And the plaintiff, seeking tens of millions for a pair of misplaced pants, gets not a penny.

The D.C. administrative law judge who sued his neighborhood dry cleaner for $54 million over a pair of lost pants found out this morning what he's going to get for all his troubles.
Nothing.

In a verdict that surprised no one, except perhaps the plaintiff himself, a D.C. Superior Court judge denied Roy Pearson the big payday he claimed was his due.
Delivering her decision in writing, Judge Judith Bartnoff wrote 23 pages dissecting and dismissing Pearson's claim that he was defrauded by the owners of Custom Cleaners and their "Satisfaction Guaranteed" sign.
"A reasonable consumer would not interpret 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' to mean that a merchant is required to satisfy a customer's unreasonable demands or to accede to demands that the merchant has reasonable grounds to dispute," the ruling said. " . . . The plaintiff is not entitled to any relief whatsoever."

Now it is possible that Pearson will not only lose his pants, but his shirt as well.

Financially, he could soon be on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees incurred by the owners of Customer Cleaners. Attorneys for the Chungs have said they will seek such payments, as well as sanctions against Pearson for bringing the lawsuit. Bartnoff said in her ruling that she would decide those issues after both sides have filed their motions, counter-motions and legal briefs. Professionally, Pearson could find himself out of his $96,000-a-year job as an administrative law judge for the District government.

This was clearly a case of abuse of the legal system, given the Chungs made repeated offers to go above and beyond the call of duty to make him whole, even offering early on in the case to give him more than enough money to replace the entire suit – after the judge insisted that the pants the owners produced for him (complete with the original tags that match his receipt) were not his despite matching the suit jacket.

Pearson’s behavior will also likely cost him his appointed judgeship, because his term is up and his conduct has shredded any credibility he might have. After all, any man who can become so emotional over a pair of pants really doesn't have teh staility to be trusted to do justice, does he?