Outrage continues to spread over Roy Pearson, Jr.’s $65 million suit against a Washington, D.C. Korean dry cleaner over a lost pair of suit pants (Apr. 26, May 1). The Washington Post editorially wonders whether Pearson should continue in his position as an administrative law judge given the “serious questions” raised by the case “about his judgment and temperament”. (”Kick in the Pants”, May 3). Associated Press coverage is circulating worldwide: Lubna Takruri, “Judge sues cleaner for $65M over pants”, AP/Kansas City Star, May 3. And Alex Spillius in London’s Daily Telegraph (”Judge sues dry cleaners over lost trousers, May 3) notes that Pearson

reached the figure of $67,292,000 as follows: Washington’s consumer protection law provides for damages of $1,500 per violation per day. Mr Pearson started multiplying: 12 violations over 1,200 days, times three defendants (the Chungs and their son)….

Mr Pearson has set the Chungs and their lawyers a long list of questions, which includes: “Please identify by name, full address and telephone number, all cleaners known to you on May 1, 2005 in the District of Columbia, the United States and the world that advertise ‘SATISFACTION GUARANTEED’,” according to the Washington Post.

In damage theories; Roy Pearson; Washington D.C.

The only thing worse than a frivolous lawsuit is a frivolous repeat of a frivolous lawsuit:

A group of Native Americans filed a new legal challenge yesterday to trademarks for the name and logo of the Washington Redskins, saying the team’s name is a racial slur that should be changed.

A petition filed at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by six Native Americans represents a second chance for Indians to challenge the football franchise’s name. The team prevailed in an earlier fight when a U.S. District Court judge ruled that the plaintiffs waited too long under trademark law to object. This time, the complaint was filed with a new set of plaintiffs.
…
“The term ‘redskin’ was and is a pejorative, derogatory, denigrating, offensive, scandalous, contemptuous, disreputable, disparaging and racist designation for a Native American person,” the complaint says.

Whatever thesaurus the plaintiffs are using, I want one. I’m surprised the complaint didn’t add “just plain icky.”

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For some reason, we haven’t yet covered the Washingtonienne libel suit, where Little Rock law professor Robert Steinbuch revealed he was “R.S.” by filing suit against the infamous blogger, causing Judge Paul Friedman to comment, “I don’t know why this guy thought it was smart to file a lawsuit and lay out all of his private intimate details in an appendix to the complaint.”

Now Wonkette reports that Cutler’s third set of attorneys in the litigation Robert Steinbuch has filed against her, and has not yet retained new attorneys. Why might you care? Because Steinbuch, who waited until May 16, 2005 to complain about a May 4, 2004 blog post, is planning on arguing that every new blog post restarts the statute of limitations for a plaintiff wishing to complain about a blog. (T.R. Goldman, “A Man Scorned”, Legal Times, May 22). If Cutler defends against this argument pro se, Judge Friedman could be induced into an erroneous ruling that makes life difficult for bloggers everywhere. And there’s no reason that Steinbuch’s logic wouldn’t equally apply to computer databases like LEXIS that “republish” mainstream media articles upon request. One hopes Friedman will see through the Steinbuch argument.

I was interviewed this afternoon for New York’s WCBS Channel 2 evening news on the Supreme Court vacancy, then joined host Chris Core of Washington, D.C.’s WMAL this evening for a discussion after it had become clear that the President’s Supreme Court pick would be Judge John Roberts. Tomorrow, I’ll be on KPCC, public radio in Southern California.