The $65 Million Dollar Wonder Pants and the Ass That Wore Them

A Washington DC Administrative Hearings Judge is taking the owners of his neighborhood dry cleaners to the cleaners in a $65 million lawsuit over a pair of pants that he claims that they lost. Yeah, $65 million for a pair of pants!?! Yup, and here's how he systematically came up with that number.

• $1000 - The price of the full suit that went with the lost pair of pants
• $15,000 - The estmated amount of money he'll have to spend to rent a car every weekend to take his dry cleaning elsewhere for the next 10 years (about $30/rental... at least he's not into renting Hummers)
• $64,800,000 -Consumer Fraud (see the breakdown)
  • $1500 per incident x 12 incidents a day = $18,000
  • $18,000/day x 1200 days = $21,600,000
  • $21,600,000 x 3 defendants

Here's the deal. He claims that he's suing on behalf of everyone who got screwed like him by the dry cleaner. And how is his experience fraud? There's a sign on the wall of the dry cleaners that says "Satisfaction Guaranteed" and "Same Day Service." He wasn't satisfied and they couldn't find his pants so they weren't giving him same day service so he's suing them for every day that he's felt dissatisfied about his pants. So that's how you end up with a $65 million dollar pair of pants. It's creative math for sure, like the kind some people use to cook their tax returns to cut their taxes and get more money back. The way this guy's interpreting fraud, he just might be interpreting his entire tax bill as a charitable contribution. Anyone at the IRS paying attention? (or did that get overrun with loyal Bushies too?)

Note to all dry cleaners in the DC Area, modify your customer signs to read something like "Satisfaction is Guaranteed Unless You're a Walking Piss Pot." Hey judge, we've got an idea for your next trick. Put a severed finger in your chili at Wendy's. That one's sure to get a laugh every time!

Judge sues cleaner for $65M over pants (AP)