Commentary - Sherman Joyce: Judge Pearson, we will buy you a new suit

WASHINGTON (Map, News) -

D.C. Administrative Law Judge Roy Pearson Jr. is suing his dry cleaner — over a supposedly lost pair of pants — for more than $65 million.

The pants were found long ago and are readily available to Pearson. What may become unavailable to him, unless he drops this wholly outrageous and abusive lawsuit, is a reputation as an ethical, high-integrity officer of the court.

Since my organization, the American Tort Reform Association, works to limit this kind of abusive litigation that so hinders small and large businesses alike, we’re offering to raise the necessary funds to buy Pearson a high-quality suit of his choosing if he’ll just do the right thing.

But since our generous offer may not do the trick, ATRA also wrote Monday to the four men who will decide this week if Pearson will be reappointed to a 10-year term with a handsome salary at taxpayers’ expense.

Our letter to Chief Administrative Law Judge Tyrone Butler and the three men who make up the Commission on Selection and Tenure of Administrative Law Judges — Robert Rigsby, Henry Levine and Peter Wilner — read as follows:

Dear Judge Butler and Commissioners Rigsby, Levine and Wilner:

On behalf of the American Tort Reform Association, which works to combat lawsuit abuse, I urge you to carefully reconsider the reappointment of Administrative Law Judge Roy Pearson Jr. to a 10-year term, scheduled to commence in three days on May 2.

As you are almost surely aware by now, thanks to extensive local and national media coverage, Judge Pearson has chosen to exploit the District’s well-intentioned but loosely worded Consumer Protection and Procedures Act in suing a family-owned D.C. dry cleaner for more than $65 million — over a lost pair of suit pants.

Though the pants have long since been found and made available to him, Judge Pearson has stubbornly continued to waste precious Superior Court resources in a clearly misguided effort to extort a hardworking family that provides a service to its community and tax revenue to the District government.

In a letter to the editor in today’s Washington Post, former National Labors Relations Board chief administrative law judge Melvin Welles urged “any bar to which Mr. Pearson belongs to immediately disbar him and the District to remove him from his position as an administrative law judge.”

To those of us who carefully study the litigation industry’s growing abuse of consumer protection laws around the country (see ATRA general counsel Victor Schwartz’s recent article from Executive Counsel magazine, “Consumer Protection Acts Are a Springboard for Lawsuit Abuse,” enclosed) and to everyday D.C. taxpayers who collectively provide Pearson with a considerable salary, his persistence in this lawsuit raises serious question about his capacity to serve the city as a “fair, impartial, effective, and efficient” judge, as required by the Office of Administrative Hearings Establishment Act.

If Pearson goes ahead with his lawsuit, any party who comes before him in future administrative hearings could understandably lack confidence in his judgment and judicial temperament. Furthermore, this case will become fodder for late-night comics, various members of Congress and other assorted critics of D.C. government if this case, scheduled for trial June 11, remains in the headlines.

Judicial temperament is a critical characteristic of an outstanding jurist. Any individual who chooses to pursue a case such as Pearson’s, at a minimum, calls into question his or her’s. As you consider his reappointment, we strongly urge you to examine closely his judicial temperament and decide whether it is sufficient to serve the people of the District of Columbia properly as an administrative law judge.

Sherman Joyce is president of the American Tort Reform Association, based in Washington.

ExamiNation question of the day: Is this a fair or frivolous lawsuit? Share your thoughts!

Advertisement