The boss of Roy L. Pearson Jr., the administrative law judge who filed a $54 million pants lawsuit against Korean immigrant dry clearners, has recommended that the Washington D.C. deny Pearson another term on the bench, Washington regional paper Examiner reported Thursday.
The paper carried the article under the title of "Pants lawsuit could cost D.C. judge his $100,000 job."
In a letter to the three-person commission that will decide whether Pearson gets reappointed, District of Columbia Chief Administrative Judge Tyrone T. Butler said Pearson does not deserve a 10-year term to the post, which pays more than $100,000 a year,
according to the paper.
"My sense is that the commission will not reappoint him,” a D.C. government source was quoted as saying.
Butler’s letter reverses his previous recommendation in support of Pearson that he sent to the commission before the pants suit case gained worldwide notoriety.
Butler would not comment on his recommendation, according to his office.
Administrative judges preside over disputes between a government agency and people bringing complaints against the agency.
Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff said she would rule on Pearson's lawsuit by next week. Pearson broke down on the stand twice trying to describe the day he learned that he would never see his pants again.
He has requested $500,000 in legal fees for the 1,400 hours he says he put into the case. A friend testified that Pearson had no life outside the office because he was consumed with the case, working nights and weekends.
Pearson has had a history of doggedly pursuing legal matters, the paper said.
Before he became a D.C. judge two years ago, Pearson was unemployed after working as legal aid attorney for 24 years. He worked on one tenant lawsuit for 18 years, appealing the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
His former boss once called him the best attorney he ever hired, but their relationship soured and Pearson quit in 2002.
In 2005, in his divorce suit, Virginia courts ordered him to pay his ex-wife, also a lawyer, $12,000 for “creating unnecessary litigation” and threatening her and her attorney with disbarment.
At the time of the ruling, he had no steady job, no bank account and less than $2,000 in cash.
