livelyhood. They don't take considerating for this and it cost you money. Your kind of screwed because it's worthless to go to court over but this judge really took it to the extream. This should be a lesson to retail stores everywhere.

What kind of lesson does this teach? That as a business owner you're going to going to get sued and put out of business no matter what you do, so your best plan is to screw over as many customers as quickly as possible and then hide the money and shut down your business before anybody has a chance to sue?

Great lesson.

No, there needs to be standards in place. More/less laws and agences that regulate certian businesses. An example would be the FCC for radio and television. Most states have Medical insurance compliance organizations that you can file a report and complain to when an insurance company won't pay for an operation or charge. These type of agencies make companies realize that they can't fvck around with you. I've utilized the services of all agences stated above and worked much better then going to court. But if there is not agencey regulated that business your pretty much screwed unless you want to take it to the extream like this judge.

This is beyond extreme.. this is total insanity. He lacks any empathy and does not have the psychological makeup to be a judge..

After reading this case do you think he should keep his position as a judge?

 

[Mxylplyx]

He should DIAF.

 

[Thump553]

Sounds like a serious case of mental illness to me. The unfortunate thing is that (so far) the poor family who own the cleaners are forced to waste their energy and probably lots of money fending him off.

Flip side of this story-many years ago when I was a young lawyer I regularly frequently a local chinese laundry. One day I went to pick up my suits, only to learn the place had been broken into. The only suits taken belonged to me and a FBI agent.

And no, I didn't sue them. In fact, I refused any payment at all until I was sure that they had insurance coverage for it.

Society isn't perfect, but a heck of a lot of the lawyers that are in it have devoted much of their profession life to improving society.

PS-this guy is/was an administrative judge-this is a civil servant, employed by the government to make rulings in specialized adminstrative cases-it could be something like social security claims, driver's license revocations, unemployment comp hearings, etc.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

This is ridiculous. First of all, while I fully understand peoples' reservations about lawyers, this is not representative of the overall sanity of the legal profession. This guy (I am wary of calling an administrative law judge a "judge," in that while it's technically true it implies a much higher level of authority than an ALJ possesses) sounds to be mentally ill, and frankly I think most private employers would have fired him for this silliness - unfortunately it's a lot harder to fire public servants, hence the ironic fact that a "judge" of all people is the plaintiff in such a ginormous frivolous lawsuit.

I think most jurisdictions (including mine) have a dry-cleaning court specifically to handle these kinds of cases, allowing the district court to kick the disputes down to the level where they belong. I really feel for the defendants in this case.