WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) – The former judge who infamously sued a dry cleaner that misplaced his pants for $67 million will be suspended from practicing law for 90 days.
The District of Columbia Court of Appeals on June 4 agreed with the Board on Professional Responsibility that Roy Pearson didn’t act very responsibly when he attempted to make use of consumer protection statutes to drive his dry cleaner out of business.
Pearson, a former administrative law judge, was roundly mocked more than 10 years ago for claiming a Custom Cleaners’ “Satisfaction Guaranteed” sign triggered all sorts of tort avenues when his pants were temporarily misplaced.
During the trial, Pearson, representing himself, cried twice during his testimony.
"What if this had been..." Pearson said before choking up.
Originally, his punishment for pursuing the case was a 30-day suspension that was stayed during a two-year probationary period. But the BPR upped that to a 90-day suspension, which he appealed to the District’s highest court.
The judge in charge of his pants lawsuit found that Pearson’s discovery tactics and his flood of motions unnecessarily delayed resolution, which was a jury verdict in favor of the dry cleaner.
The owners of the business, Soo and Jin Chung, were forced to crowd-source to pay their legal bills. The trial judge wrote that they had to endure a major lawsuit when the dispute belonged in small claims court.
It was also noted that Pearson showed no remorse for pursuing the case. He argued it wasn’t frivolous, given that the judge allowed it to proceed all the way to trial and never sanctioned him for his discovery and motions activity.
“But, while relevant, those decisions are not dispositive of whether the legal theories ultimately were frivolous,” the Court of Appeals’ ruling says. “Pearson’s claims continually expanded throughout litigation and his liability and damages theories became more clear – and more outlandish – as the case progressed.
“Instead, as noted by the trial court and quoted by the Board, once Pearson’s legal theories ‘clearly were articulated,’ they ‘were unsupported in fact or in law.’”
He alleged the Chungs violated three of the signs in their window: “Satisfaction Guaranteed,” “Same Day Service” and “All Work Done on Premises.” He originally sought five figures because he said they lost his pants and tried to give him an imposter pair.
But by trial he increased his claim for emotional damages to $3 million. He claimed he needed $90,000 to rent a car to drive to a different dry cleaner. He wanted a half-million in attorneys fees.
Before trial he claimed he was owed more than $67 million.
“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.”
Rule 3.1 prevents lawyers from bringing frivolous claims.
“Under Pearson’s interpretation of the signs in question, ‘customers’ acting in bad faith could bankrupt any business in the District with such a commonplace sign…” the ruling says.
Rather than ask an objective party whether his claim had merit, Pearson refused to acknowledge contrary legal authority and engaged in extensive puffery, the ruling said.
“Indeed, even in his filings in this disciplinary case, he has continued to refer to his theories as ‘indisputable.’ As the Hearing Committee noted, ‘Respondent has never, to this day, made the requisite objective appraisal.’”