A real estate developer who was six hours late for a court hearing because he was being treated for contagious pneumonia — and was told by a doctor to avoid contact with others — was sent to jail Friday by an Oakland County judge who held the man in contempt for being late to court.

The real estate developer, Howard Baum, vomited twice in the courtroom of Oakland Circuit Judge Leo Bowman after spending part of the day at an urgent care clinic, his lawyer Arthur Weiss said.

Now, Weiss and Baum's other lawyers want Bowman off the case. Baum's legal team filed a motion Tuesday requesting that Bowman recuse himself from further involvement in Baum’s legal problems, which involve disagreements over a loan that Baum extended to relatives. Weiss said he was shocked when Bowman jailed his client.

Weiss said that with state and county health officials prescribing special precautions to arrest the the spread of the coronavirus and influenza, Bowman should have accepted evidence that Baum was seriously ill, instead of sending him to the Oakland County Jail “and exposing 1,000 inmates and staff” to pneumonia germs.

Baum was released early Tuesday after completing his five-day sentence. and "he's feeling better" after taking antibiotics in jail, his lawyer said.

Bowman did not respond to a message requesting comment, left Tuesday with his staff attorney. Judges typically don't comment on specific cases. The judge's written order sending Baum to jail, which Weiss said the judge read as Baum “was throwing up into a wastebasket under the counsel table,” makes no mention of the man’s illness. It says: "This Court finds that it is appropriate to find Howard Baum in criminal contempt … for his failure to appear as duly noticed and ordered."

Lawyers routinely tell judges that their clients are unable to appear because of illness, and the courts generally allow the rescheduling of a hearing if someone’s illness is serious. Sometimes a judge will decline to postpone a hearing if an individual has a history of being late or failing to appear, according to a circuit judge in another county, who asked not to be named.

Baum had appeared on time in previous hearings going back to 2015, when his case began, and he had no criminal record of any kind, Weiss said. He said Baum sent him an email reporting that he had a temperature of 103 degrees and felt too ill to go to court at 4:15 a.m. Friday, more than four hours before his scheduled hearing before Bowman.

“We’re not talking about acne or an ingrown toenail. We’re talking about a man in his 60s who has pneumonia and is contagious. It’s not an affront to the court” if an individual is seriously ill and thus unable to appear, Weiss said. But Weiss said Bowman seemed unmoved by the attorneys’ disclosure of Baum’s illness when court convened at 9 a.m. Friday morning.

“I tell the judge he’s been battling flu-like symptoms for months. He lost his mother in early January. I’m concerned. Let’s face it, what do we hear all the time? If you’re older and your immune system is compromised, you’re at a real risk, whether it’s COVID-19 or the regular flu. So, I’m concerned about my client’s well-being,” he said.

“We explain it to judge, and the judge gets a little indignant,” Weiss said. In an affidavit that Weiss’s co-counsel on the case, Jerome Frank, filed with the court, Frank recounted what occurred Friday in Bowman’s courtroom, including hearing the judge ask him, “Are you a doctor?”

Bowman first said he would issue a bench warrant for Baum's arrest if Baum hadn't appeared by 11 a.m., then agreed to extend the deadline to 3 p.m.

After lunch, Baum's lawyers received an email from Lake Urgent Care in West Bloomfield informing them that their client had been diagnosed with pneumonia from "an unspecified organism."

"He’s got a cough, he is contagious, and he is to go home and not see anyone for five days," Weiss recalled. "My colleague gets on the phone with the judge’s clerk, who says the judge doesn’t care about urgent care, he wants Howard here at 3 p.m.”

In an affidavit. Weiss said his client arrived in Bowman's courtroom at 3:04 p.m., a few minutes after the deadline the judge had set.

“Now, mind you, Howard is contagious, and you’ve got a courthouse full of people,” Weiss said.

"Howard is literally under the defense counsel table, throwing up into a waste basket — couple of times."

Even so, Weiss and his co-counsel Frank said, Bowman was undeterred. At 3:30, Frank said in an affidavit, the judge took the bench and read an order dispatching Baum to the Oakland County Jail for failing to appear on time.

By 6:30 p.m., Weiss was able to get inside the jail to visit his client. Baum had been taken to the jail's clinic and had on surgical mask, but he had yet to receive any of the antibiotic that he'd been prescribed that day, said Weiss, who requested that jail guards obtain the medicine immediately.

Baum "looked flush and feverish, unsteady on his feet" and seemed confused, the lawyer said. Weiss said he visited his client every day until Baum was released.

Baum’s attorneys provided the Free Press with copies of the medical report from Lake Urgent Care, which says Baum was diagnosed with “pneumonia, unspecified organism” and was “advised to avoid contact with others until completion of his antibiotic course (five days).” The report concludes, “He is at risk for spreading his illness.”

Baum’s legal case involves several years of hearings involving a loan “in excess of $1 million” that Baum lent to his brother and sister-in-law, Weiss said. When the couple divorced, the sister-in-law filed a lawsuit challenging the repayment terms.

Oakland County Circuit Court Administrator Kevin Oeffner said he could not comment on Baum's case. In general, he said, "the judges here are very understanding and would consider the circumstances of each case in determining whether to grant an adjournment.”

Oeffner said that Oakland's judges "give consideration to the health of the parties and the exposure to others, but they also consider other factors such as the inconvenience that an adjournment would be on parties, attorneys, witnesses, jurors, the cost to the taxpayers, and how many times a case has already been delayed.”

Oeffner said he planned to hold a meeting Wednesday with managers at the courthouse about the threat of coronavirus, and about installing safeguards against its spread. The Oakland Circuit Court has about 900 employees and 3,000 visitors coming into the courthouse each day, Oeffner said.

If even one person entered the building who tested positive, that could disrupt court operations, he said.

Bowman was appointed in 2007 by then Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm. Since then, he has been elected three times, most recently in November 2018.

Contact Bill Laitner: blaitner@freepress.com