Roy Page wrote:
My own feeling was that it might not be legal.
My reasoning was that a CFII has received a check out flying instruments
from the right seat.
Whereas, a regular CFI has not been checked out flying on the gages from the
right seat.

The FAA doesn't care what seat you're sitting in. While it is
traditional for instructor check rides to be taken from the right
seat (assuming whatever you brought along for the ride has
side-by-side seating), there's nothing that requires you to sit in any
particular seat while exercising the priveleges of your certificates
and ratings.

On the sensibility issue, I would agree it depends on the mission.
This particular mission was a jaunt in the clouds with a certified pilot in
the left seat who was having problems controlling the aircraft under the
hood.
So the CFI took that pilot into the clouds saying he was PIC but the pilot
in the right seat did all the flying.
The CFI says it was legal, but in my opinion, this is just another case
where this CFI showed poor judgment.

There's nothing you've described so far which would lead me to believe
it was illegal. As for whether it was poor judgement or not, that's
impossible to say without knowing a lot more about the situation (and
even then, I'm sure any group of 10 pilots would have 12 or more
opinions on the subject).

It does sound like you've got an axe to grind, however. Basicly, this
boils down to you saying, "I think this guy showed poor judgment, don't
you agree with me?" Were you the pilot in question?