Zippo
From Marc Fisher of Raw Fisher -- the source for all things Pearson -- comes the latest word. And the word is "zippo." As Fisher says, First, Pants Man Loses Case. Next, His Job.:
By the middle of next week, Roy Pearson, the D.C. administrative law judge who sued his neighborhood dry cleaners for $54 million and lost, will receive a letter that starts the process of putting him out of a job.The Examiner, in Panel postpones decision on judge who brought pants suit, adds:
City sources tell me that a marathon meeting of the commission that reviews the performance of administrative law judges (ALJs) ended last night with unanimous agreement to meet again next Monday to revise and finalize the wording of a letter that will state the panel's doubts about granting Pearson the 10-year reappointment that he has been seeking throughout the last months of his battle against Custom Cleaners and its owners, the Chung family.
A judicial panel weighing the fate of the D.C. administrative law judge who sued a dry cleaners for $54 million over a pair of missing pants adjourned Wednesday night without deciding whether to fire him. The panel was expected to reach a decision early next week.See also, Plaintiff in Pants Suit Awaits Decision on His Fate. DCist explains the reversal in, Will Pants Judge Roy Pearson Keep His Job?:“We do not want to rush to any judgment at all,” said D.C. Superior Court Judge Robert Rigsby, a member of the panel reviewing the case. “It is important that we get this right for many reasons.”
* * * *
Two months ago, Pearson’s boss recommended that the three-judge voting panel reject Pearson for another term, government sources have told The Examiner. Pearson’s boss reversed an earlier letter to keep Pearson after the case gained widespread attention and attracted the mocking jabs of late-night talk show comedians.
The panel was expected to follow the advice of Pearson’s boss.
That's the question a lot of outraged taxpayers in the District of Columbia have been wondering ever since we first heard about administrative law judge Roy Pearson's outrageous $54 million (then $65 million) law suit against the owners of Custom Cleaners for misplacing his favorite pair of pants. Just before his law suit became pun fodder for headline writers all over the world, the city's chief administrative law judge, Tyrone Butler, recommended approval of Pearson's application for a renewed 10-year contract based on his job performance. But a short time later, Butler withdrew his recommendation, publicly offering that after everything that had come out about Pearson's character since the law suit, he did not expect the three-person commission that would ultimately make the decision to reappoint him.But the real reason for the final reversal was mentioned by Fisher:
But after Butler came back with a pro-Pearson letter, Pearson sent a series of emails within the ALJ staff disparaging the chief judge, calling him "evil" and mean-spirited. That helped sway Butler to switch yet again, to a recommendation against reappointment.
Within the commission, the discussion about Pearson's future has focused on when and whether it is right to measure a judge's performance by his behavior outside the courtroom. The panel looked specifically at whether Pearson's extraordinary zeal in pursuing the case against the Chungs was so frivolous and embarrassing to the judicial system that it should be taken as evidence of his lack of judicial temperment. "A judge has a right to bring a lawsuit like any other citizen," said a source close to the commission, "but he doesn't have a First Amendment right to bring a frivolous lawsuit."
The commission is expected to address the Chung case specifically in its letter to Pearson, pointing out that his no-holds-barred pursuit of mega-millions in a case stemming from a $10.50 alteration on a pair of suit pants raises serious questions about his judicial temperment and raises public questions about judicial ethics and standards. Following receipt of the letter, Pearson would then have the right to a hearing before the commission. Only after that hearing would the commission formally move to end Pearson's tenure as a judge. Pearson has not been sitting as a judge since the end of April, when his first term on the bench expired. Rather, he is now technically considered an "attorney advisor" to the Office of Administrative Hearings. Asked what Pearson does in that position, a high-ranking city official said, "Zippo."
Hopefully Pearson will be soon spending a lot of time doing "Zippo" -- on his own time, making Zero.
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