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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.

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.

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."

Separately, Pearson is preparing an appeal of Judge Judith Bartnoff's rejection of his case against the Chungs.

Meanwhile, at a fundraiser for the Chungs last week, donors contributed more than $62,000 toward the legal fees the family incurred in their defense against the Pearson suit. Another $30,000-plus came in from Post readers and others who made contributions to a defense fund around the time of the trial in June. The total comes close to covering the Chung's bills for the first round of the case, but Pearson's push to appeal the ruling will mean further legal fees for the immigrant family.

As satisfying as it would be to see Pearson lose his post over his obsessive pursuit of the Chungs, the downside for the owners of the dry cleaners is that with Pearson out of a job, their chances of ever recovering the court fees that Pearson has already been assessed and the attorney's fees that he may yet be ordered to pay would be severely diminished.

As has happened at every stage of this sorry case, it is possible to win the legal battle while still being destroyed by the process.

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