myfriend,
I think it would be very strange if Judge Millian and the producers of the show did not have the plaintiffs and defendants appearing on the show sign some sort of waiver authorizing the judge to investigate their claims. (If anyone familiar with how the show works could comment on that, I’d appreciate it.)
This question is for those who are familiar with the show: does Judge Millian see the case for the first time while the show is televised? I would think that she’d want to review the evidence before. And if that’s the case, she may have already examined the wig and noticed the discrepancy between the receipt and the damaged wig. She may even have called Georgie to do some preliminary investigation before the show was televised.
I agree with Judge Millian that it’s surprising that the couple did not bring in documentation attesting to their claim that three experts had examined the wig and declared it unsalvageable. If the documentation had included testimony to the quality and value of the orginal wig (which an expert would have recognized even in its damaged state) then perhaps the embarrassment could have been avoided.