Musicians Win Small-Claims Case : Litigation: O.C.’s Mozart Camerata chamber group will appeal the ruling, which stemmed from a breach-of-contract dispute.

A small-claims court judge has awarded three local musicians more than $1,000 each in their breach-of-contract cases against the Mozart Camerata chamber orchestra, court records show.

The Camerata immediately appealed the decision, a move that prevents the musicians from collecting the money until the case is heard in Orange County Superior Court, Camerata attorney and board member Harvey Berman said Monday.

Frank Amoss, president of Orange County Musicians Assn., Local 7, the union that represents the three players, said Monday: “We followed the procedure that they indicated would be satisfactory to them, and now they still refuse to abide by that decision.”

Violinist Tanya Bovaird and violists Dmitri Bovaird and Miriam Meyer claimed they were barred from a Camerata rehearsal in February, maintaining that they had oral contacts to play with the chamber orchestra for the whole season. The Bovairds and Meyer did not perform for the orchestra’s remaining three pairs of concerts. Camerata music director Ami Porat argued that the musicians had no such contracts, but he agreed to seek third-party arbitration.

The orchestra and the union agreed to let the matter be decided in small-claims court, which awarded the players $1,118 each, the amount they would have received for rehearsals and performances, plus the costs of filing their cases.

Berman said Monday that the orchestra filed an appeal because “you are not permitted to be represented by counsel in small-claims court” and because the trial judge “doesn’t say what the basis of his opinion is . . . .

“There is great informality” in small-claims court, Berman said. “Some judges do (state their opinions), some don’t.”