Court operations
Every so often the news has an amusing story about law, courts, or the like that are perfect for a paragraph in my two annual “legal year in review” columns in December. Stories like, “Hindu man sues Taco Bell for serving beef burrito; seeks damages for possible future reincarnated lives”; or “Neil Armstrong threatens legal action against hometown barber who collected his hair and sold it to a collector”; or “Attorney argues he was eligible to use carpool lane because corporate documents on passenger seat were ‘person.’”
This past week brought such a story that seemed perfect for the “End of the Year” file, which by Thanksgiving typically gets fairly thick with possible stories — so many, in fact, that it was easy to expand from one column every year to two. But this story . . . well, it really deserved more than just three or four sentences. (This does not mean, of course, that if the rest of the year turns out to be a little thin on legal “filler” stories that I won’t end up revisiting it come this December.)
So: as some of you might have guessed, this involved the doctor who tuned into a Zoom court call last week while (so it appeared) he was in the middle of surgery. So it’s yet another entry in the, “I’ve heard of multi-tasking, but . . . wow, just wow.”
Zoom, with which most of us have, of course, become alltoo-depressingly familiar over the past year, is that inadequate substitute for being, as John Bolton quoted from Hamilton, in the room where it happened. Court proceedings over Zoom, however, have given us some especially memorable legal lore, including a toilet flushing during oral argument at the U.S. Supreme Court (smart money says it was one of the justices) and the Texas lawyer whose Zoom filter got stuck making him look like a kitten.
But nothing quite matches the case of Dr. Scott Green, a Sacramento plastic surgeon whose virtual appearance on a traffic matter was scheduled for the afternoon of Thursday, February 25. Because court proceedings are supposed to be open to the public, Sacramento Superior Court records each case and posts them on Youtube.
It started out as all such matters do, with a court clerk coming online to ask, “Hello, Mr. Green, are you ready for trial?” But then the clerk noted that Dr. Green was masked up, complete with surgical cap and, as the Sacramento Bee put it, “the whirs and bleeps of medical machinery the sounds of suction” were audible in the background. The clerk inquires, “It kind of looks like you’re in an operating room right now?”
Green responds, “I am, sir.” And then he makes two contradictory statements: “I’m in an operating room right now. I’m available for trial.” So the clerk proceeded to put Dr. Green under oath.
At this point, Court Commissioner Gary Link comes into view and, squinting at his monitor, says, “So unless I’m mistaken, I’m seeing a defendant that’s in the middle of an operating room appearing to be actively engaged in providing services to a patient. Is that correct, Mr. Green? Or should I say Dr. Green?” He adds, “I do not feel comfortable for the welfare of a patient if you’re in the process of operating that I would put on a trial notwithstanding the fact the officer is here today.”
Green tried to insist that all was well — hey, he had another doctor standing by if Green .
. . oh, I dunno, had to stop tying off blood vessels to cross-examine the officer. But Commissioner Link, the irritation rising in his voice, was having none of it: “I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s appropriate.” He went on, “I’m going to come up with a different date — when you’re not actively involved or participating and attending to the needs of a patient.”
At that point, Green apologized, but Commissioner Link — clearly anxious to move on — downplayed it, saying, “It happens. We want to keep people healthy, we want to keep them alive. That’s important,” before giving Green a new hearing date this month, and confirming that it was (presumably) not a date when Green will again be scrubbed and ready for surgery.
One entity that was not amused by the absurdity of this was the California Medical Board, which said it will be investigating the incident. But overlooked in all this is that we don’t know just what the charges against Dr. Green were.
How much does anyone want to bet it was for distracted driving?