It must have been a pretty special pair of pants. Former Washington, D.C., administrative law Judge Roy Pearson Jr., who made headlines more than a decade ago for suing a dry cleaning business that allegedly lost a pair of his pants, notched a step closer this week to knowing his fate in a disciplinary case that followed his highly aggressive pursuit of the pant litigation. The District of Columbia Board on Professional Responsibility—which reports its findings to the final disciplinary arbiter, the D.C. Court of Appeals—handed down a recommendation on Wednesday that Pearson should be suspended from practicing law for 90 days in light of his conduct. Pearson, who was admitted to the D.C. bar in 1978, could not immediately be reached for comment. “At its start, the case was about a lost pair of pants. As his lawsuit progressed, respondent alleged more and more aggressive positions, eventually demanding millions of dollars under a legal theory the Court of Appeals determined was ‘not supported by law or reason,’” the board wrote in Wednesday’s report. “As his lawsuit progressed, respondent’s liability and damages arguments morphed into the preposterous.” The board’s report and recommendation follow a lengthy saga that began with a lost pair of pants in the early 2000s. Pearson claimed that the owners of Custom Cleaners in D.C. lost a pair of suit pants he brought in for tailoring, then tried to give him pants that weren’t his. Pearson sued the business in 2005, hinging his fraud and consumer protection claims on a sign in the store that read, “Satisfaction Guaranteed.” Pearson alleged that the “Satisfaction Guaranteed” sign was an unconditional warranty to satisfy any claim that a customer made, and he pursued damages for each day the pants were not returned. By the time the case proceeded to a bench trial in 2007, the damages under Pearson’s theory exceeded $67 million. D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff rejected Pearson’s fraud claims, and the D.C. Court of Appeals upheld her decision in December 2008. Following his loss in the pant litigation, Pearson, who served as a local administrative law judge from 2005 to 2007, was faulted in an initial 2016 disciplinary opinion for prolonging a “run-of-the-mill dispute into a four-year, no-holds-barred crusade.” His position on the administrative bench also took a hit amid the lost pants lawsuit. In 2007, Pearson was denied reappointment as a judge—a decision he went on to challenge in a federal lawsuit claiming that other state judges unfairly retaliated against him. That federal suit was ultimately unsuccessful. In 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a lower court’s dismissal of Pearson’s claims. Wednesday’s board ruling largely affirmed the 2016 disciplinary opinion—issued by a hearing committee of the D.C. professional responsibility board—but recommends a more severe punishment. The 2016 ruling suggested a 30-day suspension that would be stayed for a two-year probation period. On Wednesday, the board determined that was too light a punishment, given Pearson’s pursuit of an unfounded legal theory and his “problematic” attitude throughout the underlying pant litigation and his subsequent disciplinary case. Ultimately, the disciplinary board ruled that while novel legal theories are important to the development of case law and to applying U.S. statutes in an ever-changing society, Pearson went well beyond what was acceptable. "Lawyers who seek to change or redefine the law act pursuant to one of the most noble traditions of our profession. We applaud that practice,” the board wrote on Wednesday. “But that is not what respondent did. “Lawyers are free to make arguments when they are supported by fact and by existing law or a reasoned extension of the law even if they lead to results that at first appear to be unlikely, far-fetched, or questionable,” the board continued. “Instead, we have considered the facts and the legal arguments made in respondent’s briefs before both the trial court and the Court of Appeals, and we are convinced that no reasonable attorney would think that respondent had even a faint hope of success in those claims.”