A question of liability/whose at fault?

[Richard Brekne]

Your story is an all to common one really. Tho I aggree that you probably should
have considered the possibility of marring the floor, I would like to point out
that any time we do any in house repairs that involve moving the piano around we
put ourselves at risk. Even moving the piano a few inches away from the wall to
be able to open it for tuning can in some cases be risky in this sense. Given
the wrong kinda customer at the wrong time this can spell trouble.

Its one of several reasons I almost never do this type of repair. You never know
about folks who want major problems "fixed" "cheaply". I run into this kinda job
and I see warning flags all over the place... grin. True you can improve a bad
situation, sometime significantly.. but all in all... nah... it just aint worth
it, and it aint interesting enough, and heck.. if I want to help folks in need
out there are plenty of better ways to do it then plasking their nearly wrecked
piano back together.

In any case... not to underestimate the need to be very carefull in another
persons house... with another persons property. Especially in the land of
Lawsuits.

my view.. grin


>
>
> At 10:01 AM 03/25/2000 -0500, you wrote:
> >In a message dated 3/25/00 7:21:21 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> >bases-loaded@juno.com writes:
> >
> ><<
> > My question is this:  to what degree am I liable if it was caused by
> > their piano and their casters, and all I did was roll it out from the
> > wall.  She claims it is not a marring of the finish, but a denting of the
> > wood that the husband is unhappy about.
> >  >>
> >Hi:
> >It seems to me that you are  entirely liable for any damage-however slight
> it
> >may appear to you.  Looking ahead to  this kind of possible "damage" the
> next
> >time you do this kind of work is the lesson to be learned here.
> >
> >Sorry- just my spin on this.
> >
> >Bob Bergantino, RPT
> >Cleveland, Ohio
> >
> Jon Page,   piano technician
> Harwich Port, Cape Cod, Mass.
> mailto:jonpage@mediaone.net
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

--
Richard Brekne
Associate PTG, N.P.T.F.
Bergen, Norway