I beg to differ, and I witnessed a perfect instance of this–albeit in another Small Claims court–concerning two out-of-control people, an actual Plaintiff and Defendant.
A woman I know–I’ll call her Sally–had moved out of an apartment house in Hawthorne. For reasons she never made clear to me, Sally took the landlady to court. I offered to appear as a witness for Sally–I was even sworn in. (As on People’s Court and Judge Judy, all the persons intending to testify are sworn in en masse, according apparently to CA civil procedure.)
Sally and the landlady constantly hollered at each other. When Judge Judy admonishes the parties to a case not to talk to each other, she is on solid legal ground in CA. (I still don’t know why her courtoom has a New York flag instead of a California flag.) In fact, I witnessed something you rarely see in a real courtoom–and certainly Judge Judy doesn’t do this: The judge, losing patience with Sally and the landlady, finally announced, “I have changed my mind!”
If anything, the parties on Judge Judy holler less than the people I watched do this, in the courtroom in Inglewood, CA.
Fopr the record, I have been a plaintiff on People’s Court myself. 