KEY POINTS:
A family tragedy that began with the routine disconnection of a domestic power supply will reach a conclusion in a few weeks, when Coroner Gordon Matenga delivers his findings into the death of Folole Muliaga.
But for the past fortnight, the circumstances of Mrs Muliaga's final weeks
have been aired in a stuffy courtroom at the top of a rickety lift ride to the eighth floor of the Auckland District Court.
For nine days, Mrs Muliaga's widower, Lopaavea Muliaga, sat in a jacket and tie, listening through a translator as men who wear jackets and ties every day as part of their jobs argued the finer points of his wife's death.
Mr Muliaga, a South Auckland kitchen hand, who came to New Zealand from Samoa with his wife and their three children in 2000, sat as details of his wife's condition were read to the court with clinical detachment.
Mr Muliaga's two sons were present through much of the hearings, as well. They could be seen during court recesses sitting at the end of the building speaking to each other in Samoan.
They, too, heard the details of their mother's illness, evidence that included the revelation that Middlemore Hospital would not have resuscitated her had she had a heart attack while in its care.
"There's no one thing where you could say 'This is why she died'," pathologist Timothy Kolmar told the court early in the hearing.
Mrs Muliaga died on May 29 last year, about three hours after a contractor employed by Mercury Energy sub-contractor Vircom cut power to the family's Mangere Bridge, Manukau City, home. They owed $168.40.
Disconnections were clearly an everyday task - evidence was given that Vircom in May last year was cutting the power to about 100 customers a day. About 30 of those disconnections were because of unpaid bills.
They were certainly all in a day's work for the contractor who cut the power to Mrs Muliaga.
Perhaps because of court officials realised the reception he might receive, Mr A was kept out the back until he was required, and was guarded by a court security officer while he was in the box.
A court security officer sat little more than a metre away as Mr A gave his evidence.
Muliaga family lawyer Moira McNab was determined to test Mr A's knowledge of nasal "prongs" as he had seen Mrs Muliaga had been wearing them when he arrived at the house.
Ms McNab seemed sure he would have seen them on television, and would associate them with sickness.
But Mr A acknowledged he had seen them used in one TV show - in which people were seen wearing them while being stretchered away from a mine disaster - he appeared not to have appreciated their function.
"I just watch them as normal television. I would not have a perception of why they were wearing them."
Most cross-examination was marked by tension between Ms McNab and her colleague Olinda Woodroffe, and lawyers for Mercury Energy, Vircom, and the Counties-Manukau District Health Board.
While the two woman often appeared to get bogged down in circuitous cross-examination, lawyers for the companies elevated their objections to the level of a cardio workout, jumping to their feet on numerous occasions.
In the end, a hearing that began with tears ended with them. If anyone had forgotten why they were there, Thursday was the first anniversary of Mrs Muliaga's death.
In a minute's silence, an assortment of lawyers, reporters, family and spectators listened as the Rev Lagaua Talagi, a family friend, said a quiet prayer for Mrs Muliaga.
He urged those present to remember her life "with gratitude", and asking for her family to be blessed.
All eyes fell upon Mr Muliaga.
He sat in the front row, flanked by his sons, quietly crying and dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief.
Before the stage was handed back to the lawyers the court stopped for a minute's silence before closing submissions began.
FOLOLE MULIAGA'S HEALTH PROBLEMS:
* Morbid obesity
* An enlarged heart; at 800g twice as heavy as that of a healthy person
* A body mass index of 65. A BMI of 30 is considered obese.
* Liver congestion caused by blood pooling beneath her heart.
* Heart arrythmia
* Sleep apnoea
