Royal Opera House made to face the music 

When is ‘loud’ too loud, and if you are part of the problem, is there recourse for your injury? 

Violist, Chris Goldscheider, has succeeded in a landmark UK High Court case against the Royal Opera House Convent Garden Foundation. This case marks the first time 'acoustic shock' has been recognised as a compensable condition in the UK and the first time the High Court has explored the music industry's legal obligations towards the hearing of musicians. 

In 2012 the plaintiff was a violist in the orchestra pit during a rehearsal of Richard Wagner's opera Die Walküre (The Valkyrie) at the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden.  During the rehearsal, the plaintiff was sitting directly in front of the 18-piece brass section when the noise level reached around 137 decibels causing irreversible damage to the plaintiff's hearing.  (the average human pain threshold is reached at 110 decibels) 

Damages were claimed for  acoustic shock with symptoms including tinnitus, hypersensitivity to noise, headaches and dizziness. The plaintiff spent 18 months recovering from his injury and eventually left the Royal Opera House in July 2014 as a result of the injuries. 

The defendant claimed that the plaintiff had coincidentally developed  Ménière's disease, a natural hearing condition that can also cause dizziness, at exactly the same time as the loud burst of noise that the plaintiff claimed caused his acoustic shock. 

The plaintiff, like many musicians, did not wear earplugs through the entire rehearsal but rather, put them in when he considered noise levels were high. The defendant argued it could not reasonably require musicians to wear ear protection at all times as a factory would because "the noise produced by the professional orchestra is not a by-product of its activities, it is the product." 

The Hon. Mrs Justice Nicola Davies DBE. Handed down her judgement in March 2018 in favour of the plaintiff on the issues of breach of duty and causation of injury. She considered that the defendant's argument in relation to the plaintiff coincidentally developing Ménière's disease was "stretching the concept of coincidence too far". 

The judge held that the defendant was in breach of a number of provision of The Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005.  

She found a clear factual and causal link between the identified breaches of the Regulations and the high level of noise which ensued at the rehearsal causing the plaintiff's injury. 

The breaches included an inadequate risk assessment and failure to undertake monitoring of noise levels in the cramped orchestra pit. 

The defendant argued that a balance had to be struck between preserving the artistic integrity of music while doing everything possible to reduce the risk of damage to musicians' hearing, that was an inevitable feature of playing long-term in an orchestra. 

Christopher Goldsheider v The Royal Opera House Covent Garden Foundation [2018] EWHC 687 (QB)