153. Judges gone wild

Out of a Texas bankruptcy court - I know, it's hard to imagine any place drearier, but the story picks up in a minute - comes a judge's order fining the Commonwealth of Massachusetts $1,000.  You can read it here.   The order recites that the Ft. Worth court (what is it about Ft. Worth judges? - see post 136) was gracious enough to permit the Commonwealth's attorney to "appear" by telephone, which just means joining a conference call with a speaker phone set up in the courtroom. 

And then those ungrateful Hahvahd types were rude enough to produce a loud noise.  Can you imagine!  Obviously, a judge - a federal judge  - doesn't need to hold a hearing before imposing a fine of $1,000 for that kind of thing.

Instead of just taking their medicine, the Massachusetts lawyers responded with a motion to vacate the $1,000 fine, complete with affidavit of counsel.  You can read them here.   It seems the lawyer dutifully dialed in 15 minutes ahead of the scheduled hearing, as required by the abusive local rule, sat on hold for that whole time to gratify the judge's sense of his own importance, then started to participate in the hearing, and then was cut off without warning. 

That was the contumacious conduct for which her client was summarily fined $1,000: its attorney received poor service from the phone company. 

Now, could Bankruptcy Judge D. Michael Lynn have perhaps inquired into the cause of the noise before hauling off and imposing a fine without notice or a hearing?  Could he perhaps have saved his Captain Queeg imitation for parties?  Well, sure, but where's the fun in that?  Once you get the thrill of the summary order in your blood, there's no turning back.

The wiseacre who forwarded these documents to me added this comment:

Well, I certainly think Massachusetts is over-reacting.  A loud noise is, after all, a loud noise, for which someone must be held responsible, lest loud noises proliferate unchecked.   We're just lucky that it didn't happen in a certain Oklahoma courtroom, where the judge might have suffered grave injury as a result of being disrupted whilst in contemplation of the matter at hand.

(But then, how do we know he didn't?)