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Lawsuit: $73,000 Glass Pool Table Not Up to Scratch

By ALAN FARNHAM | Good Morning America – Tue, Sep 25, 2012 10:11 AM EDT

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Lawsuit: $73,000 Glass Pool Table Not Up to Scratch (ABC News)View Photo

Lawsuit: $73,000 Glass Pool Table Not Up to Scratch (ABC News)

The buyer of a futuristic, $73,000 glass pool table claims he's been snookered. In a complaint filed in Orange Country, Calif., superior court, the buyer alleges that the maker, Nottage Design of Australia, neglected to disclose one important fact about the table:

Play on it with anything but specially-coated, custom-made balls, and you scratch the glass.

Brant Martin, a Dallas attorney representing the buyer (identified in the suit only as Desert Beach, an LLC) says his client learned this fact the hard way: He bought a $73,000 custom G-1 glass-top table for home use, played on it with "a standard set of pool balls, the kind that might be found in any pool hall," and discovered to his horror that this left the table "scuffed, scratched, damaged—essentially destroyed."

The suit says shipping materials that accompanied the table included a sealed envelope with an inconspicuous notation saying that the balls shipped by Nottage were specially made for use with the table—but that this amounted to the "hiding" of so material a warning.

The buyer feels an injustice has been done, says Martin. The complaint seeks $219,000 in damages. Nottage, asked for comment by ABC News, did not respond.

Nottage's website describes the table's glass surface as protected by Vitrik, a proprietary coating "which allows the balls to roll silently at a near identical rate to a standard cloth table… It's highly durable, completely non-toxic and is transparent." The site says the custom balls it sells are coated with a special finish "compatible" with Vitrik. "Please only use these balls," it advises.

Martin says this warning was added only after his client ruined his table and complained to the company. Prior to that, his client alleges, Nottage's website left buyers with the impression they could play with standard pool balls.

The suit claims that at the time the buyer researched and negotiated his purchase, Nottage never once mentioned that its tables could only be used with its own specially-coated balls.

Jesse Rothberg, store manager at Blatt Billiards in Greenwich Village in Manhattan, says he is familiar with the G-1 glass table, which he first saw at a trade show in Las Vegas. He's also seen a copy of the lawsuit.

The table, he says, "didn't look very viable" to him. "I shot a couple of balls on it, because it was there for the exhibit. We all had the same reaction: nothing spectacular. I wasn't thrilled with the action or the balls."

Blatt, in business since 1923, sells traditional slate-topped, fabric-covered models. In the pantheon of pricey pool tables, what could $73,000 buy you?

"Something pretty spectacular," says Rothberg—a nice antique. Then again, you could get what's in the store's front window: A one-of-a-kind gothic job in teak. Price: $250,000.

Expensive, true; but you play on it with regular old balls.

huh-huh, you said balls

so a 73k table is damaged, and the guy is asking for 219k in damages. how exactly does that work?

in the courtroom - just ask eulogy

are there people in the US who make a living out of suing? can't be too hard. just buy a couple of glass tables, and you get triple your money back. should keep you going for a while.

Dude sounds like a jackass.

Most likely:
Shipping costs for a gigantic fucking glass table
and
court costs

What a balls-up.

could've used a picture

http://www.toxel.com/wp-content/uplo...ooltable09.jpg
This is cooler though

That glass table is ugly. No one who doesn't suck at pool would buy that novelty item.

I think both tables are pretty coll.

The glass table is pretty dope it's just ... why would someone drop almost eighty grand on a specialized table and cheap out on the ball set? Dude's a jackass

i think yo soy is right, nobody that takes pool seriously and wants a nice table would ever even look twice at something like that. it's a novelty status item, no more, no less.

and i'm glad he scratched it. YEAH! THAT'S WHAT HE GETS!

$77,000 glass table tax deduction

I feel the same way about designer/novelty chess sets.

That table is ridiculous. It belongs in a house where the owner is a pro athlete who came into money far too quickly and decided to use it to fit it out with an arcade, something like that.

thing about novelty chess sets is that they don't play different

Yeah the laws of physics aren't really what make or break a chess board...

They do play differently depending on how random the pieces are. Which is why they tend to sit in boxes collecting dust. It's the same thing; only someone who doesn't play the game buts a novelty set and it's usually mostly for show. I thought this table was supposed to be more or less like an ordinary one, just different looking.

at that price i was actually imagining a table made with some taste in design

i was expecting a table made entirely out of glass.
i hope that picture isn't a picture of the actual table. druuuuuuunik

wat

Have you ever played with one? My MIL gave my husband this ancient Egyptian themed set with cat's heads and the like...the colour differences between the sides were really tiny for the pawns and the bishops looked too much like the knights and it was different to a plain set, to play with. That's what I meant. I play differently with a novelty set because I don't like them.

Some novelty chess sets are just badass.

do you even understand the physics of pool

i have a hand carved reynard the fox chess set my mother gave me

You could play chess with 32 severed penises and it'd make no difference to the game itself, as long as you don't have a strong aversion for severed penises.

right, you may be confused and fuck up more but it's not like the pieces move differently

Just mark them with sharpies so you know what's what.