Actor Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation is suing the maker of a supposedly glass-infused wood that the nonprofit group used to build decks and stairs at dozens of homes in the Hurricane Katrina-ravaged Lower 9th Ward. The group says the innovative product began rotting prematurely despite a 40-year guarantee.
The 12-page lawsuit, filed Monday in Orleans Parish Civil District Court, alleges that South Carolina-based Timber Treatment Technologies LLC intentionally sold a defective product. The lawsuit calls the episode “an egregious example of a manufacturer’s repeated misrepresentations, breaches of warranty and knowing deceptions.”
Make It Right used the glass-infused wood, called TimberSIL, from 2008 to 2010. By 2013, the nonprofit was “being notified by residents that the decks and other exterior elements in almost all of the homes in which TimberSIL wood had been utilized were exhibiting signs of rot and decay” and taking on a dark gray tinge, according to the lawsuit.
Timber Treatment founder and CEO Karen Slimak did not return a message seeking comment Monday.
Pitt’s foundation has built 104 energy-efficient homes in the Lower 9th Ward, according to the lawsuit.
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