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You don't. If he had thrown his cards into the muck, and then tried to retrieve them, you still would have lost. Cards can still be played from the muck when they are "easily retrievable", and it's in the best interests of the game.

If the dealer mucks the cards, then they are dead. If the player mucks, they sometimes still can play.

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It would be a terrible ruling to allow a player to retreive cards from the muck. Adding "sometimes" makes it even worse.

Opening up the game to that kind of chaso seems very much against the best interests of the game.

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Last night, 5-10 at Brantford, I held QT in the SB and called while three players saw the flop. The final board was 8-4-T-T-K and I lost to the button's 88. I mucked my cards after seeing his hand and they were definately in the muck and practically mixed in with the other dead cards when somebody asked to see my hand (not the button). The dealer (who seemed inexperienced) went looking for my cards and in frusteration asked me to announce my hand to the table, which I did, because I wasn't sure of the ruling, after which she flipped up my cards. It didn't cost me the pot but it's just an example of exactly how live "dead" cards can be.

EDIT: if anyone knows if the dealer can ask what my hand was, let me know.