Generally, people are waiting for court proceedings because blood has been spilled outside the courtroom.

But it was a different scenario this week when a man passed out in the gallery, hitting his head and spilling a pool of blood on the carpet in Judge Ed Servitto’s courtroom.

After he was whisked away by paramedics to Mount Clemens General Hospital, the courtroom shut down the rest of the day due to the bio-hazard. It forced more than 100 people, most of them in attendance for a hearing regarding a local bar’s challenge to the state smoking ban, to jam the third-floor hallway for about an hour.

The silver lining? Circuit Court is down a couple of judges and up a couple of empty courtrooms.

Judicial and court employees made a smooth transition to an empty courtroom where Judge Caretti had previously meted out justice. Caretti a week before had moved next door to the courtroom previously inhabited by former judge Donald Miller, who retired in January.

Meanwhile, a cleaning team was called in to eliminate evidence of the incident by 4 a.m. the next day, in time for Servitto’s courtroom to reopen.