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Man sues BofA for "1,784 billion, trillion dollars"

By Joe Rauch Joe Rauch – Fri Sep 25, 1:21 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Dalton Chiscolm is unhappy about Bank of America's customer service -- really, really unhappy.

Chiscolm in August sued the largest U.S. bank and its board, demanding that "1,784 billion, trillion dollars" be deposited into his account the next day. He also demanded an additional $200,164,000, court papers show.

Attempts to reach Chiscolm were unsuccessful. A Bank of America spokesman declined to comment.

"Incomprehensible," U.S. District Judge Denny Chin said in a brief order released Thursday in Manhattan federal court.

"He seems to be complaining that he placed a series of calls to the bank in New York and received inconsistent information from a 'Spanish womn,'" the judge wrote. "He apparently alleges that checks have been rejected because of incomplete routing numbers."

Chin has experience with big numbers. He's the judge who sentenced Bernard Madoff to a 150-year prison sentence for what the government called a $65 billion Ponzi scheme.

Bank of America Corp faces real legal problems, including New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's threat to sue its chief executive and a judge's embarrassing rejection of a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Yet the money Chiscolm wants could dwarf all the bank's other problems.

It's larger than a sextillion dollars, or a 1 followed by 21 zeros. Chiscolm's request is equivalent 1 followed by 22 digits.

The sum also dwarfs the world's 2008 gross domestic product of $60 trillion, as estimated by the World Bank.

"These are the kind of numbers you deal with only on a cosmic scale," said Sylvain Cappell, New York University's Silver Professor at the Courant Institute for Mathematical Sciences. "If he thinks Bank of America has branches on every planet in the cosmos, then it might start to make some sense."

Judge Chin gave Chiscolm until October 23 to better explain the basis for his claims, or else see his complaint dismissed.

(Reporting by Joe Rauch; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Awesome! This guy is trolling the United States Federal Court System!

so lets make a deal, if the case balks then the time used to tie up the legal system should cost this guy as many lashes as he is asking for the amount of money...

I see America's educational system has raised another fine, outstanding constituent.

This guy comes to mind.

Terrible Article. The author of that article tries to suggest that this exstorstionist lawsuit actually has merit by mentioning BofA's other legal matters. What I also can't believe about this article is that an editor actually put her name on the article. The Article is just a series of fragments and lacks any clarity.

He was originally going to ask for "eleventy zillion" dollars, but decided that figure was too outrageous.

You heard it here first.

Nice!

sextillion

Is that really a word/number??

This thing should be thrown out of court right now...

Chris

This thing should be thrown out of court right now...

Chris

The judge had to give him leave to amend his complaint because if he didn't then a real lawyer might get involved on a completely different matter.

Is that really a word/number??

Yep. In order of increasing magnitude (every three zeros):

Million

Billion

Trillion

Quadrillion

Quintillion

Sextillion

Septillion

Octillion

Nonillion

Decillion

etc.

Pssh, if he really wanted to cause shock and awe he would have sued them for one Googolplex.

1,284 billion, trillion dollars

I'd say the judge should award him $1 and require him to pay all legal fees associated with the case, as well as court fees and all expenses.

I'd say the judge should award him $1 and require him to pay all legal fees associated with the case, as well as court fees and all expenses.

I'd be just fine with the judge ordering him to wear a t-shirt in public for 60 days that says "I abused the legal system"