Legal Ethics

$54 Million Lawsuit Over Missing Pants Ends With Suspension

He puts his pants on one leg at a time... and then he sues for $54 million.

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If Roy Pearson wanted to keep his pants he should have taken a belt and suspenders approach. To that end, the DC Court of Appeals has 90 days’ worth of suspension right here.

It’s rare that a court case that fails to touch upon core constitutional principles manages to get its own Wikipedia page. But Pearson v. Chung is one of those exceptions. Pearson, a former administrative law judge, sued his dry cleaners for losing a pair of his pants that he claimed were worth over $1,000. Over time, his demands ballooned, peaking at a $67 million claim before retreating to a more restrained $54 million.

After failing to prevail on his claims, and consistently losing disciplinary proceedings against him, the Court of Appeals has weighed in and outlined some issues with Pearson’s damage figures:

We agree with the Board that this is one such case. The total damages figure is shocking in itself; simply put, Pearson asked the trial court to award him $67,292,000 because of his dissatisfaction with defendants’ dry cleaning services. But the constituent parts of that $67,292,000 total are equally troubling. Pearson asked for $90,000 to rent a car, a facially disproportionate request in response to the alleged need to patronize another dry cleaner. He claimed that his emotional distress over a few common and innocuous signs and a lost pair of pants was so severe that he was entitled to $3,000,000 in damages. Perhaps most remarkable was his request for a judgment obligating the Chungs to provide him with ongoing services and to pay him $10,000 immediately based on nothing more than his own request, a demand that the Hearing Committee called “patently non-cognizable,” was made after the defendants had already taken down the signs at the heart of the controversy, was tethered to no statutory basis, and was completely out of proportion to any likely shortcoming in dry cleaning service. These damages theories were utterly frivolous, implausible to the point of having “not even a faint hope of success,” and they violated Rule 3.1.

Now, 15 years after Pearson lost his pants and 11 years after the underlying case concluded, the ordeal is finally over, with the Court of Appeals affirming the Board on Professional Responsibility decision suspending Pearson’s license for 90 days based upon findings of misconduct in both motion and discovery practice and seriously interfered with the administration of justice.

Sitting around for 90 days can be tough but with a little patience, Pearson can be back to the profession soon enough. So our message to him is… wait for it…

Just keep your pants on.

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Pants Judge Suspended [Legal Profession Blog]

Earlier: Judge Who Sued Dry Cleaners Over Missing Pants Facing Ethics Charges
Judge Who Sued Dry Cleaner For $54 Million Over Missing Pants About To Get Wedgie From Disciplinary Committee

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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