wording???

[Farrell]

When in the environmental industry I authored many proposals and reports and worked with many attorneys to dance around the blame issue. My suggestion would be to be careful to say nothing about when the damage may have occurred at all. The owner asked you for an estimate to refinish, rebuild or whatever. Give them a proposal to refinish rebuild, or whatever. Don't give them a proposal to fix storage damage, but rather to make the piano like new again. Let the owner carry the burden of identifying when the damage may have occurred. You weren't there. Not your problem.

Terry Farrell
  
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <JIMRPT@AOL.COM>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 2:32 PM
Subject: wording???


> et al;
>  the collective wisdom is desired here for just a moment if y'all please....
> 
>  I have a quote to give and for the most part it is a straight forward 
> rebuilding quote....butttt there is some case discoloration and minor 
> damage...........
> 
> This is the problem. Piano is an S&S model 'M' Walnut. The case discoloration 
> spots/patches, to the best of my opinion, is just absolutely typical of S&S 
> stuff. The finish is not harmed in any way...no water staining, signs of 
> chemical contamination/surface damage etc..............The thingee is only 22 
> years old and except for normal bumps/scratches the finish is in relatively 
> good shape. .........The owner swears that 'all' the damage happened while 
> the piano was in storage for two years...I heartily disagree on numerous 
> accounts..........The owner wants to make this an insurance claim as far as 
> the damage/finish stuff goes...........I am uncomfortable with having any 
> insurance company think that I concur in this opinion. Other finishers in 
> town have also told him that the damage he is complaining about could not 
> have happened in storage for the most part.....................I want to 
> include a statement in my quote so that this owner can 'not' tell the 
> insurance company that I said the damage happened while the piano was being 
> stored......The wording I am thinking of using is:
> 
> "e. By agreeing to do this work I am make no judgements as to the cause of 
> any case damage or discoloration and may not be represented as having done 
> so."
> 
> Whacha think?
> Jim Bryant (FL)