Crablaw Finally Turns to the DC $65 Million Suit Suit Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Washington Post, June 13, 2007:

Before trial began yesterday in the case of the D.C. judge who sued his neighborhood dry cleaners after they lost his pants, the most extraordinary fact was Roy Pearson's demand for $65 million in damages.

That was before Pearson, an administrative law judge, broke down while testifying about the emotional pain of having the cleaners give him the wrong pants. It was before an 89-year-old woman in a wheelchair told of being chased out of the cleaners by an angry owner. And it was before she compared the owners of Custom Cleaners in open court to Nazis.

...

Pearson says the Chung family -- Korean immigrants who came here from the charcoal factories of Seoul in 1992 and now own three cleaners, including the one a short walk from Pearson's place in the Fort Lincoln section of Northeast -- had no intention of living up to the sign in their shop that said "Satisfaction Guaranteed." Therefore, Pearson said, he had no choice but to take on "the awesome responsibility" of suing the Chungs on behalf of every resident of the District of Columbia.

Marc Fisher of the Post wrote the article late Tuesday the 12th but the trial is expected to end Wednesday the 13th.

I am disgusted beyond all expression, of course. I don't live in the District and never have, but as a member of the D.C. Bar I am horrified that a part-time judge, no less, would demand as his "ad damnum" the price of a medium-sized clothing factory for a lost pair of slacks. Certainly I get the joke that a lost pair of pants really means a lost suit. A high-quality custom-tailored suit goes for, let's say, $1500.00 on Connecticut Avenue. Maybe throw in 3x damages if you could prove a consumer protection violation or punitives from "malice" (the former is possible, the latter inconceivable to me.)

I despise this case because legitimate attorney-fee awards are tough to get. I think an attorney should be able to get an attorney's fee award when representing herself the same way as if she hired a third-party to do it in cases where statutes permit it, but the "bill" should be scrutinized ruthlessly, of course, as to reasonableness of rates, duplication of efforts and outright fraud. Attorney Pearson claimed that he put in on the order of 1,400 hours into the case - that's about eight months at full-time hours - and is asking for $390-425 an hour. Do the math. I have not read the complaint (no substitute for doing so) but both the hourly rate and the hours sound beyond bogus. Even in high-priced Washington, solo practitioners in consumer law don't charge like that. A proper case should take maybe two weeks to prepare, maybe 12-14 hours at most, probably less if you have a pile of outside witnesses, documents, etc. for this pair of pants. Try $150/hour or $200/hour; a lawyer three days out from her swearing in could probably try this type of case.

But when practitioners who depend on attorney fee awards for the bulk of their payments (civil rights lawyers, bona fide consumer protection lawyers, estate lawyers, etc.) get their bills attacked, nickeled and dimed to death because of insane cases like this one, it's prejudicial to the administration of justice.

I am trying to see this lawyer's side of the story, but I keep going back in my mind to the duty of the Bar to police its own. Maybe someone can tell me how this $65 million case justifies an damage award rather than a disbarment. I would say more but I would rather not make the Bar look bad when criticizing another lawyer for making the Bar look bad.