Luxury blanket washed too hot: lawyer drags his cleaning lady in court

Created: 04/01/2022, 20:43

A cleaning lady from Vaterstetten was on trial because she had grown a cashmere blanket too hot, causing it to shrink.

© Hauke-Christian Dittrich/dpa (archive image/symbolic image)

A cleaning lady from Vaterstetten has to pay damages because she washed a cashmere blanket belonging to her client, a lawyer, too hot.

The man says the blanket is extremely important to him.

Ebersberg

– Judge Andrea Kürten made one thing quite unmistakably clear to the defendant in the civil trial at the Ebersberg district court: “I advise you to make a comparison, otherwise you are threatened with a conviction.

And that will be expensive.”

Cashmere blanket from the luxury brand Hermès shrinks after washing

The case: a native of Slovenian Vaterstetter worked for a lawyer in Baldham as a cleaner.

In 2018, as part of her household chores there, she accidentally washed a large, gray cashmere blanket with a horse motif from the French luxury brand Hermès too hot, so that it shrank.

The plaintiff then demanded damages - after deduction of some amounts already charged - in the amount of 2524 euros.

By the way: everything from the region is also available in our regular Ebersberg newsletter. 

The judge explained to the accused that it is now legally regulated in such a way that one has to pay for damage that one causes to someone else's property.

There was a dispute about the lack of washing instructions on the noble piece, about whether the blanket was hanging over a chair or, as the defendant stated, was lying on a couch and was soiled by the owner's dogs.

Cleaning lady: 2000 in damages "we can't pay"

The plaintiff, who represented himself as a lawyer, put forward a settlement amount of 2,000 euros.

"We can't pay for that," replied the woman who was sitting in the trial without legal representation.

Her husband, who was also in the courtroom, is still on short-time work, and she herself is currently unable to work due to a foot injury.

It was as if rich and poor sat opposite each other.

To demonstrate the damage, the plaintiff showed the received ceiling in the courtroom and bought the same piece again, undamaged, for 3100 euros.

He's just a horse lover, he stressed, which is why the blanket is so important to him.

Finally, he agreed to a settlement of 1,500 euros if it were paid by the end of September.

And this is how the court formulated the comparison: the defendant had to pay 2000 euros, with the addition that if a sum of 1500 euros was paid by the end of September, the remaining 500 euros would be forfeited.

Court: Luxury items worth a lot in the vintage market

Judge Kürten then emphasized that she had discussed this case with colleagues in advance.

For some judges this would only be about collateral damage, for them not.

The defendant's objection that the blanket was older and therefore no longer worth as much was irrelevant in court, because luxury items were still being traded at very high prices on the vintage market, as the judge emphasized.

In any case, the plaintiff climbed into a Bentley luxury SUV after the trial.  

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