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Crazy “Pants” Judge Loses Appeal

The DC Court of Appeals has rejected former judge Roy L. Pearson Jr.’s request for a new trial regarding his highly publicized $54 million lawsuit against a neighborhood dry cleaners over a pair of lost pants.

Pearson appealed in October to overturn a 2007 ruling that he was not entitled to millions in damages because a dry cleaner had not lived up to its promises of “Satisfaction Guaranteed” or “Same Day Service.”

The former administrative law judge in the District of Columbia lost his position because, according to a review panel, his suit over the pants demonstrated a lack of “judicial temperament.” He is currently involved in another suit to get his job back.

But since the original May 2005 incident, in which Custom Cleaners misplaced the then-judge’s pants but found them again a week later, Pearson has doggedly pursued his aburd claim despite international ridicule.

The three appellate judges who heard his case — Phyllis Thompson, Noel Anketell Kramer and Michael W. Farrell — unanimously agreed that Pearson failed to show that the store’s advertised promises amounted to fraud. The judges said Pearson’s argument that Customer Cleaners and its owners, Soo and Jin Chung, intentionally committed fraud with their signs “defies logic.”

The appeals court supported Judge Judith Bartnoff’s initial rejection of Pearson’s argument.

Pearson has two remaining avenues of appeal left: He could ask the entire nine-judge appellate court to review the case, or ask the US Supreme Court to weigh in. Which he will do. Because he’s out of his mind.

Via The Washington Post.

Erik Even: