In the First Division of the Court of Session at Edinburgh, on February 23, before the Lord President and Lords Johnston and Skerrington, judgment was given in a case in which one James Watson, billiard room proprietor, claimed from Burroughes & Watts, Ltd., billiard table manufacturers, £1,620 12s., which he had paid towards the rent and price of certain billiard tables, on the ground that such tables were subsequently found to be contrary to specification, and were then rejected by him. He also claimed £50, the amount of premiums of insurance, and £1,500 as compensation for disturbance of business, trouble, and expense. The defence to the action included a plea that the tables supplied were in all points conformable to specification and contract.
In a counter action the defenders claimed £500 as damages for Watson's failure to deliver the tables and accessories.
In the Outer House Lord Guthrie, in the action by Watson, found that the 24 tables were constructed in accordance with the contracts between the parties, and assoilzied the makers. In the counter action the Lord Ordinary found the makers entitled to damages in respect of the defender's failure to implement the contracts, and appointed them to lodge in process a minute detailing the amount they claimed.
The Lord President now said this seemed to be a very clear case, and it had been decided by the Lord Ordinary upon grounds with which he thoroughly agreed. The question was whether these billiard tables could be rejected upon the ground that they did not come up to what were contracted for, which were mahogany tables. The evidence upon that matter showed that until quite lately there was nobody in the billiard table trade who would not have thought that "a mahogany billiard table" was not a perfectly correct trade description of a billiard table of which the legs were solid mahogany, the frame was veneered mahogany, and the under supports were made of any proper and convenient wood such as pine. It was evident that the word "mahogany" as applied to a billiard table must have a trade acceptation, because nobody supposed that a billiard table could be made of mahogany, there being a great many parts of it which must be made of other substances altogether. It seemed to be the fact that within later years the practice of some manufacturers had altered, and instead of supplying to the order of a mahogany billiard table a table made up as his Lordship had described, they had been used to substitute for the veneered mahogany and for the pine supports another wood which, from its resemblance to mahogany, was sometimes called South African mahogany, but that was no more mahogany than pine was mahogany. That practice was not yet universal, and the evidence was to the effect that it was considered by large dealers in Glasgow that a perfectly good implement of an order for a mahogany table was a table made up as he had described. It was therefore impossible to say here that the tables were disconformable to contract Apart from that his Lordship should have thought there was ample ground for disposing of the case because there was not timeous rejection of the tables. If the reclaimer made such a point of having solid mahogany tables he should have examined them at the moment they were supplied. It was the duty of a buyer of goods to inspect the goods at once and say they were disconformable to contract if he proposed to take up that position.
Lords Johnston and Skerrington concurred.