Stop us if you've heard this one:

So, this guy goes to the dry cleaners to pick up his suit only to find they've lost his pants. They give him some other guy's pants. He gets mad and — here's the really hilarious part — he sues for gazillions of dollars.

That's the punchline? What kind of joke rip-off is this anyway?

Scout's honor, it's no joke.

Roy Pearson, an administrative law judge in Washington, owned the first pair of pants. He loved the pants. He needed the pants for his administrative law judge job. When his neighborhood dry cleaners lost the pants, Pearson sued the owners of Custom Cleaners for $67 million.

For a lost pair of pants.

This being America, the land where anybody can sue anybody anytime over anything, Pearson is getting his day in court. What a country.

Pearson argued in District of Columbia Superior Court last week that the owners of Custom Cleaners engaged in "willful and malicious conduct." They violated the "satisfaction guaranteed" promised by a sign on the premises. They caused him pain and suffering.

And, let us not forget, they lost his pants.

Showing that he's not totally unreasonable, Pearson acknowledged before trial that $67 million in damages was going a little overboard. He reduced his damage demand — to $54 million.

Pearson also asked the judge presiding over the case to award him attorney's fees. He is representing himself and calculates he has spent 1,400 hours prepping witnesses, gathering evidence and otherwise getting ready for what D.C. court observers agree has been the litigation highlight of their year.

Pearson figures he deserves as much as $425 an hour. That comes to $595,000 right there. Which we think leaves a world of pain and suffering for Roy Pearson — a man without his beloved pants or, for our money, a leg to stand on.