Missing card
In a team of four match, team A played in a contract - say it was four spades - which was made. in the replay the hand was passed out. Later a card, the ace of spades, was found on the floor at the first table. This, of course, is the reason for the pass out; a player in team B observed that he did not have an opening bid and omitted to count his cards. No doubt a procedural penalty could be incurred by team B but does the board count in the match so that team A get their apparently good result from +420 at one table and 0 at the other? It doesn't seem to be specifically covered by Law 14. Does Law 1 apply, in that the pack was defective as it contained only 51 cards, so the result should be cancelled? As it happens it didn't affect the result of the match.
Comments
Law 14 does not explicitly cover the situation where there is a missing card and the hand is passed out, but by analogy with Law 14A3 the auction stands, so the hand has been passed out at the second table.
Both sides are offending, because the player who held the !s A at table 1 did not replace it in the board, and because the player in the same position at the other table did not count his cards. There cannot be an adjusted score under Law 12A1 because there is no non-offending contestant.
Law 12A2 permits an artificial adjusted score when no rectification can be made that will permit normal play of the board. I would use this to cancel the board and award both sides 50%, so no swing.
I would demur slightly - if the 4 Spade contract was a very good result that might not have been reached at the other table then you have to make some allowances (Law 86D)
Law 14B deals with deficient hands in some circumstances
B. Hand Found Deficient Afterwards
When one or more hand(s) is/are found to contain fewer than 13 cards, with no hand having more than 13, at any time after the opening lead is faced (until the end of the Correction Period), the Director makes a search for
any missing card, and:
What is interesting is the qualification "at any time after the opening lead is faced" - due to a peculiarity, no opening lead was faced.
So we look at 14A3
If no calls can be altered then the auction ends - so no adjustment.
... - so no adjustment.
My conclusion as to the operation of Law 14 was the same as yours, but I don't see why the infraction of not passing on 13 cards cannot be dealt with under Law 12A.
As to Law 86B [not D], the implication from the OP seemed to be that 4 !s was a normal contract. If not, the WB commentary on Law 86B refers to "when no result can be obtained at the other table". This is not the case here - a result (passed out) was obtained (and confirmed via the application of Law 14), so I don't think Law 86B applies.
I suppose that if adjusting under Law 12A2, you could give the side that made 4 !s more than 50% to reflect that they had a good result before any infraction occurred, but that is a bit Denningesque*, as the norm when issuing an artificial adjusted score is to concentrate on responsibility for the problem, which seems to me to be roughly equal.
*For the non-lawyers, the late, great Lord (Tom) Denning, Master of the Rolls for a very long time between the 1960s and the 80s, was notorious for occasionally working backwards from perceived equity, and finding sometimes contrived legal justifications for the result so ruled.
Didn't Edgar do the same?
There is a story that Lord Denning received a letter from an Undergraduate.
"Dear Lord Denning,
I am about to take my finals in the next three weeks. I would appreciate it if you did not change the law during this period"
While you might argue that both sides were at fault when the business of counting cards came in the WBFLC was asked why the recipient was obliged to count his cards but the sender was not. The WBFLC said that the responsibility for having 13 cards was now firmly with the recipient only. So I would let the result stand.
One could infer an implied responsibility on the part of the player who puts the wrong number of cards in the pocket from Law 7 C which says:
'After play has finished , each player should shuffle his original THIRTEEN (capitals mine) cards, after which he restores them to the pocket corresponding to his compass position.'
The player is required to put thirteen cards back in the pocket.
A legal auction has taken place on the second table, so the result should stand. The fact that one player held 12 cards in in hand on the thirteenth on the floor is his problem.
There should be a procedural penalty for both the sender (for failing to put 13 cards back in the board) and the receiver (for failing to count his cards). But the normal procedural penalty for the first offence is just a verbal warning.