Lead out of turn

[gordontd]

During a hand a defender leads at her partner's turn to lead. Dummy says "it's not your lead".

 

What do you, as director, do?

[bluejak]

Deal with the lead out of turn. At end of hand adjust under Law 12A1 if declarer might have gained. Consider a PP for dummy dependent on normal circumstances.

[gordontd]

Deal with the lead out of turn.  At end of hand adjust under Law 12A1 if declarer might have gained.  Consider a PP for dummy dependent on normal circumstances.

This sounds like it would have the desired effect, but I'm a bit concerned about whether the wording of L12A1 allows us to do this:

 

The Director may award an adjusted score when he judges that these

Laws do not provide indemnity to a non-offending contestant for the

particular type of violation committed by an opponent.

The problem I see is that both sides are offending. While we might draw a distinction between the offence of the lead out of turn and the offence of dummy illegally drawing attention to the irregularity, the second cannot happen without the first and so it's hard to consider the pair who led out of turn as non-offending.

 

However, even if we ignore that, there's a further problem in that adjusting the score for one side (only) is not providing indemnity to the other.

[bluejak]

Maybe you are right. Ok, let's just upset Ed then: deal with the lead out of turn and fine dummy sufficient he does not gain. :lol:

[blackshoe]

Edgar Kaplan said "decide what ruling you want to make, and then find a law to support it". I thought that position was deprecated these days, but it appears I may have been mistaken. :lol:

[bluejak]

It is not that simple, Ed. Law 81C3 means we have to deal with the lead out of turn. Law 42A1B says dummy may not draw attention to an irregularity. Now, if he does, and he gains thereby, how do we stop him? Why will he not just do it next time?

 

It is not as though there is any doubt that dummy's actions constitute an infraction. But if he gains whenever he commits this particular infraction how do we stop him doing so? If Gordon's worry is correct [and Law 84D, the other general Law has much the same effect as 12A1] then our only recourse, apart from letting him gain from his infraction is Law 90.

[blackshoe]

Well, the size of a PP is certainly left by the laws to TD discretion, but I've said before, say now, and will no doubt say again, the size of a PP should be related to the severity of the offense, and not to "equity" on the hand. Besides, one would have to demonstrate how much the defenders were damaged, and they weren't:

Damage exists when, because of an infraction, an innocent side obtains a table result less favorable than would have been the expectation had the infraction not occurred – but see c1{b} below.

C1[d] has to do with SEWoG actions, and does not apply here. The problem is that the defenders are not innocent, for had there been no LOOT, there would have been no occasion for dummy to open his mouth. So there can have been, strictly speaking, no damage to rectify. OTOH,

Dummy may not call attention to an irregularity during play.

is quite clear, and "may not" is a strong injunction. So a PP is certainly warranted, and would be even if this law used a much weaker injunction, given

Dummy is liable to penalty under Law 90 for any violation of the limitations listed in A1 and A2 above.

Personally, I think dummy's infraction is quite severe (unless there perhaps might be an argument that he was simply trying to prevent an irregularity and got the timing wrong) and so warrants a larger PP than whatever the "standard" is. Perhaps 30% of a board in the EBU, or 60% of a board in the ACBL, where the standard is 25% instead of 10% of a top. And I don't think the TD should be concerned with whether this is more, less, or exactly equal to whatever he thinks "equity" is.

[Cyberyeti]

Personally, I think dummy's infraction is quite severe (unless there perhaps might be an argument that he was simply trying to prevent an irregularity and got the timing wrong) and so warrants a larger PP than whatever the "standard" is. Perhaps 30% of a board in the EBU, or 60% of a board in the ACBL, where the standard is 25% instead of 10% of a top. And I don't think the TD should be concerned with whether this is more, less, or exactly equal to whatever he thinks "equity" is.

More likely unless very experienced, they were dimly aware they could prevent an irregularity but unaware that they could only do this for partner and thought this gave them carte blanche. I would only consider a PP at a pretty high level.

 

Was the comment made as the lead was being made (which would give the above much more of a chance of being true), or once it was faced ?