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An online state court hearing had some unexpected visitors on Monday.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ethan Schulman reportedly had to boot several disruptive participants from his law and motions Zoom hearing with dozens of attorneys. One lawyer described an incident that he witnessed as sounding like someone simply forgot to mute during the videoconference, while another attorney said the participants blasted music with expletives and danced.

The incident comes one week after a hacker presented pornographic images in a Florida court's  Zoom hearing. During the coronavirus pandemic, Zoom Video Communications Inc. has come under fire for its privacy protocols as users flocked to the platform.

Attorney Alison Cordova says she was interrupted Monday while presenting arguments during Schulman's hearing, which often spans several hours. She was litigating a personal injury case against the city and county of San Francisco over a man who was shot and killed with a gun stolen from a police car.

Cordova's firm, Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy in Burlingame, California, is co-leading a privacy class action against Zoom in the Northern District of California. The case involves allegations that the videoconferencing platform did not do enough to protect users from so-called Zoombombers.

She said the ordeal was frustrating. "We have professional, important things to get done," she said. "The public wants access to these hearings, and they should have it, but it shouldn't be abused."

During the hearing, Marc Randazza, of Randazza Legal Group, argued on behalf of 100 of Patreon Inc.'s third party users who are seeking mass arbitration against the company.

Randazza said that it sounded like a participant didn't shut off the microphone a couple times, and Schulman kicked the person out of the hearing. "It didn't seem to be mischief," he said.

Ken Garcia, the court's communications director, said that the hearing wasn't so much hacked "as it was people joining the video conference who had no reason to be there." Garcia did confirm that the incident involved the use of expletives. The court's IT staff is looking to see how the situation can be avoided in the future, he said.

Cordova said it appeared that Schulman didn't have an administrator helping him lead the technical aspects of the videoconference. But she said the judge remained calm and collected and repeatedly removed the offenders from the meeting. "Poor Judge Schulman was handling everything—that's a lot to put on a judge," she said.

The Zoom call-in info and password is listed on the court's website, which is one way the public could enter the meeting.