Judge Really Likes Pants, Money

by midas

For any of you who have not been following the 54 million dollar pants story, this is your lucky day. Because it seems to have finally come to an end, and because here is a link giving you the low down. As it turns out, the pants weren’t worth 54 million dollars after all.

Basically the story is that a DC judge brings in a pair of pants to the dry cleaners. The pants are lost. After turning down offers of compensation by the owners, the judge sues them for 54 million dollars (down from $67,000,000). Apparently he arrived at this amount by calculating one offense for each day the “Satisfaction Guaranteed” sign was up, multiplying by three (because there are three people in the family), and then adding on a couple mil for mental anguish. Plus $500,000 because it was Tuesday.

What I didn’t know before reading this is that the guy had been banned from the store earlier due to a similar incident where he threw a hissy fit over another pair of pants. Then he begged them to take him back, since they were the only dry cleaners in the neighborhood. They did. This turned out to be a mistake.

The article has some coverage of the trial, where apparently the plaintiff broke down on the stand and rushed out of the courtroom in tears. He misses his pants.

The ABC News Law & Justice Unit has calculated that for the original $67 million Pearson sought, he could buy 84,115 new pairs of pants at the $800 value he placed on the missing trousers in court documents. If you stacked those pants up, they would be taller than eight Mount Everests. If you laid them side by side, they would stretch for 48 miles.