Though Judge Pearson is expected to appeal, the verdict brings at least momentary pause to a case that has inspired international ridicule and calls for legal reform.  Since he sued in June 2005, the case has cycled through two judges, three settlement offers, dozens of exhibits and hundreds of pages of court filings. A two-day trial that saw both plaintiff and defendant shed tears ended earlier this month.  “We are very, very pleased with the results today,” Soo Chung, a Korean immigrant who owns Custom Cleaners with her husband and son, said Monday at a news conference outside their shop in Northeast Washington, speaking through a translator. “It’s been such a hard past two years.”  Mr. Pearson, then fresh on the job as an administrative law judge, had accused the Chungs of losing a pair of suit pants he had brought in for a $10.50 alteration job. He said that Washington’s consumer protection law, one of the nation’s most consumer friendly, entitled him to thousands of dollars for each day over nearly four years in which signs at the shop promised “same day service” and “satisfaction guaranteed.”  Mrs. Chung said she found his pants a few days after they were lost. But Judge Pearson claimed they were a cheaper gray pair she had tried to substitute for his pinstriped Hickey Freemans. In her verdict Monday, Judge Bartnoff said she found Mrs. Chung more credible than Judge Pearson.  Further, she disputed Judge Pearson’s claim that a “satisfaction guaranteed” sign entitled unhappy customers to unlimited compensation.  “A reasonable consumer would not interpret ‘satisfaction guaranteed’ to mean that a merchant is required to satisfy a customer’s unreasonable demands,” she wrote.  A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A12 of the New York edition with the headline: In Case of Missing Trousers, Aggrieved Party Loses Again. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
A District of Columbia administrative law judge who filed a $54 million lawsuit against a dry cleaner over a pair of missing pants will not get a penny.