Whenever the subject of tort reform comes up, lawyers are usually at the head of the opposition, pointing out (with some justice) that arbitrary caps on awards in court only encourage the bad actors to commit more foul deeds that little mom-n-pop types will suffer under, unable to garner either adequate recompense or disincent future sins by the Great and Powerful Tortious Parties.

And then you get a lawyer doing something like this:

When the neighborhood dry cleaner misplaced Roy Pearson's pants, he took action. He complained. He demanded compensation. And then he sued. Man, did he sue.

Two years, thousands of pages of legal documents and many hundreds of hours of investigative work later, Pearson is seeking to make Custom Cleaners pay -- would you believe more than the payroll of the entire Washington Nationals roster?

He says he deserves millions for the damages he suffered by not getting his pants back, for his litigation costs, for "mental suffering, inconvenience and discomfort," for the value of the time he has spent on the lawsuit, for leasing a car every weekend for 10 years and for a replacement suit, according to court papers.

Pearson is demanding $65,462,500. The original alteration work on the pants cost $10.50.

By the way, Pearson is a lawyer. Okay, you probably figured that. But get this: He's a judge, too -- an administrative law judge for the District of Columbia.

The car lease, btw, was required so that Pearson could drive to another cleaners to have his laundry done.

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Positively rabid. A danger to all around him.

Hope the judge in this case is Eddie Murphy.
"Get the Fuck outta here"

Quoth DOF ...

Even the infamous $8m McDonald's coffee case turned out to have a somewhat reasonable basis to it. And yet - I'd love to hear what Gerry Spence would say about this guy.

In a case of "going around, coming around," Pearson's job is up for review by a judicial panel that syas it is troubled by this whole thing. They also found that, during his divorce, Pearson was responsible for unnecessarily extending (and increasing the expense of) the proceedings. There's a good chance, it sounds like, that he may be out of the judge biz, if now the law biz.