Pedestrians walk past a Bank of America branch in New York. — Reuters pic
Chiscolm in August sued the largest US bank and its board, demanding that "US$1,784 billion trillion" be deposited into his account the next day. He also demanded an additional US$200,164,000, court papers show.
Attempts to reach Chiscolm were unsuccessful. A Bank of America spokesman declined to comment.
"Incomprehensible," US District Judge Denny Chin said in a brief order released on 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 wom[a]n,'" the judge wrote. "He apparently alleges that cheques 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 US$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 US 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 US$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."
Chin gave Chiscolm until Oct 23 to better explain the basis for his claims, or else see his complaint dismissed. — Reuters
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