Marital Dischord: A Divorcing Couple Plays a New Tune

VENTURA — A cardiologist locked out of the house in a divorce battle is seeking visitation rights to his two pianos, according to Marvin Mitchelson, the Los Angeles divorce lawyer.

“It would break his heart not to be able to practice,” Mitchelson said of his client, Dr. Newton J. Friedman.

The lawyer said Friday he filed the request in the divorce proceedings of Friedman and his wife, Carol, in Ventura County Superior Court. A hearing on the request is set for Thursday.

“When he first moved out, she said she would let him practice, but then she changed her mind,” Mitchelson said. The couple has no children.

Carol Friedman’s lawyer, Hannah-Beth Jackson of Ventura, did not return a telephone call to her office Friday.

Mitchelson said Friedman is a serious musician and a concert pianist who has played with the Salt Lake City Symphony Orchestra. He has two pianos, a Steinway and a Bosendorfer, and is seeking to gain custody of both because he uses them to play duets with another pianist.

He said Carol Friedman plays the piano, but not as seriously as her husband.

Mitchelson said that because community property--such as the pianos--is usually not divided until the end of a divorce, he is seeking visitation rights for his client for four hours twice a week.

“Among the 4,000 cases I’ve handled, this is one of the most unusual I’ve ever had,” said Mitchelson, noted for representing non-married partners in celebrated “palimony” cases.

“Oftentimes when I’ve gone in, there have been fights over dogs and cats, and there’s a case I can recall where there was a fight over a snake, a python. My client was in the zoo-keeping business.”