Abusive Litigant Loses Lawsuit to Recover $54 Million for Misplaced Pants

The $54 million lawsuit commenced by administrative law judge Roy Pearson against Soo Chung, Jin Nam Chung and Ki Y. Chung of Custom Cleaners for their failure to return his pants made headlines several months ago as the poster child for abusive lawsuits. In our view, the lawsuit also sheds some light on why so many litigators are stressed out and unhappy - who but a Zen buddhist could keep their cool when confronted on a regular basis with outrageous conduct on the part of one's adversaries? The Pearson lawsuit may be extraordinarily extreme, but abusive litigation tactics, unethical behavior, and lack of decency remain all too common in the American legal system.

Anyway, at least the Pearson saga has a happy ending. Today, we've learned that Pearson's "pants" suit was dismissed by District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff who ruled that the owners of Custom Cleaners did not violate the city's consumer protection law by failing to live up to Pearson's expectations of the "Satisfaction Guaranteed" sign once displayed in the store window.

"A reasonable consumer would not interpret 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' to mean that a merchant is required to satisfy a customer's unreasonable demands," or to agree to demands that the merchant would have reasonable grounds for disputing, the judge wrote.

Whether the defendants will now take Pearson to the cleaners as they seek to recover their legal fees remains to be seen.