Judge Schofield is pleasant and professional.
Judge Schofield is pleasant and professional. She is pragmatic for the most part, and by and large I found her to be more or less even handed. However, she made a number of peculiar rulings both against us (plaintiffs) and for us in a complex medical malpractice case. She denied some things that were, in my opinion, so flat wrong that they would have led to a reversal of her if the trial didn’t go our way. For example, she excluded a diagnostic radiology experts testimony, because she concluded that the surgical oncologist testimony covered with the radiologist would talk about, and was there for duplicative. She then denied calling that diagnostic radiologist as a rebuttal witness, when the defendants rolled out in their case and chief, for the very first time in the entire history of the litigation, a brand new theory regarding interpretation of the radiological films. And she then denied the request to make an offer proof of what the diagnostic radiologist would testify about. On the other hand, she admitted very sensitive valuable evidence of the plaintiff involving the decedent’s words in writing and audio when the decedent was never deposed which was clearly in her discretion to admit or deny. She did not allow any voire dire, which I think was a mistake and despite my raising the issue with the court, which she dismissed out of hand, allowed a woman to serve on the jury who didn’t speak anything better than basic, broken English. She does have a command of the record but I got the distinct feeling that early on in the case she had clueless judicial clerks making rulings that flew in the face of basic FRCP. However, on balance she ruled for and against Plaintiffs and defendants pretty evenly which in hindsight shows weigh against her since the defense lawyers made unbelievable arguments that were over the top and we should have won most of the issues in dispute, despite how self serving that sounds. On one occasion the defense lawyers committed outright frau