http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/06/25/DI2007062500437.html
full report here.
on why the case was not thrown out of court.
Bowie, Md.: How much did this
cost the Chungs?
This is one of my nightmares -- I know a couple who made an enemy
of someone who happened to be a lawyer, and the resulting case cost
them $50k even though the result was that the suit was dropped if
they apologized.
What's to protect me from being the target of a vengeful
lawyer?
Marc Fisher: Not a whole lot. The system relies to a far greater
extent than might make any of us comfortable on goodwill and the
self-correcting mechanisms of the courts. Judges do have more
leeway to toss frivolous or vindictive court actions than they
generally take advantage of. Lots of folks have argued that this
case should have been tossed early on, but when you have a smart
guy like Pearson, and perhaps more important, someone for whom cost
is no issue, then there really aren't a lot of brakes that can be
slammed to stop the thing. Money is the crucial factor here:
Ordinarily, the ability of a really ticked-off plaintiff to make
life a living hell for a given merchant or other defendant is
limited by the ability of the plaintiff to pay for his court
action. But when the plaintiff is a lawyer who is happy to put
1,400 hours of work into a case, as Pearson says he did here, then
that natural braking action becomes irrelevant.
here is my fav part:
Alexandria, Va.: Seriously,
Pearson cried at one point? What's the story behind that?
Marc Fisher: Pearson wept twice. He was at the point in his
narrative where he came back to the dry cleaners seeking to pick up
his pants, only to be presented with pants that he said were not
his. At the moment when he told the court about how the Chungs
insisted these were indeed his pants when he was certain they were
not, he seemed overwhelmed by the surreal nature of the encounter
and began to weep. He had to halt the proceedings. When they
resumed after a break, he again cried as he told that part of the
story.
Oddly enough, Mrs. Chung broke down in tears at almost exactly the
same point in her testimony.
These were very potent pants.
