Soo and Jin Nam Chung

A Washington, D.C., judge has found the customer completely wrong in the $54 million case of the missing suit pants, awarding a judgment to the defense that could end up costing plaintiff Roy C. Pearson dearly.

Pearson, an administrative law judge, insisted the case was not about the pants that his dry cleaner allegedly lost, but the “Satisfaction Guaranteed” sign they displayed in their store. The sign, he argued, was an unconditional warranty that required Custom Cleaners to satisfy him in any way he saw fit.

“Nothing in the law supports that position,” D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff said in her decision following a two-day bench trial. “To the contrary, a claim of an unfair trade practice properly is considered in terms of how the practice would be viewed and understood by a reasonable consumer.”

Even the other Custom Cleaners customers who testified on behalf of Pearson had not adopted his “expansive interpretation,” she noted, concluding that

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.

Bartnoff ordered Pearson to pay the defendants' court costs. She will rule later on a motion for attorney's fees –- which defense counsel has estimated at about $100,000 and will hinge on whether Bartnoff finds the plaintiff a vexatious litigant.

The judgment also won't help Pearson's career. Since he became a symbol of lawsuit abuse, the American Tort Reform Association has urged D.C. officials not to reappoint him to the bench and the National Labor Relations Board has called for his disbarment.

Pearson sued the owners of Custom Cleaners -- Soo and Jin Nam Chung -- after they rejected his demand for $1,150 in compensation for the pants. He originally sought $65 million in damages under the D.C. Consumer Protection Procedures Act, alleging it was an unfair trade practice for the Chungs to offer an unconditional guarantee that they did not intend to honor.

Soo Chung, Bartnoff said in her ruling, testified that she understood “'Satisfaction Guaranteed' to have the common sense meaning that if a customer has a problem, Custom Cleaners will do its best to fix the problem ... and if the problem cannot be fixed, Custom Cleaners will compensate the customer for the value of the clothing.”

The Chungs have attempted to return a pair of pants to Pearson but he has insisted they are not his. Bartnoff ruled that Soo Chung's

explanation that she recognized the disputed pants as belonging to Mr. Pearson because of the unusual belt inserts was much more credible than his speculation that she took a pair of unclaimed pants from the back of the store and altered them to match his measurements.