According to the American Bar Association, there are more than one million lawyers in the United States. This means that one in about every 300 people in the United States is an attorney.

America is increasingly becoming a litigious society. With less than 5% of the world’s population, our society boasts about 70% of the world’s lawyers. 18 million lawsuits are filed annually, clogging the dockets and forcing the wheels of justice to grind more slowly and creak more loudly than ever before.

Is there something wrong with the Americal legal system? To me, this story shows us that there is.

Roy Pearson, a lawyer in Washington DC and recently appointed to the bench, wanted to show up for his first day on the job as a judge wearing his gray pants with the red stripes. The only problem was that the dry cleaner had lost the pants. This, I am sure, put a slight damper on his buoyant spirits. Everyone wants to show up for the first day on a new job feeling confident in their clothing choices. Roy Pearson didn’t get to wear those pants. However, he is still a judge and well, we move on from disappointments, don’t we?

Judge Pearson hasn’t moved on. In fact, he is suing the immigrant owners of the dry cleaning store for his pants and his inconvenience. He calculates these to be worth $67 million.

That’s right, $67 million dollars because the dry cleaners couldn’t find his favorite pair of pants. In addition to the pants, he claims damages such as “mental suffering, inconvenience and discomfort,”. Apparently, all his other pants are a bit tight, which is why he took them to the Chungs in the first place. He wanted an alteration that costs $10.50. He is also asking for ten years worth of car rentals to transport his pants to another dry cleaner and although he represents himself in the case, has added attorney’s fees onto his already outrageous monetary demand.

The owners of the dry cleaners are Korean immigrants who, like so many, came to the US seeking the American dream. Now, after spending thousands of dollars in legal fees, Jin and Soon Chung wonder if they wouldn’t have been better off staying in Korea.

I have a hard time imagining that a jury is going to be very sympathetic to Judge Pearson’s case. The very first settlement offer the Chungs made to him – at $3000 – was already more than three times what the pants were worth and they upped the offer considerably to as much as $12,000 for the $800 pair of pants. In the meantime, the Chungs say they have found the lost pants, but Pearson continues to pursue his lawsuit.

Sarah Vasquez, 22, and her mother, Natalie Fornaciari, 46 are suing Best Buy and their “Geek Squad”, alleging that the computer technician they sent to their house used a cell phone to record Vasquez taking a shower.

The law suit allegess that Hao Kuo Chi, 26, placed the cell phone in the bathroom, and set it to record. The 22 year old woman noticed it after showering and went to tell her sister. The phone then disappeared from the bathroom and subsequently showed up in the 13 year old sister’s bedroom.

It’s definitely the age of technology, even for perverts. The Internet that brought immediacy of communication and information also brought hackers, spyware and spam, combining convenience with annoyance. Cell phone cameras allow people to share important moments of their lives – the birth of a baby, a high-school graduation – with family far away by transmitting photos immediately, phone to phone.

But we’ve also learned to be aware of the possibility of cell phone cams being used to record pin numbers and credit card numbers at checkouts and ATMs. Now there are other reasons to be concerned about privacy.

Still, there’s something almost exculpatory about the name, isn’t there? The Geek Squad. They called for a geek, and so that’s what they got. They probably didn’t imagine they would get the kind of geek who would sneak around to obtain potty shots with his cell phone camera. What kind of world is it when you can’t trust a geek?

This comes under the category “Now I’ve heard everything”.

According to the Daily Mail, at the Royal High School in Bath, England, schoolchildren as young as seven years old were left to negotiate their way across a street through busy traffic because their crossing guard called in sick.

The teachers and staff were instructed not to assist the children because they hadn’t received proper health and safety training.

Apparently, they can be entrusted to teach children and mold their minds but can’t be trusted to cross the street.

The bottom line is litigation, of course. The school doesn’t want to be sued if there is an accident. And I thought Americans were lawsuit-happy.

Lollipop police ban teachers from helping children to cross the road

Madonna faces some obstacles in her path to adopt a Malawi boy as human rights groups speak out against the adoption and file protests with the court. One group has filed for an injunction to stop the adoption that they say is not in accordance with the laws of Malawi.

The father of the 1-year-old tells us what we already knew, that he never intended to give him up forever when he placed little David in an orphanage. He simply wanted the child to be cared for until his circumstances allowed him to return for him. But Yohande Banda hasn’t tried to stop Madonna’s adoption of the little boy, he sees it as a way to get his son cared for and educated.

According to the Daily Mail, it seems Madonna may have neglected to cross her “t’s” and dot her “i’s” when it comes to British law regarding adoption, throwing another monkeywrench into the proceedings.

Yesterday Mr Banda’s cousin, Pofera Banda, said if David was eventually taken to London, the family would want to visit Madonna there to check he was being properly looked after. ‘What I want to know is that if the child is taken, as we’ve been told, when will our child be visiting us? When will we visit him? How much contact will there be between us and him?

‘If that is not going to happen then as a family we are saying the child should not go.’

Daily Mail