Fancy Pants: The $54 Million Pants-Suit

Tuesday, June 12, 2007. A day that will live in U.S. courtroom infamy.
The case? Pearson v. Custom Cleaners. The crime? A pair of men’s suit pants gone missing under suspicious circumstances.
The plaintiff: A D.C. administration law judge, Roy Pearson. The defendants: Custom Cleaners, the Chung family, et al. It’s a case that could break your heart. It’ll certainly break the Chungs, should they lose the suit. No pun intended.
Judge Pearson took five suits to Custom Cleaners awhile back. He’d gained twenty pounds and needed alterations done; a good fit is as important as good judgment on the bench these days. Pearson was a regular customer of the Chungs’. You don’t trust your best britches to just anybody. The judge believed his pants were in good hands.
But when Pearson picked up his five newly enlarged suits he found one pair of slacks was missing. He went back to the cleaners to get them. The Chungs couldn’t find them and the battle was on. Eventually the cleaners did locate a pair of pants with a tag matching that of Pearson’s coat. Tragically, they were the wrong britches. Matching cleaner’s tag or no, Pearson said, the pants they tried to give him were not his. They had cuffs and, with the possible exception of one or two times, he’d never worn cuffed slacks in his entire life. It was clear he had to do something--you simply do not try to cuff a D.C. judge and get off lightly. He would sue the pants off those folks.
The Chungs offered him as much as $12,000 to settle the matter, to get him off their backs. He was having none of that. Those unscrupulous immigrants had a sign in their window: Satisfaction Guaranteed. Pearson opted to take them to court. He would sue them for millions.
His opening statement in D.C. superior court was riveting. “Never before in recorded history have a group of defendants engaged in such misleading and unfair business practices,” Judge Pearson proclaimed. The tone was set. He would cut them no slack(s).
The trial has been an emotional one. Pearson broke down on the stand. Describing his pants was painful. The sight of the cuffed impostor pants was so traumatic he was forced to halt his testimony, forced to flee the courtroom, tears streaming, to compose himself before he could go on. Losing his britches caused this judge some serious pain and suffering. 54 million dollars worth.
At the end of the day, he said, the case was not about pants--although he wept over his--it was about that sign in the Chung’s window. Replacing his pants was not enough to satisfy him. $12,000 was not enough either. Custom Cleaners said Satisfaction Guaranteed and Judge Roy Pearson won’t be satisfied until he’s a multi-millionaire and the Chungs are out of business.
Ain’t justice grand?

By Linda Hansen