Landmark Legal Ruling Reverses Bad Luck For Violinist

by Judith Weizner

A violinist who developed tendonitis from playing the violin was awarded forty million dollars today in the last of several judgments that have broadened responsibility in negligence, malpractice and liability cases to an unprecedented degree. With her victory in this suit Carla Vindicaro, a thirty‑year‑old violinist, has also reversed the crushing run of bad luck that has plagued her family for the past twenty‑four years.

The Vindicaro family's ill fortunes began with the loss of the family business, a successful notions store, twenty‑four years ago when August Vindicaro, Carla's father, was sued by the widow of a man who had died of lung cancer brought on by cigarette smoking. In a trial remarkable at the time, the widow won a judgment against the National Tobacco Company. She then turned her attention to those outlets where her husband had purchased his cigarettes. The Supreme Court decided that the chain of responsibility should include the sellers of the cigarettes and August Vindicaro became liable for seven hundred thousand dollars in damages.  

After several years of hard work, Mr. Vindicaro was able to make a downpayment on the liquor store and once more, the Vindicaro family prospered. Carla had begun studying the violin several years before and spent her afternoons in the back of the store practicing. The sound of her playing drew people into the store and soon Vindicaro expanded his business to include a small cocktail lounge. But hard luck struck again when a six‑year‑old boy was killed by a drunk driver who had left a party only three hours before.

Despite sworn testimony from the party's host and several witnesses that the driver had drunk only plain orange juice, the host was charged with vehicular homicide in the child's death because the liquor served at the party had been purchased at Vindicaro Liquors. The boy's mother sued Vindicaro for three million dollars and was awarded one million. Once more, unable to pay, Vindicaro declared bankruptcy and the family moved into a shed behind a service station where they lived rent‑free in exchange for taking care of the owner's pit bull.

Mr. Vindicaro worked in the garage pumping gas and eventually learned to repair cars. By this time, Carla had become quite advanced on the violin and had begun playing at weddings to supplement the family's meager income. After school she practiced in the garage's waiting room much to the enjoyment of the people whose cars were being repaired. Soon the garage had more business that it could handle and the owner established another garage in the next town, making Mr. Vindicaro its manager. The family prospered once again and in a few years the Vindicaros moved to a small house on a quiet street near the new garage.

Carla began to study at the Julliard School of Music, returning home after classes each day to practice in the waiting room of the garage. She also continued to take jobs on the week‑ends, because by now the family did not take its prosperity for granted.

This was, as it turned out, a wise precaution. When a man stole the car of a young woman who had just bought gas at Vindicaro's service station and ran over the foot of a traffic cop, crushing his instep, the cop, five weeks away from retirement, sued the man, the young woman, the Dodge motor company, Westmont Dodge, and, of course, Vindicaro.

This time, Vindicaro's damages were only half a million dollars, exactly the value of his house and business. Now Carla got a job playing in the pit of a Broadway musical. In the daytime, she continued her studies and tried to fit in as many extra jobs as she could while her father looked for work.

Unable to pay, he declared bankruptcy and the family was forced to move into a two‑room apartment over a liquor store where he found work as a stock boy.

Carla was now playing the violin twelve hours a day and one morning upon awakening she discovered that she was unable to straighten either arm or raise her left cheek from her left shoulder. After consulting a lawyer, she filed suit against her violin teacher, Ernzo Kreutzer, the Julliard School, the dealer from whom she had purchased the violin and its maker.

The resulting cases, decided over a period of four years, have broken new ground in the area of liability.

In her suit against her teacher, the court held that although traditionally violinists use the right hand for the bow and the left for fingering the strings, Kreutzer should have foreseen the possibility of injury to a player who works twelve hours a day and should have encouraged Carla to become, in effect, a switch hitter. This lack of imagination cost Kreutzer two million dollars, although he testified that he had often advised Carla not to work so hard.

The Julliard School, as Kreutzer's employer, was held responsible for an additional million dollars. Further, the court directed that OSHA be alerted to the possibility of widespread violations at the institution.

The court also found that Johannes Deutsch, the dealer from whom Ms. Vindicaro purchased the Gagliano, had been negligent to the tune of three million dollars because the violin had not carried the required warning label.

But today's stunning decision is being acclaimed by consumer advocates as truly seminal. In her suit against the violin maker, Nicholas Gagliano, Ms. Vindicaro's lawyers faced a serious challenge since Mr. Gagliano died sometime before eighteen hundred. In Vindicaro v. Nicholas Gagliano, Mr. Gagliano's heirs, owners of the Great Grapes winery in California, have been directed to pay the judgment against their forebear. "Nicholas Gagliano should have been able to anticipate that his product, when used for its intended purpose and held in its intended position, could cause undue strain in susceptible people. Further, the court holds that the death of the defendant is no bar to recovery. The Gagliano family is directed to pay Ms. Vindicaro forty million dollars."

When asked about this abrupt reversal of the family's fortunes yesterday, Ms. Vindicaro said, "I have always believed in the principle that whatever goes around comes around."