Crazy Judge Wins Partial Victory Chungs Close Custom Cleaners

The Chungs, South Korean immigrants who made the mistake of opening their dry cleaning establishments in Washington, D.C.

The trouble started when Judge Roy L. Pearson said that Soo Chung and her husband, Jin Nam Chung, had lost his pants.

Those pants were worth $67,000,000 to Judge Pearson. He lowered his demand to $54,000,000 later, and dragged the Chungs through court for the next two years.

The administrative judge claimed that the Chung's "Satisfaction Guaranteed" and "Same Day Service" signs were misleading and fraudulent.

The Chungs' Custom Cleaners is closing now. They had three businesses when the lawsuit started. Now they've closed two.

Happily, the Chungs have been able to pay their $100,000 in legal expenses, thanks to fund raisers and donations.

The problem wasn't so much the monetary drain of the trials. The ordeal drained the Chungs emotionally. And, more to the point, they lost customers and revenue.

I don't know what other business owners can learn from this.

"Don't accept insane judges as customers" is not a practical policy.

Advocating some sort of control over frivolous lawsuits may be a reasonable long-term objective. We'll always have people in positions of power and influence whose heads are a giant economy size bag of mixed nuts. But in principle, it should be able to contain the damage they do.

I could be wrong about the next point, but it's worth repeating in this post. The city in which the Chungs had their business was heavily dominated by the same ethnic group as Judge Pearson's. The Chungs, as Koreans, were very much not of the same ethnic group.

The point has been studiously ignored, for the most part, but I wonder if a lesson to be learned here is: don't set up a business where your ethnicity makes you stand out. I hope I'm wrong about that.

Previous posts about the dry cleaners' legal difficulties on this blog:

• Justice Goes Back on the Grill: $54 Million Pants Back in Play July 11, 2007
• Judge Roy Pearson's Pants-Stealing Koreans July 7, 2007
• Legal Jihad and the Pants-Stealing Koreans July 6, 2007
• Another Screwball Lawsuit? June 27, 2007
• Justice is Served (Medium-Well) June 25, 2007

And, a few other blogs on Judge Roy Pearon's vendetta against the Koreans:

• The $54 Million Dollars Pants Saga Continues!!!
• Judge's Jodhpurs, Pearson's Pants, Suer's Slacks
• Roy Pearson Asks Judge To Reconsider Pants Decision
• NOT THE SHARPEST KNIFE IN THE DRAWER: Pearson's Knickers Still In A Knot Over His Pants

Legal Jihad and the Pants-Stealing Koreans

To be fair, Judge Roy Pearson had the good sense to drag the Chungs back into court over the Independence Day holiday. I'm a bit of a news nut, and this one would have slipped by me if an online friend hadn't brought Judge Pearson's 'jihad' to my attention.

I don't feel so bad, though, seeing that The $54 Million Pants Suit That Wouldn't Die is an item on the Washington Post's Metro section.

One aspect of the case that has been given, at best, scant attention is the issue of diversity. The Chung family, recent immigrants from Korea, are not only foreigners, but cannot blend into Washington D. C.'s ethnic majority (which made up 60% of the city's population in the 2000 census).

For anyone in business, especially those who aren't corporate giants, this is really bad news. The Chung family didn't have the sort of money it took to finance the first two-year court battle, let alone a second one. I understand that hundreds of Washington Post readers have contributed to a legal defense fund for the Chungs, but the besieged family is going to need more than that.

Much as I respect our legal system, I'm disturbed that an obviously deranged lawsuit like this can't be given a decent burial.

I've heard arguments, usually waving the Dred Scott v. Sanford flag, that courts must hear all cases, no matter how bizarre. The idea seems to be that contemporary mores may need to be changed, and that this change can only come through the courts making fools of themselves.

There's gotta be a better way, though.

And, somehow I doubt that "the best interests of all Washington residents" are being served by protecting them from what Pearson seems to regard as evil, pants-stealing Koreans.

(Lunatic lawsuits seem to be a recurring theme in this blog, so I'm starting a list of related posts.)

