Brontosaurus Balls!

Making mistakes are an integral part of life. People usually try to do their best but on occasion something can go wrong. For example, a dry cleaning company in Washington DC, somehow lost a pair of pants that had been dropped off for cleaning. An unfortunate error, but not a reason to believe that the end of the world was near!

A local state-appointed judge dropped his favorite pair of pants at the dry cleaners for cleaning and was furious when they were reported missing. I am sure that the dry cleaner made some offer of compensation, as I am sure he carried some kind of business insurance for such occasions. The judge would not hear of it and decided to sue the dry cleaner as the judge maintained, that the “satisfaction guaranteed” slogan of the company could not replace his favorite slacks.

The judge, whose entire vocation was to try to resolve disputes reasonably and equitably, was going to teach the businessman a lesson. If I had been a judge, I would have found a claim of $500 to $1000 a more than fair restitution for one pair of trousers. The state judge, however felt that a $34 million lawsuit would be far more reasonable.

Without a doubt the judge had Brontosaurus balls! A multi -million dollar lawsuit was filed over one lost pair of pants! To consider this kind of greed as absurd is a mega-understatement. Perhaps, I have been anatomically misdirected in my description of the judge’s endowments. Rather than monster cajones, he may have been bequeathed a Brontosaurus brain – the size of a walnut!

Apparently, the fates intervened and the story ended fairly happily. Unfortunately the dry cleaner went out of business but I am sure was resilient enough to get back on his feet. After two years of appeals and more appeals, three different courts dismissed the lawsuit. The really good news, however, is that the poor trouser-less judge was not offered another contract as a state judge and became unemployed.

Occasionally justice prevails, and the greedy and insensitive are beaten by the very system that they were supposed to uphold. How sweet it is!