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Court Reporting Diseases

These may all be fatal bec. the reporter may stand up and shoot the person who is so afflicted.

Carpenteritis – cannot form a coherent sentence, false starts at least three times per thought before finally laying down something completely incomprehensible on the record. Never takes breaks, badgers the witness, and is very argumentative. You’ll know you’re in the presence of attorney who has Carpenteritis bec. it will feel a little like you’re taking a deposition where Porky Pig is the questioning attorney. Caveat, usually only takes deposition of expert witnesses for which they are totally unqualified to take. Reporter may experience flashbacks and PTSD when going over transcript. May experience some growth of transcript due to excessive use of dashing.

Terminal Interruptus - This can afflict both the witness and/or the attorney, wherein the offendee is unable to allow anyone else to finish a sentence without answering in the middle of the other person's sentence. Often leading to answering the wrong question, totally losing track of where they’re going in their questioning and/or answers leading to the reporter having to read back a crap-load of mess which is completely incoherent bec. there is not a single completed sentence and/or question to be read back. At which point they look at you as if you are at fault.

Silent Objector – attorney who decides that they’re just going to mouth the objections or make some complicated hand signal to denote that he’s making an objection. Reporter must be able to lip read and/or mind read.

Oris Hera – where the attorney doesn’t actually open his mouth to speak, speaking through closed lips. Makes it very difficult to understand what the attorney may be saying, may also be complicated by speaking with the hand over the mouth.

Dire celeritas – speaking so quickly that words are left out, incorrect words are used, and no one can understand the attorney so that the reporter is constantly asked to re-read bec. no one knows what the person said in the first place.

Incompreheterenteritis - very badly worded questions and/or answers where either the attorney or witness may be making up words, names are mangled and no spellings are obtained bec either the witness doesn't know the spelling or the witness is obviously spelling everything wrong, including his own name.

Expeditis roughitis - Attorney or assistant will contact agency after depo is over asking where is the rough draft. Note - attorney will have requested rough draft at said deposition. Another disorder in which mind reading is required by the reporter. Also, usually happens on depos where the day started at 8 a.m., went past 6 p.m. and everybody just wants to get the heck out of dodge.

Tangenitis - the witness will go off on random tangents, taking three pages to answer a yes-or-no question.

mentala perturbada - Could afflict attorney or witness, usually the witness. Characterized by witness who are in pro per, on drugs, and.or delusional. Deposition should probably be canceled due to incompetence of witness, but never is bec. this will probably be the second or third attempt to get the witness there and this is the first time the witness has shown up and usually the attorney is from out of town, this will be the only time they will have to depose witness. They have a tendency to go all day and the witness will be afflicted with several of the diseases from above.

Exhibitia - attorney insists on marking the exhibits themselves, asks you for Exhibits stickers, proceeds to number up to 50, then only uses 5. He may or may not return the remaining stickers to you. At some point during the depo, he will turn to you and ask you what exhibit number are we on?

Exhibita simulata - Attorney will try to hand you exhibit while he and witness are both talking and will hold exhibit in mid-air while you are taking down everyone. After you have caught up and are trying to mark aforesaid exhibit, attorney will or witness will immediately start speaking.

If you have any you’d like to add, feel free.

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Comment by Janiece Young on April 1, 2012 at 12:23: abbrevitis -- This is usually encountered in medical depositions where doctors make up words by using portions of medical terms to make up a new medical term that is impossible to find anywhere because the word does not exist. To compound this condition the doctor pronounces this made-up term in a way never before heard on the planet earth.

Comment by Kyung on March 23, 2012 at 8:14: numericus mumbletonia - inability to count either out loud or in their head, but instead kind of mumbles the numbers to themselves while shuffling papers. Also tends to read kind of out of loud, kind of to themselves when reviewing documents. Not a real problem unless videotaped.

Comment by Quyen on March 21, 2012 at 22:02: Carpenteritis -- You mean like this:

"It's -- it's -- it's -- yeah, no, it's -- as -- as you get below the diaphragm . . . the -- the -- yeah, the -- this is -- this shows the aorta from its origin to its terminus, aortic bifurcation." Ugh!

Sorry, I'm proofing a horrible transcript after a rough day, so I'm just a bit agitated.

Comment by Kyung on March 21, 2012 at 20:30: Quyen - very nice.

Comment by Quyen on March 21, 2012 at 20:00: I had a witness infected with loquium oris confertus. He thought he was going to testify while chewing gum. After suffering through a series of mumbled answers, I gave him a spititoutectomy.

Oh, yeah, I also had an expert witness infected with this disease. He insisted that we skip lunch, and he'll just eat an apple as he continues to testify on video record. I said: "That's not going to work. We will wait until you finish your apple. Or you can finish your apple after the depo."

Comment by Kyung on March 21, 2012 at 19:14: Very nice, ladies. I have yet to run into accessorhemia. Something to look forward to I guess.

Here's a good one. Loquium oris confertus - Attorney or witness who insist on talking while chewing on something.

Comment by Quyen on March 21, 2012 at 19:03: Shufflepoundiasis - may afflict attorney and/or witness simultaneously, where the attorney and/or the witness is constantly loudly shuffling through the exhibits and then repeatedly pounding a big stack of exhibits on the table to line up all the pages, all while continuing to speak/testify. Particularly common and acute when the witness is a very technical expert of any field and when the witness insists on whispering his/her entire day's testimony.

Accessorhemia - affects any person in the deposition whose suit-jacket buttons; jewelry such as bracelets, rings and watches; eyeglasses or any object that is constantly banging or dragging on the table with the person's every move. Extremely dangerous and potentially fatal condition which may result in loss of limb because the reporter is going to rip it off.

Yep, both conditions were plaguing my depo today.

Comment by Janet on March 21, 2012 at 5:33: I love these!

Here's another one:

Cellurectomyaudio - The videographer politely reminds everyone to turn off their cell phones or keep them away from the microphones. There's always that one offender who just has to be touching it constantly, can't turn it off or put it aside, causing the court reporter the added stress of trying to figure out what is being said beneath the constant buzzing.

Comment by Alice Clark on March 20, 2012 at 18:36: All these are painfully funny... just thinking about the various jobs where these people show up can make you feet catatonic!