Pearson the pants putz, and other pressing problems

You thought it was long over, didn’t you? I know I did. But, no, former DC judge Roy Pearson, who lost his $54 million lawsuit against a dry cleaner for losing his pants, and subsequently lost his job for being an idiot, has still been trying to appeal the lost-pants decision, a year and a half later. And, once again, he’s lost the appeal:

Roy L. Pearson, the former administrative law judge who sued his dry cleaner for $54 million over a misplaced pair of pants, lost his final appeal in the District’s highest court.

“Appellant failed to establish either that the Chungs’ ‘Satisfaction Guaranteed’ and ‘Same Day Service’ signs constituted false or misleading statements, or that they lost his pants.”

The appeals court goes on to say that Pearson’s attempt to put such a ridiculous value on the situation “frankly defies logic.”

 

Reports say that people have been sending stupid, racist jokes around about President-elect Obama. And who is surprised? It was inevitable.

Reports say that people have been using their work-based email services to send these stupid, racist jokes around:

Alaska officials are investigating e-mail messages that included racist jokes about President-elect Barack Obama and were circulated on state government accounts by state employees.

And who is surprised?

People — from idiots who forward offensive “jokes” to idiots like Bernie Madoff and Rod Blagojevich — continue to think that they can get away with things, that they won’t get caught.

They will.

 

It’s been an annual tradition in New York City for years. The law says that if you’re injured because of a broken sidewalk, you can’t sue the city unless the city knew about the problem (in writing, at least 15 days before your injury). So, every year, an army of citizens goes out and records all the cracks, holes, bumps, and other irregularities in the sidewalks of New York, and turns out a set of maps that it then gives to the city... thus allowing subsequent lawsuits that year.

Alas, the New York Court of Appeals has said “no” to the map:

On Thursday, in a pair of cases, the Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court, ruled that the map was “not sufficient notice” under the Pothole Law.

The map uses coded symbols to represent defects. “For example, a straight line is used for a raised or uneven portion of a sidewalk, a circle for a hole or hazardous depression, a line with a triangle at each end for an extended section of cracks and holes in a sidewalk, and so forth,” Judge Robert S. Smith wrote in his opinion for the court’s majority.

Specifically, the court decided that the symbols on the map did not accurately describe the problems — in two cases, the problems coded on the map didn’t seem to match the actual situations on the ground — and, therefore, the maps did not serve as sufficient notice.

Judge Jones, in his dissenting opinion, contends that notice that there’s a problem at that spot is sufficient, even if the exact nature of the problem isn’t specified.

Lest this sound like a silly thing that’s meant to do nothing but line the pockets of lawyers, I’ll attest that a walk down a New York City sidewalk can, indeed, be quite a challenge, threatening ankle sprains and tumbles all along the way — especially if one is carrying things or is in a hurry.