• Justice Goes Back on the Grill: $54 Million Pants Back in Play July 11, 2007
• Judge Roy Pearson's Pants-Stealing Koreans July 7, 2007
• Legal Jihad and the Pants-Stealing Koreans July 6, 2007
• Another Screwball Lawsuit? June 27, 2007
• Justice is Served (Medium-Well) June 25, 2007

Another Screwball Lawsuit?

You just can't make this sort of thing up.

I ran into a discussion of another screwball lawsuit this morning. Here's a quote from an article about the affair: "Victoria McArthur, of Romero, Mich., is suing Starbursts' parent company, Mars Inc., for more than $25,000 for 'permanent personal injuries' she claims she sustained after biting into one of their yellow candy in 2005."

The discussion, produced by Fox News, included an apparently informed person who pointed out that the relatively small sum involved made the suit more reasonable than the recent case of the fifty-four-million-dollar pants.

Ms. McArthur's lawyer says that three chews of a Starburst® candy gave his client temporal mandibular joint dysfunction.

I hope that whoever hears this case isn't impressed by a medical term, with lots of big words.

Apparently, she wants warning labels on the Starburst® candies.

At this rate, it's only a matter of time before Chester Cheetah® has to stop saying "Dangerously Cheesy®" because the phrase will frighten young children and invalids.

As someone who is growing an online publishing company, maybe I should be taking this more seriously. Sooner or later, someone is going to realize that some company, preferably one with lots of money, can be sued because John Doe or Jane Roe got a headache while viewing that company's website. And, since that headache led to Dementia Paranoidies with Portal Hypertension

And win.

Or, maybe not. Recently, a court ruled in favor of the family enterprise that faced ruin over a $54 million dollar pair of pants. Good news for them, and for the rest of us.

And, a few other blogs on Judge Roy Pearon's vendetta against the Koreans:

• Justice Goes Back on the Grill: $54 Million Pants Back in Play July 11, 2007
• Judge Roy Pearson's Pants-Stealing Koreans July 7, 2007
• Legal Jihad and the Pants-Stealing Koreans July 6, 2007
• Another Screwball Lawsuit? June 27, 2007
• Justice is Served (Medium-Well) June 25, 2007

Justice is Served (Medium-Well)

It looks like the owners of Custom Cleaners can stay in business, after all. Administrative law judge Roy L. Pearson wanted compensation for a pair of pants he claimed the cleaners had lost.

If Pearson had gotten what he wanted, Soo Chung, Jin Nam Chung and Ki Y. Chung would have had to pay $64 million dollars, although he was willing to settle for $54 million. This is more than most of us can afford, and the Chung family is no exception.

Even though he cried in the courtroom, another judge, Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff, didn't buy Pearson's claim. "A reasonable consumer would not interpret 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' to mean that a merchant is required to satisfy a customer's unreasonable demands" was the way she put it, according to a news report.

Judge Bartnoff also told Pearson to pay the court costs of defendants Soo Chung, Jin Nam Chung and Ki Y. Chung. That's a little over $1,000 for photocopying, filing and similar expenses, the Chungs' attorney said. The Chungs have spent tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fees, which may be reason for legal action later.

Court costs or legal fees, I'm not convinced that the Chungs will see their money. After the O. J. Simpson civil suit and other judicial debacles, I get the impression that these court-ordered payments depend largely on whether the guilty parties feel like paying.

The "Satisfaction Guaranteed" sign that Pearson saw when he started this exercise in madness isn't on display in Custom Cleaners any more.

I'm glad to see evidence that screwball lawsuits don't necessarily succeed.

On the other hand, it would have been nice if something as obviously lunatic as Pearson's tearful plea hadn't been allowed to get past the starting gate.

(Small business isn't the only sort of enterprise with this sort of trouble: see Another Screwball Lawsuit?.)

And, a few other blogs on Judge Roy Pearon's vendetta against the Koreans:

• Justice Goes Back on the Grill: $54 Million Pants Back in Play July 11, 2007
• Judge Roy Pearson's Pants-Stealing Koreans July 7, 2007
• Legal Jihad and the Pants-Stealing Koreans July 6, 2007
• Another Screwball Lawsuit? June 27, 2007
• Justice is Served (Medium-Well) June 25, 2007