Two musicians in a discordant string quartet were ordered by a bankruptcy judge to surrender their prized instruments to pay a judgment won by a violinist who was kicked out of the group.
The prized cello and violin will be sold to help pay a US$611,000 judgment the Audubon Quartet owes to David Ehrlich.
Ehrlich, the ensemble's former first violinist, successfully sued his former colleagues after his ejection in 2000.
Howard Beck, an attorney for cellist Clyde "Tom" Shaw and violinist Doris Lederer, asked US Bankruptcy Judge Ross Krumm on Tuesday to allow his clients to keep their instruments under a "tools of the trade" exemption.
The exemption, however, is capped at US$10,000, and the instruments are worth more than US$166,000. The judge denied the request.
The judge granted approval to the bankruptcy trustee to issue an order to seize the instruments and other property belonging to Shaw and Lederer, who are married.
"I can't even imagine turning it over," Lederer said on Tuesday as she stood crying outside the courtroom.
The legal skirmish between Ehrlich and the quartet's other three members has persisted more than four years.
Shaw, Lederer and Akemi Takayama have all been in some form of bankruptcy since Ehrlich won the judgment against them in 2001.
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